43rd ANNUAL REPORT CONTENTS President’s Report Page 4 Chief Executive’s Report Page 6-7 Resources Report Page 8 Business Assurance Report Page 9 Business Development Report Page 10 Membership Development Report Page 11-12 Centre Liaison Report Page 13-14 Registrations 2012/2013 Page 15-16 Championships/Competition Report Page 17-18 Competition & Volunteers Report Page 19-20 Officials Report Page 21-22 Coaching & Development Report Page 23-31 2 LITTLE ATHLETICS BOARD OF MANAGEMENT President Neil Sandall Championships/Competition Heather Mitchell Business Assurance Russell Briggs Membership/Development Trevor Hinwood Officials Peter Barnes Business Development Michael Gray Resources Greg Dickson STAFF Chief Executive Officer Kerry O’Keefe Executive Assistant Georgie Boost Administration Assistant Trish Bright Centre Liaison Officer Chantelle Grills Competition & Volunteer Coordinator Diane Levy Coaching & Development Officers Darren Wensor Alvin Umadhay Regional Coaching & Development Officers Nick Bromley Scott Wescott Coaching & Development Administrator Cheryl Webb Online & Graphics Coordinator (part time) Amy Harris Finance Coordinator (part time) Greg Skinner MEDICAL OFFICER Professor Marcus Vowels LEGAL ADVISOR John Bateman AUDITOR Moore Stephens Sydney West LANSW OFFICE 90 - 92 Harris Street HARRIS PARK 2150 Ph: 9633 4511 Website: littleathletics.com.au Email: [email protected] 3 PRESIDENT It is a pleasure to provide you with my first President’s report. We can reflect on a very significant year of achievement over the past season. The 2012/13 season has been our most successful in registered competitors ever with a total of 41,557. This represents a 15.6% increase over the previous season and also eclipsed our previous 2004/05 season record. Well done to all those centres who successfully adjusted to managing record numbers at their local centres and were still able to provide effective weekly competitions and skills development with much bigger numbers. This year also saw the full realisation of our new eight region championship structure with four metropolitan and four country regions. We also rolled out our new qualification regime from Region to State Championships which effectively saw up to 24 qualifiers in each event – 16 being automatic qualifiers by virtue of 1st and 2nd placings in each event of the Regional Championships, with a further eight qualifying based on best remaining performances collectively across all eight regions. We also introduced a fully-timed program at the State Championships for the first time and we were largely able to meet published event times throughout all three days so that we finished each day’s competition around the scheduled time. This approach gives families more certainty of when their children are actually competing. My appreciation is extended to all those LANSW and centre officials who helped us successfully demonstrate the merit of the timed program at this year’s State Championships. After a successful postal ballot with more than 87% voting in favour, we also now have a new LANSW Constitution which strengthens our governance arrangements and puts our centres at the forefront of our business model. Again my appreciation is extended to the constitution committee who helped bring about the strong vote in favour of the new constitution. We have also continued to adopt relevant new technologies to assist us to streamline our service delivery, including improved functioning of our major events for the benefit of all involved. Next season promises new challenges – not the least being the significant task of retaining and growing our membership from the record base level achieved this past season. One effective way of realising that goal will be for centres to proactively engage with and encourage our many new starters from last season to come back and give Little Athletics another go in the 2013/14 season. I would also like to extend congratulations to our State Team who again won the overall points score in competition at ALAC’s in Canberra in April. Last season’s home-based Trans Tasman team were also triumphant in the annual Challenge held at Campbelltown in January 2013. Our sport succeeds as a relatively low-cost sport because of the large pool of volunteers who make centre and higher level competitions effectively happen throughout our season. But their efforts are complemented by the generous support of our sponsors who include:- McDonald’s, IGA, The Athlete’s Foot, Hart Sport and Coca Cola Amatil. Their ongoing financial and in-kind support is much valued and appreciated by the LANSW family. Once again we worked closely and successfully with our counterparts in Little Athletics Australia, Athletics NSW and Athletics Australia through a range of joint-venture partnerships to the benefit of the wider athletics community. I am convinced that even more effective collaborations will emerge as we jointly strive to grow athletic participation for the long-term benefit of our sport and its community profile. Unlike the other team-based sports, which generally function with a much more limited volunteer base, LAs relies on a much larger pool of parent helpers/volunteers. This includes the board, its advisory committees, zone coordinators, LANSW officials, as well as centre committees, their coaches and officials. To all, I say well done as without your regular contributions we could not successfully deliver our community-based sports package each season. 4 PRESIDENT It remains for me to simply thank the board and my predecessor, Dereck Fineberg (now President LAA) for their support to me as I stepped in to the President’s role following board endorsement. I would also like to place on record my appreciation to Russell Briggs who willingly accepted the opportunity to fill the casual board vacancy in the Business Assurance portfolio which I had necessarily vacated. In closing, I look forward to working with you all in the 2013/14 season to continue the great family sporting tradition that is Little Athletics, as we celebrate the 50th season of this uniquely Australian developed children/young peoples’ sporting icon. Neil Sandall PRESIDENT 5 CHIEF EXECUTIVE Once again, I am pleased to be able to report on the progress of Little Athletics NSW, in what has been a BIG year! We have had our biggest ever membership; biggest ever entry into the State Championships; biggest number of newly accredited officials; biggest number of centres requesting school visits; biggest level of support via Facebook; biggest number of athletes utilising the online registration system; and biggest number of athletes supported through the Athlete Assistance Scheme. Registrations stand at 41,557, which represents a huge 15.6% increase on the previous year. This sounds great, but if we compare this figure to the numbers that we were consistently achieving a few years ago, it is only an increase of about 4%. Membership growth is an area in which we will collectively have to strive to achieve year after year. What often occurs is that centres fear growing even larger than the numbers they experienced in a ‘bumper’ year and therefore scale back advertising efforts. History tells us however, that this is not the way to go and increased advertising the following year is actually required. It was also pleasing to see an increase in the number of centres promoting the online registration system as the preferred method of registration and subsequently an increase in the number of athletes registering via this means. We had approximately 12,300 athletes register and pay online, which shows an increase of 89% over the past two years. The number of athletes registering online and paying manually also continues to grow and now sits at around 20,000. The growth in members this year is primarily a result of the Olympics and the gold medal performance of former Little Athlete, Sally Pearson. The week that Sally won her medal, remains the week with the biggest reach for the LANSW Facebook page, with the total reach exceeding 8,500 people. This was a perfect advertising tool that fell right at registration time. Also a key factor in our registration increase was the brilliant Little Athletics lift-out in the Daily Telegraph, courtesy of McDonald’s. This eight page lift out in the 6 September edition was exclusively about Little Athletics NSW and contained a mix of editorial, photographs and advertising. Thanks to McDonald’s and to their public relations company PPR, who put the material together and coordinated the coverage with the Daly Telegraph. A further factor assisting with the increase in membership is the reach of the LANSW school visit program. During the months of August and September 2012, a total of 45,000 NSW school students, at 220 schools were contacted via the promotional school visit program. These visits were made by LANSW development staff on behalf of 69 Little Athletics centres. This remains one of our best marketing tools. This year saw the introduction of the new eight region championship structure and revised qualification process to the state championships. As a result of the new structure, a total of 2,600 athletes qualified for the State Championships. This is the largest ever number of athletes ever to qualify for our pinnacle event. It is great to see this opportunity expanded to include more members of our sport. The introduction of the online official’s assessment program in August 2012 has meant a significant increase in the number of officials obtaining accreditation at the D and C grade levels. A total of 1269 C and D grade exams were passed during the 2012/13 season, which represents an increase of 122% on the previous year. The past season again saw a number of financial assistance programs offered to our members. Total funding across these programs was lower than last year at $35,775, due to the lack of submissions for the Centre Grant Scheme.