2012 Annual Review & President's Report

Another fantastic year - I thought last year was big! 1. Finances Refer our Treasurers report for full details. Needless to say extremely successful with profit and assets increasing by approximately $14K for the year. Even after accounting for many items on a net basis our income exceeds $100K per annum.

2. Functions Including our 5 presentation nights we hosted 12 functions throughout the year with three of them having over 300 people attend. This a fantastic sign of the health of our club and the support of our parent members. The functions were:

Family Day - Our 2nd Family & Registration Day was another great success. Around 400 people attended the day with 163 registrations. With on-line registrations we will need to re- think this day as a "registration" day is no longer required.

Meat & Greet Night - 100 people attended, 20 more than last year. A great cheap social night for parents to kick off the year.

Back To Rookies Day - This was a huge success with over 300 people attending the function and many more coming earlier during the day. It reminded us all what a great history we have and is something we should do every 5 years. It was great to see our first President, Norm Huxtable travel down from Qambatook and Brent Reilly come over from Adelaide especially for the day. A huge thank you to Rick Murrihy and Darren Ponton for helping us organise they day and also to Darren and his business Gisborne Car Wash for sponsoring the day.

Last Man Standing - Our major fund raising event of the year broke all records again! We raised $16,000 on the night surpassing last year by $3,000

Appreciation Dinner - We had 101 people attend with only 3 of our 32 sponsors unable to attend. A special thanks to John Van Groningen for again providing drinks for the night and bringing and Shaun Higgins from the .

Vote Count Night - Due to our numbers we brought this back to our clubrooms having previously hosted it at the Victoria Tavern. Continues to be a great night for all those closely involved with our teams.

Grand Final Night - What a celebration!! There must have been 300 people at the rooms after the grand finals and probably another 50 kids on the oval. Who will forget our U16 team singing "What about me" with Shannon Noll.

Presentation Nights - Congratulations to all the coaches and team managers for all the work that goes into these nights, especially the photos / posters and team reports. The Under 16 black tie formal night was again a huge success with 141 people attending Petruzeli's. Congratulations to Jack James for winning this years Club Champion Award.

3. Play For Heart Day This was the 2nd annual Play For Heart Day to commemorate Steve Simpson. This year Macedon hosted the day and it was an outstanding success with $2,522 raised. Macedon done a fantastic job on hosting and running the day, with us having to do very little this year. This is proving to be a great way to kick off each year.

4. Practice Games This year the only age group to play practice games was our U16's who travelled to Bendigo and played Sandhurst and Golden Square. While scores were not kept; after the touch up we gave both teams it is hard to believe Golden Square and Sandhurst played off in their U16 Grand Final.

5. Jumper Presentation Night & Parent Briefings These are difficult to fit in between team selection and the season start. However we should strive to create a time for them as they are an important way to begin the year and more importantly set expectations for our parents and coaches.

6. Coaches Thank you to all our coaches. I firmly believe our club is only as good as our coaches and we are very fortunate to have the quality of coaches we do. This year we welcomed 6 new coaches: Andrew Wilmott, Peter Watson, Scott McKibbon, Jimmy Lewis, Mark Lamplugh and Matt Dean

During the year we also held a coaching seminar facilitated by Dynamic Football Skills with 20 coaches and assistants attending. It was a great day and something we need to continue with. The more resources and assistance we can give our coaches the better.

Congratulations to Damien Keeping for winning the North West Coach of the Year Award and being in the final 4 for the Victorian award.

7. Canteen This year we took on operating the canteen ourselves for the first time for many years. We also operated it for the senior club on Saturdays. A huge thank you to Chris Micalef and Shannon Howard for managing this for us throughout the year. Shannon and her family's dedication to this every weekend has been exceptional. The feedback received has been very positive and so has the financial returns: Senior Sales $23,189 Junior Sales $38,488 Senior Profit $8,205 Junior Profit $11,882

8. RDFL We are a major stakeholder of the RDFL and it is important we maintain a close relationship with them. This year we: • Hosted U14 and U15 Interleague games on the Queens Birthday weekend • Member of Junior Advisory Group which represents all junior clubs, providing recommendations to the RDFL Board. This year we established guidelines for Club gradings and player age group exemptions. • Had 19 players play interleague football with 2 parents as assistant coaches • We had 28 players invited to the RDFL Junior Academy and have 3 coaches assisting

9. Gisborne Football & Netball Club Our relationship with the senior club is improving every year. This year we: • Hosted a Bulldogs Club Lunch • Ran the canteen for the senior home games • Our U10 teams played an exhibition game before the Gisborne v Maryborough game • Our U16 team trained with senior team twice during the year. Thank you to Luke Saunders for taking the boys in, another initiative that needs to continue.

10. Talent Camp Jarrod Clarke from our U14 Div 3 team attended the school holiday program for our club.

11. On The Field This was our 2nd most successful year on the field in our history. (1990 was our best with 4 premierships). If you take overall team success you could argue it was even better than 1990! The numbers speak for themselves: • Record player numbers at 283 • 13 Teams • 9 of 11 teams played in the finals • 6 teams made the grand final • 3 Premiership Teams - U10 Division 3, U10 Division A, U16 Division A

Every team won at least 2 games Our 3 U10 teams lost only one game to another club!! Many of our older age U16 players have now finished their careers with premierships in U10, U12, U14 and now U16!

12. Individual Awards Congratulations to the following players for their individual awards: Flynn Lakey - RDFL U10 Division A Zac Vescovi - RDFL U10 Division C Best and Fairest Kade Sadler - RDFL U12 Division C Best and Fairest Runner Up Ryan Baker - RDFL U14 Division A Best and Fairest Runner Up Ryan Baker - RDFL U14 Division 1 Best Interleague Player Jack James - U16 Vic Metro Team Matthew Goodyear - U16 Vic Metro Team

The following 19 players made selection in the RDFL interleague teams: U12 Liam Spear, Nash Kemp & Sam Graham U13 Jack Scanlon, Sam Richardson, Will Bell U14 Div 1 Jack Reaper, Ryan Baker U14 Div 2 Brock Fitzgerald, Shane Lindsay U15 Div 1 Trent Crosbie, Riley Paterson, Alex Guy and Mitchell Synott U15 Div 2 Jake Conolan U16 James O'Hare, Tom Wood, Matthew Mills, Liam Rodgers

We also had 17 players make training squads: 2011 / 12 Squad: Oliver Clough, Matthew Goodyear, Jack James, Pat McKenna, Ethan Minns

Simon Madden Squad Brody Lamplugh, Liam Rodgers, Isaac Trickey, Pat Trotta

Dick Reynolds Squad Jake Conolan, Riley Paterson, Mitchell Synott, Trent Crosbie

2012 / 13 Barry Davis Squad Riley Paterson

U18 TAC Cup Summer Training Squad (Only Aberfeldie has more representatives) Jack Baker, Oliver Clough, James Ferry, Shannon Greetham, Matthew Goodyear, Pat McKenna, Jack James, Brody Lamplugh, Ethan Minns

2012 TAC Cup Team Jonnathan O'Rourke, James Ferry

13. Past Players I don't think there could be another club in the land that can boast the success of their past players as we can this year. Scott Walsh Won the Bendigo League Mikelson Medal Won Freemantle's Best and Fairest Brent Reilly 6th in Adelaides Best & Fairest, final 40 in All Australian Team Stuart Dew Assistant Coach at AFL Premiers Jonathan O'Rourke Number 2 in AFL National Draft & U18 AFL All Australian

AND Gisborne's senior Grand Final team had 16 Gisborne Rookies playing

14. Sponsors This year we had 32 sponsors and welcomed 3 new major sponsors in Macedon Ranges Health, Gisborne Car Wash and McDonalds. This support of so many local businesses ensures our ongoing financial strength with us not being reliant on any one major sponsor. Congratulations again to Paul Doolan on another great year for sponsorships.

15. Committee We again had a very strong committee and everyone contributed significantly to our great year. I sincerely thank everyone on our committee for not only their work during the year but also their support. Our committee meetings are very vibrant with great discussion and input from everyone.

Shannon Howard - Secretary and Canteen Andrew Reaper - Vice President, Football, appointment of coaches David Williamson - Vice President, Football, appointment of coaches Craig Shore - Vice President Operations Mick O'Gorman - Treasurer John Wood - Football operations Scott Murphy - Ground Manager Sankey, ground marking and opening Gary Richardson - Ground Manager Gardiner, ground marking and opening Paul Doolan - Sponsorhips and events Mick Bird & Andy Parfrey - Events Mandy Dimasi - Registrar Bruce Willaton - Match Day Secretary Debbie Brancatisano - Club Merchandise. Tim Hudson & Mick O'Hare - Equipment Manager Lee-Anne Potter - First Aid Paul Greenwood - Web Site

This year we have a number of committee member's youngest children finishing their junior football and thus will be stepping down from our committee: Mandy Dimasi Mandy has been our registrar for the past three years and has done an outstanding job. Thank you Mandy for your work not only on the committee but also as Team Manager. Lee-Anne Potter First Aid is one of our most critical roles and often the hardest to fill due to a combination of qualifications and also time as we need to cover every home game. Lee-Anne has done a superb job for us. Thank you Lee-Anne. Mick O'Hare Mick (and Helen) managed our equipment for over 10 years before handing over the reigns to Tim this year. Thanks Mick for your support over the years. Andrew Parfrey Through Jacob's time at our club Andy has been a coach, assistant coach, runner and committee person. Well done Andy and thank you for your support and contribution to our club.

16. New Initiatives Our committee agreed to two key initiatives for 2013.

2013 Girls Team. We agreed to nominate a team in the Ballarat Football Leagues girls competition. There is one age group for girls from 13 to 17 and they play with 15 per side. The competition will be split in two divisions with our team playing against Riddells Creek, Sunbury, Melton, Bacchus Marsh and Darly. We now need to actively recruit a co-ordinator and coach.

Club Strategy Document. The process in developing a strategic direction paper has already begun with 18 people attending a workshop in October. This process is being facilitated for us by Brett Anderson South West Area Manager for VCFL. The end result will be a document that sets out what our club stands for, what initiatives we have underway, who is responsible for them and when they will be completed by. It will also document all our club's operational tasks and become a legacy for all our future committee's to follow. The document will also demonstrate the professionalism of our club for all stakeholders to see and be integral in any proposal we put to council, government or the AFL for future ground and facility development.

These initiatives demonstrate how far our club has come. Our success lies in how inclusive we are and these initiatives will build on that further. The numbers attending our games and functions demonstrates how inclusive we are with our parents and families, our on field numbers demonstrate how inclusive we are for our players no matter what their skill level, our Back to Rookies day brought back many past players and parents to our club, and now a girls team will make us even more inclusive.

I believe this inclusivity must always be our goal even though we play in a very competitive sport. One of the highlights of this year for our club was seeing a boy with autism play his first year of football with our U16 team.

This is also another reason why we should never lose our discipline for rotations and player development at every year and grade level. This is tough on our coaches, but a policy we must continue to enforce.

Finally, I would like to thank everyone involved in our great club. When writing such a report as this it makes you extremely proud of the achievements we have made, achievements that would not be possible without the hard work and passion of so many people. To all our committee, coaches, team managers and players, thank you.

As I said at the start Another Fantastic Year!

Colin Rodgers President Gisborne Rookies Junior Football Club Inc