President's Report 2009 (September 27, 2009)
Presidents Report 2009
The last twelve months wearing the club president’s hat has been quite a learning curve! The changing of all four major office bearers contributed somewhat to that. Retiring president Rob Leetcher left, having established well constructed and ongoing protocols that made for the best possible transition. The new constitution passed at last year’s AGM was timely with the events that unfolded early in 2009.
I have been most ably assisted by Secretary Salena Kilsby, Treasurer David Gilmour and Vice President Peter Morrow along with returning and new members of the committee. Mary-Ann Helem’s return to the committee has been a bonus with her long association with the club and knowledge of club and association activities and history.
The year has been eventful. Our planned inaugural promotional 4v4 fun day proved disappointing due to the flyers not being ready to distribute to the schools. Confronting this issue resulted in the sabotaging of our website at the worst possible time in our calendar. Committee member Peter Coulson had a new website on line within five days but it was some time before search engines pointed enquirers to the new site. This all flowed on to a very poor registration response but with the distribution of a new flyer and an extension of the close off for registrations, we closed with similar numbers to last season.
Preseason fitness and skills training was well supported and lead in to trials and teams selection. This year grade coordinators took an important role in this process. Placing the right players in each team and the teams in the correct WBOPJFC competition is always a challenge but important to do well as it remains a major source of dissatisfaction to parents and coaches when we get it wrong.
This season saw the JFC divide the 18 weeks of competition into two, allowing teams struggling in their league to move down a division and strong teams to be moved up. This move was in some measure driven by motions this club put to their AGM last year. Unfortunately other initiatives such as 10 team leagues that were to be adopted failed to eventuate and the movement of teams between leagues occurred with little advance warning and created some confusion and animosity. Hopefully the process will be much better next season with the lessons learned this year.
The club completed the process of replacing all the Grade 8 through 12/13 team strip this season. Gears officer Murray Lipinski was already holding new Lotto strip for approximately one third of our teams that had been ordered late last season. Quotes from suppliers resulted in the order of new strip from Lane Walker Ruskin. This was to be their in-house brand, however, problems with receipt of the order from their supplier in Australia resulted in us being offered and accepting the more expensive and up market Adidas strip for the same price. The order arrived the day before LWR went into receivership! All agree that the new Adidas strip looks brilliant and has been worn with pride by those teams issued it.
Our club ran two tournaments this season. The season beginning “Shakedown Tournament” for 8th - 10th Grade teams at Morland Fox was well attended – too well attended as we learned on the day that 10 teams per grade is tops and that we needed more helpers than we had! Nonetheless the tournament received plenty of positive comment and next year will be even better. This year we awarded the trophy normally given to the winning 10th grade team to the winning club overall – won by the Mount Maunganui club. Hopefully Otumoetai will participate in 2010 with the lure of taking home this trophy!
Our 11th grade Vincent Green tournament in early August proved an outstanding success with 19 teams including 9 from Auckland registering. This year the competition split into trophy and plate competitions following pool play and proved very popular allowing teams that would normally play no part in finals able to progress through and win medals and trophies. We were fortunate to have a glorious day and with a large and organised team of volunteers the tournament received high praise and promises to return next year. The standard of football on the day was equally impressive.
The 2009 playing season went well with few issues to manage. Generally players, coaches and parents have enjoyed their competitions. Our premier teams particularly in the younger grades have struggled against the traditionally strong clubs and to an extent against clubs smaller than ours. It is a priority of mine to see our club succeeding across all divisions but particularly Premier / Division 1. Failure to do so will result in the continuing loss of our best players (and coaches) to higher performing teams in other clubs as each season progresses. To achieve this goal I believe as a club we need to:-
· Make our player identification and team selection process more reliable. At the end of this 2009 season every team coach has completed a questionnaire identifying the capability of every player. This will become one part of the 2010 selection process.
· Provide every possible encouragement and support for coaches across all grades and divisions of competition including Federation run coaching qualifications, in house work shops, coaches get togethers, and internationally recognised coaching programs.
· Identify at the earliest opportunity and commence training early preseason of both a 7th and 8th grade premier team with coaches in place prior to the commencement of preseason training. It is hoped the 7th grade premier team will play 8th grade Division 2 in 2010.
Such objectives are not innovative and already in place at some other Tauranga clubs. If we fail to embrace new initiatives we are liable to become a second tier club that continues as a feeder to elite teams located in other clubs.
I wish to extend my genuine appreciation to my fellow committee members and those who have contributed greatly to our club working outside committee and I mention Peter Abbiss and Rob Leetcher in particular.
This year our vice president Peter Morrow leaves us after 8 years involvement in coaching at our club and on committee for the last 4 years. Also Murray Lipinski, our dedicated, hard working and totally organised gears officer leaves us. These are skills our club will greatly miss and we can but look forward to the next generation of parents giving their time, skills and energies to allow our club to continue to prosper.
Garry Ball September 2009.
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