Ellenbrook United Football Club – President’s Update

Wowser, 4 months has flown by since 17th November when the new Committee Members were voted in.

Huge thanks to all the Committee Members and volunteers who have jumped into action these last four months.

Appreciate everyone has busy lives and may not be able to keep up to date with what has been achieved against the Vision presented by myself for President Nomination. And there has been quite the activity these last 4 months. We promised that we would keep you as members informed so here goes!

Key achievements and progress to date:

1. Engaged Football West and enrolled in the National Club Development Program.

• An important step in enabling us to apply for grants, particularly with Women’s World Cup around the corner.

• Club Administration Audit as part of the NCDP

• We continue to work to remedy the gaps as quickly as we can.

2. Liquor Licensing

• Our audit quickly identified a risk, opportunity and continued point of frustration for our senior players.

• We have engaged a local professional licensing solicitor and our application is in, returned and have a couple of items to address; including Glasswasher and Fencing at a total cost of $4,500. Anyone fancy sponsoring it?

3. Club Financial Audit

• This is still in process as we need independent auditing for at least the last five years.

• We have successfully registered with Connecting Up as a registered Not for Profit. This has enabled us to move for FREE of CHARGE to a modern, working Google Workspace environment meaning that our website is hosted properly and that our emails work

• Thanks for your patience when you never received a reply. It was because the old server based email system was not fit for purpose.

4. Resolving Club Financial Situation

• Paid all outstanding invoices to our key club stakeholders Onside Sports, City of Swan and Football West. We now owe nobody anything!

• Special note:

  • Thanks to Justin Coppin our Treasurer and Caesar Aquino for negotiating a settlement of $70,000 plus return of stock on hand rather than the accumulated Club debt of $85,000 we did owe.

  • Caesar has been nothing but patient and supportive of the club and we thank him for this. Sure we will work with Onside in some form in the future.

• Successfully navigated an Expressions of Interest and Tender process for Club Kit Supplier. Whilst sad that our contract with Onside Sports came to an end we are delighted to have negotiated far more favourable terms and solutions with Macron

  • Lowering costs

  • Full training and match day kit for everyone

  • Full coaches kit

  • New full kits for our Tiny Tekkers and new Skilled Acquisition Program and Saturday Small Sided Competition

  • Launched new low cost pathways and opportunities to play football

  • Removed costs from our operating structure. Sadly this meant our relationship with Pro Football Training had to come to an end, however we remain in contact and who knows what the future looks like for EUFC and PFT. Thanks to Barry at PFT for his understanding during so much change and tough decisions.

• Being creative with payment options

  • Payment Plans launched early in December for registrations

  • Family discounts put in to place to lower the cost for multiple family members

  • Fingers crossed AfterPay will finally be launched next week!

  • FIFO / Regional Worker membership option

• We are on our way to deliver on our vision of delivering lower fees.....with a fair wind and your support at events we will be able to deliver a return of increased fees by season end!

5. Sponsorships

• We are incredibly fortunate to be supported for 2022 by so many quality organisations and local community members. It is a credit to both the organisations and the club members who have facilitated this.

• Special thanks to:

  • Garry Turner for organising Kennards

  • Scott Cook for McDonalds

  • David Mottram at Black Swan Mortgage Services

  • Northside Car Rental

  • Kim Wilson for Implant Dental

  • Phil Holling at Cole

  • Christine Pernet at Centrewest

  • James Burton at James Burton Photography

• As President I am more than happy to contribute financially support and organise sponsors for the club. Thanks to those contacts that have joined us for Season 2022

  • Grill’d Healthy Burgers

  • Chargrill Masters

  • Aspire & Grow

  • Sports in Focus Photography

  • Empowering Abilities Together

6. Building the community

• City of Swan

  • One of our first tasks was to strike up and build a positive and creative relationship with our contacts; John Tozer and Anthony Macri. Thanks chaps for all of your support.

  • We continue to discuss innovative ways to improve the environment. This includes lease negotiation for our own club rooms. Don’t get excited just yet but it is on the plan!

  • Local Schools

    • In collaboration with City of Swan we have offered to host all Interschool Sports Carnivals.

    • No longer do schools have to create make-shift pitches on footy field and we’ll open the canteen and amenities to make their carnival more fun.

  • Club rooms

    • Developing a reputation that we’re open, and doing it safely. Not easy giving the environment we are operating in. Music on, Sports TV on, Tables and Chairs out

  • Upcoming Events

    • We have a major event we are planning for second half of the year.

    • It’s called The Big Blue and we are very excited!

  • Match Day facilities:

    • Referees

      • Introducing Referee feedback mechanic for Player and Parent Code of Conduct

      • Introduced separate Male/Female changing rooms. This was received so well they even sent the Football West Press Officer down!

    • Visiting teams

      • Esky’s donated by Kennards – thanks Kennards!

      • Gazebo for shades and weather protection – thanks Kennards!

      • Dug out shade on their way – yep you guessed it, thanks Kennards!

    • Women’s football

      • We were delighted Football West supported our application to host the NPL Women Night Series.

      • This has provided a great platform for our club and has built many relationships not only within Football West but also local clubs enjoying our hospitality.

      • Huge thanks to everyone who has assisted in bringing these match days to life with special mention to Matt Burnie and Mark Robinson for placing so much positive emphasis on Women’s Football.

      • Recently launched a collaboration between Football West, City of Swan and Ellenbrook United for FREE Women’s Walking Football

      • Literally about to launch

7. Canteen

• A key success of the club and our environment is the Canteen.

• Sadly, Dorothy was unable to continue for personal reasons. We want to publicly recognise Dorothy and her family for the awesome work they did for the club last year and look forward to having them down for a social visit in the coming weeks

• Big thanks to Brendan and Claire Symons - stepping into the fold and building off the great base that Dorothy started last year

8. Website and Technology

• We have successfully redesigned our website. In doing so it has enabled us to:

  • Launch our Blog for all Club Communications, meaning Social Media is for promotion and celebration

  • Automated emails so you receive quick responses to frequently asked questions

  • Launched our App

  • Created private and secure member based groups so that we can better channel information you need, and provide you with means to self-help

  • In partnership with Macron we now have an online shop for Kit, Merchandise and Street Wear so we can Show our Colours

  • All Match Day fixtures with pitch numbers live and updated on our Website

9. Coaching Matters

• A present, visible and positive Technical Coaching Team led by Mark Robinson, Technical Directors Jon Robin, Matt Clarke and NPL TD Michael Yarker.

• Completely redesigned the Metro Training and Grading process to a 4 week open session rather than trial based football

• This was based on Football West approval, preference and substantive evidence that children thrive when they are having fun and not feeling pressured.

• It was also due to the new Committee not receiving grading information completed pre-AGM

• We appreciate the change this represented and thank everyone for their patience and persitence in working through it.

• Introduce a Football West approved Playing Up policy to ensure all players are in their most appropriate grade

10. Team Numbers

• We are delighted with the growth!

• We have more teams registered in 2022 than we have for many years. Adding teams to the U8s, U9s, U10s, U11s, U12s and U13s

• We also have grown our U10s and U12s girls teams meaning we now have to figure out how to get them all to play!

• Rebuilt our First Team and Reserves team with a positive pre-season under their belts

• Have a stellar team in the Women’s with a great crop of younger and new players coming through

11. Volunteers – Coach, Manager and Club Operations

• Simply put, as a club we need your help

• If a team doesn’t have a Coach and a Manager we cannot field the team and will need to de-register.

• We have Coaches ready to mentor, a Coordinator to show what needs to be done for a Team Coordinator. All tools and tricks provided.

  • Team Managers meeting next week. Email executivecoordinator@eufc.org.au if you can help for attendance details

• We require a Reserves Coach and First Team / Reserves Team Manager

So what next?

Have fun and a great start to Season 2022

• Consolidate and finalise our Club Audit

• Utilise our new tools to continue to creatively build our financial model based on prudent planning and sound commercial acumen.

• Grant Applications for Club Development

• Obtain our liquor licence

• Deliver the Big Blue

  • NPL is a major focus of ours.

    • Simply put, for a club of our size, location and facilities the attendance, recruitment and development of our players for the trial process was not good enough. This has led to limited numbers to select from and field teams.

    • We already have plans to overhaul this for Season 2023 which includes the proactive development of our U12 Academy team.

    • The Coaching Team continue to focus on development, progression and promotion of our players.

Anyway, that is enough for now. No doubt I have probably omitted something. If so, not intentional. Simply a lot to cover and we are all human, including me!

It’s been a blast these last four months and looking forward to the year ahead

Yours

Andrew Thomas

President of Ellenbrook United Football Club