Cook Islands Sports and National Olympic Committee (CISNOC) is one of the seven Oceania National Olympic Committees (ONOC) attending this week’s Secretary General Quadrennial Workshop in person.

The workshop, a quadrennial meet that kickstarts the beginning of the Olympic programme every four years – is one with a focus on good governance and is being held in Guam.

CISNOC is led by secretary general Owen Lewis and three other members.

Lewis said: “The Secretary General Quadrennial workshop started on Monday. For the first time ONOC invited and funded our Finance, Education and Sports managers. The workshop focuses on setting targets for our operations and sport leading up to Paris 2024. It has been a great chance to learn and hear from all our fellow NOC’s in the region.”

“All 17 NOC’s in Oceania have been participating either virtually or in person. As you are aware, we do receive some funding from the Olympic movement and this workshop has enabled us to understand more fully the expectations and accountability measures that both ONOC and the Olympic Solidarity need.

“It has also been a chance to look at best practice in the region. We were asked to make two presentations about our practice and this was well received by the regional representatives.”

According to the Oceania National Olympic Committees, the purpose of the ONOC Secretaries General Workshop, which is scheduled to conclude on Friday (March 11), is to create approaches on the delivery of sport funding and programmes for all athletes in the Pacific Islands.

In addition, the workshop will be followed by an overnight trip to the Northern Marianas to visit the venues and meet the Organising Committee of the 2022 Pacific Mini Games in Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands and scheduled to begin on June 17.

Lewis said: “We will have the opportunity to visit Saipan tomorrow (today) and view the plans and venues for the upcoming Pacific Mini-Games which is an added bonus. We are certainly looking forward to discussion with the Saipan organising Committee.”

Ricardo Blas, secretary general of the Oceania National Olympic Committees, said: “Despite previously being held at least once every four years, the last ONOC Secretaries-General Workshop was held on Guam in 2017 and since then has been delayed by a year because of the Covid-19 pandemic.”

“My challenge was to work under protocols and whether I would get the acceptable number of close to half of our members to the table in person, and we deliver a hybrid workshop,” Blas said.

“We are behind by two-and-a-half years already and I’m taking into consideration even before the Tokyo Games, NOC's who struggle to make use of the funds available.”

Taking these experiences, Blas said the ONOC team decided to design this Workshop to enable the joint planning of the delivery of the Olympic Solidarity Programme, “so we’ll look at sharing of learnings through NOC case studies to enable exchange”.

“I am confident we will succeed because the key support team in any NOC to support the secretary general in the delivery of programmes will all be here on Guam with other members joining online, and we will work out solutions to improve from our lessons learned.”