This year, the activities of OLL will focus on collaboration, the joy of sports and the federation’s future

Last week, we prepared detailed plans for this year’s activities. The purpose of the days allocated for planning was to remind the people actively engaged in OLL activities of how the items on the action plan are linked to the strategy and what are the goals for the year, as well as start setting the outlines for achieving our goals. While going over the action plan, some views came up repeatedly, and we plan to focus on them over the course of the year.

I think it is important to involve our members in the activities at all levels and to engage in dialogue with them. This year, we will seek to update our diversity policy, define our goals in preparation for the parliamentary election and promote, among other things, the Higher Education on the Move initiative and coordination of the network of sports organisations. To ensure that the federation remains truly representative of students, the voices of members must be heard in all these activities.

We must have a low threshold for member involvement, and remember to take our own resources into account as well those of others. My goal is for OLL to be recognised as a student organisation where getting involved is easy and people feel welcome to join.

We want to spread the joy of student sports and exercise as wide as possible throughout higher education in Finland. The main goal we have chosen is to increase the number of sports tutors and participants in the Higher Education on the Move activities. Teambuilding takes effort. We need to make the activities interesting and spread the message. Last year, new higher education institutions were drawn to the Higher Education on the Move activities, so achieving these goals is entirely realistic. But it requires work.

As we seek to increase the number of participants, we must also think about further increasing the commitment of the new member organisations to the federation. Ideally, we could offer free-of-charge support for sports advocacy in their own higher education institutions, but this is not yet possible. The Membership Committee was established last year, with the goal of discovering a membership model that will help to secure OLL’s activities into the future. A federation cannot exist without members. To stop the constant decline in membership, we must critically consider the future of our operations as a whole.

So there’s plenty for us to do! But even though we have daunting obstacles to overcome this year, student sports advocacy is also fun. Let’s make the year one to remember and advance the work of OLL! By this, I mean both the people at the OLL office and all the members who contribute to our shared future.

Essi Lumme