A message from our Club President - Andrew Sutton
August 2011
Welcome to Corroborree (North Canberra) Little Athletics for the 2011-12 season. With the World Athletics Championships commencing later this month and the London 2012 Olympics just around the corner, this season promises to be another strong one for our Club and athletics as a whole.
We are, as a Club, especially proud that one of our former athletes (and who after we have named our Girls Champion Trophy), Lauren Boden, has been selected to compete in the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea. We are so proud of Lauren’s efforts and wish her well at the Championships and as she seeks her place in the 2012 Australian Olympic team. Last year Lauren coached a small group of Corroboree athletes; all benefitted enormously from the sessions.
We look forward to offering this program again. With the new season almost upon us, it is probably the first time ever we can say that all our Committee positions have been filled. I, on behalf of the Club, would like to thank all those who have already stepped up and volunteered to serve on the Committee (Nerys, Chris, Lucy, Desiree and Tony who are returning, and Ingrid, Carol, Ben, Lori, Bernard, David and Selina who are new to the Committee). We also thank our Club coach John Hunt for his ongoing support. John will continue to run training sessions each Monday and Wednesday afternoon from 5.30pm.
We will remain at Merici College Oval this season as the irrigation system upgrade and the Dickson Wetlands are still under construction. We intend to return to Dickson the following season and will see some new facilities including new throwing circles and a throwing cage.
Following the success of the revised On-Track program last year, the Committee has decided to retain the program through to and including the Under 9s. This will continue to bring a greater level of skills development, as well as enjoyment to those children.
Whilst, we are delighted to see many athletes and their parents returning, I, on behalf of the Committee, would like to offer a big welcome to our new athletes and families. Little Athletics, like no other sport, relies especially heavily on the involvement of parents. So I implore all parents to become involved in actively supporting their children by becoming an Age Group Co-ordinator, helping time-keep, measuring jumps and throws, result recording etc.
One of focuses at the start of the season will be to find Age Group Co-ordinators for all groups and to provide them with a level of training so that taking on the role doesn’t appear too daunting. If you are interested in finding out more about the role or wish to volunteer, please make yourself known to one of the Committee when registering your child. Having been in this role previously, it is enormously rewarding and gives you a different perspective on the sport of athletics.
While athletics is by its very nature a competitive sport, our goal for all our athletes is for them to improve their times, distances and heights and above all to have fun. Speaking from experience, being actively involved you will find their improvement, and see their joy at having a go and succeeding, all the more enjoyable. We look forward to an outstanding season and seeing all our wonderful athletes and their families participate.
Andrew Sutton
President 2011-12
End of season message April 2011
Welcome to the culmination to what I believe has been a very successful season for our Club.
My tenure as President started with the bad news that our regular “home” Dickson Oval was to be unavailable due to the immediate need to replace the irrigation system and to develop the Dickson Wetlands. This had serious implications, not the least trying to identify a suitable home for the upcoming season. After much wrangling and negotiation Merici College was determined to be the most suitable venue, and I think despite the smaller space available it has worked very well.
The change in venue necessitated a complete revamp of the weekly meet programs and a decision was made to extend the On-Track program from just Under 6’s to include the Under 7s, 8s and 9’s. Under the wonderful stewardship of Chris (Captain Corroboree) Bacchus, I believe this has been an unqualified success. The children have been learning skills through a hugely fun range of activities and the laughter and smiles coming from those groups each week, proves the decision to expand the program has been tremendous.
We do acknowledge that there were some teething problems with our program in the first few weeks, but with a few tweaks, we managed to have the majority of age-groups finished by 10.45am. My thanks to Deb Moran, who took the main running on designing the program. We will continue to review the content of the programs, particularly as we are hopeful of being back at Dickson for the 2011/12 season and we would welcome your thoughts, both positive and otherwise.
One aspect that has particularly pleased the Committee is that we have seen a 10% increase in athlete registrations when the vast majority of Clubs in the district have seen decreases, some quite significant. Our membership has risen from 173 to 193, including an incredible 40 U6 registrations. We have worked hard to create a positive and enjoyable environment and it is particularly pleasing to have received some very positive feedback from parents who have joined us from other clubs and those who have commenced Little Athletics for the first time.
Whilst talking about registrations it would be extremely remiss of me not to say a huge thanks to Lucy Boom, our extremely efficient Registrar who not only maintains the members’ database but also enters every result from each of our meets (and ACTLAA events) to ensure we always have an up to date record of every athlete’s performance.
We, as a Committee, have been very conscious of the need to provide an environment that encourages good sportsmanship, supporting each other at all levels, and balancing the competitive nature of Little Athletics with having a go, having fun and achieving personal bests.
Another positive aspect of the running of the Club has to include our improved communication to members. I believe our website is the envy of other Clubs and the steady stream of emails gives parents no excuse to say they had not been told about something. I can only thank sincerely our Secretary Nerys Jones on her outstanding efforts to keep the website updated and for the regular but not too plentiful emails, as well as looking after the secretarial function of the Club.
Under the tutelage of our wonderful Head Coach John Hunt, we had a regular group of between 10 and 15 each Monday and Wednesday who took advantage of John’s experience and dedication to improve the performances of athletes. The results of this training were there for all to see at the Championships.
One of the more bewildering things about our Club for me is why more do not attend training? In addition to having John turn up week in and week out, we also ran a 5 week program with current Australian 400m hurdles champion, Commonwealth Games athlete and former Corroboree athlete, Lauren Boden. This small group also benefited enormously from this initiative and we look forward to offering this again next season.
Our financial status is now in a stronger position after being all but broke two years ago. We now have sufficient reserves to reinvest in some newer equipment and other capital items. I would like to thank Tony Marks on his efforts as Treasurer this year and ask if he stands again that he doesn’t go overseas during the season again.
Another successful aspect of the running of our meets is the running of the barbeque. Desiree Rees was another of our quiet achievers ensuring the barbeque was well stocked each week and often had to spend more time actually doing the cooking, rather than watching her children participating.
We do, however, know that we are not perfect and we have had some minor problems over the year, and the Committee will continue striving to improve all aspects of the Club and its operations. I would certainly welcome your thoughts on how we can improve and then encourage you to join the committee to implement your thoughts.
Some items the new committee will be looking at including trying to increase our numbers in the older year groups to provide greater weekly competition for our athletes (this also applies in a couple of our younger age groups (U9 Boys in particular). We also need to try to eliminate parents dropping off their children and not staying to help on Saturday mornings.
It would be remiss of me to now not thank various people who are associated with our wonderful Club. To the Committee (most of who have already been mentioned) (see full list later in yearbook).
To all the parents who stepped up and helped setting and putting things away each week and for going above and beyond the call of duty at the ACTLAA Carnivals and Championships. Without naming them all there a few that deserve special thanks – Ruud, Ming and Kirsten, Bernard, Greg, and Chris (for regularly helping Desiree on the BBQ).
Thank you also to our two our local sponsors Athlete’s Foot and R4YL who both provided financial and personal assistance throughout the year.
The biggest thanks must, however, go to our very special group of athletes. We, as a Committee, are absolutely delighted with how our wonderful children performed at weekly meets, and at the ACT Championships, Northside Regionals, the Relay and Multi-event Carnivals as well as a small group who attended the Woden and Queanbeyan Carnivals, not only in their efforts on the track and field, but with their sportsmanship regardless of whether they won or lost. We had very high numbers (almost 50 at the Regionals) and about 35 at the ACT Championships which after you took out the U8’s who were not eligible to attend the Championships was an outstanding conversion rate.
Congratulations on your efforts to you all, but a special well done to Elijah (3), Richard (2), and Shannon (1) who secured gold medals in the ACT Championships. There also many athletes who secured runners-up medals and many more who also achieved personal bests and in a couple of instances also breaking Club records (Shannon Nutt-High Jump and Dylan Griffiths-1500m walk).
Finally, the Committee and I, are very proud of our Club and we feel we have a wonderful platform to continue to improve in years to come. We certainly adhere to LA’s motto of “Family Fun and Fitness” and this was best demonstrated at the Christmas party and last weekend when the parents took on their children in relays.
As always we are still looking for further assistance from additional Committee members, age-group coordinators etc and ask you to put your hand up to nominate when the elections come up to join those staying on the Committee into the next year. I can speak personally that it is extremely rewarding to be actively involved.
Thank you and see you all again in September/October (hopefully back at our home Dickson Oval).
Andrew Sutton
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Message from November 2010
The season is now well and underway and our move to Merici has, whilst resulting in some teething problems, seemed to go quite well.
I again apologise that the Saturday morning sessions for some age groups have gone longer than we all desire, we are currently trying to alter the program to minimise any late finishes. Thank you for your patience and we are confident that we are closer to seeing our traditional 10.30am finishes each week.
Thank you also to the parents who have stepped up to take on age-group coordinator roles or have been assisting with the many roles associated with running an athletics meet.
We now have over 180 members, which is a slight increase on last year and bodes well for an excellent season.
Last weekend saw the first of the ACTLAA carnivals – the Multi-Event. We had 19 athletes compete and all put in wonderful efforts, some achieving success, others achieving personal bests and other just having a red-hot go. Well done to all athletes. I would like to thank especially John Hunt our ever-reliable Field Referee who officiated all day and to all the parents who willingly helped out (without very little arm-twisting required) – thanks all, it obviously helps make the day go far more smoothly.
Next up is the Relay carnival on 12 December which for me is the best day of the year – it is the one chance the Club participates on a team rather than an individual basis and I encourage everyone to make the time to attend and continue to build the Club spirit. This follows our annual Christmas Party on 11 December, when the jolly big red man is scheduled to make an appearance.
This Saturday at around 10.30am we will have Heath from R4YL (one of our sponsors) to conduct a training session. Heath is an accomplished runner and will assist our athletes to improving their running. If you can stay a little longer this coming Saturday, it will be well worth it.
Finally I would like to congratulate our Secretary, Nerys and her family (Gavin, Saeran and Erryn), on the arrival of daughter number 3, Asha. I have been informed Mum and bub are doing well and that Nerys will be back on deck shortly (hopefully!!!).
Andrew Sutton
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Message from August 2010
Welcome to Corroborree (North Canberra) Little Athletics for the 2010-11 season. With the Commonwealth Games just around the corner, this season promises to be a strong one for our Club and athletics as a whole.
We are as a Club especially proud to note that one of our former Little Athletes (and who after we have named our Girls Champion Trophy), Lauren Boden will be competing in the Commonwealth Games in India.
With the new season almost upon us, with the normal challenges facing the Club, such as filling Committee and other positions including Age-Group Co-ordinators, we face the pre-Christmas season being unable to use our normal facilities at Dickson. With the irrigation system and other works being undertaken from August through to December, we have relocated our “home” to the Merici College. There will also be some development of the land across the drain to create the Dickson Wetlands – we are yet to confirm the impact on our club at this time.
This, as you would understand has added some complexities to our planning, but we hope the forced move won’t prove too inconvenient. We ask for everyone’s patience as the weekly program has had to be completely redone and it will take some time for us to get used to the changes.
On a more positive note, with the success of the revised On-Track program last year, the Committee has decided to expand the program to Under 7s, 8s and 9s. This will certainly bring a greater level of skills development as well as enjoyment to those children.
Whilst we are all delighted to see many athletes and their parents returning, I, on behalf of the Committee, would like to offer a big welcome to our new athletes and families. Little Athletics, like no other sport, relies especially heavily on the involvement of parents, so I implore all parents to become involved in actively supporting their children by becoming an Age Group Co-ordinator, joining the Committee, helping time-keep, measure jumps and throws, recording etc.
Whilst there is no doubt that athletics is by its very nature is competitive, our goal for all our athletes is for them to improve their times, distances and heights and to have fun. Speaking from experience, being actively involved you will find their improvement and see their joy at having a go and succeeding all the more enjoyable.
Finally I, on behalf of the Club, would like to thank all those who have already stepped up and volunteered to serve on the Committee (Deb, Nerys and Chris who are returning, and Tony, Desiree, Lucy, Melissa, Tania who are new to the Committee).
We look forward to an outstanding season and seeing all our wonderful athletes and their families participate throughout the season.
Andrew Sutton
President 2010-11
