What a year!!! 22 teams with 500 registered players ( up from 433 players in 2004) taking the field for the mighty Burra.
8 of the competitive teams made the Finals, with the Colts 1; U/12 Gold and the U/12 Blue going onto win the Premiership. Congratulations to these teams and to all our teams for a great Year.
18 Players were invited to the League’s Best & Fairest Night, at the Ivanhoe Centre, with Matthew Galiazzo (U/10 Brown) and Timothy Doherty(U/13 Brown) winning the Big One.
The following players also achieved 150 Game Milestone Award: Daniel Arnavas; Michael Deligiorgis;Chris Hoegel;Christopher Kandilakis and Jayden Price. Well done Boys.
In line with Club Policy on Balanced teams, 2005 saw the introduction of pre-season reviews for the U/14’s & U/15’s teams. This will have long term benefits.
Conduct is a very important issue for the Club and I was very pleased to see that not one St Mary’s player was reported during the season.
With regard to our game day Officials and Parents, 2005 was a big improvement on 2004 but the Committee will continue to be very tough on Parents who ‘step-out of line’.
2005 also saw the launch of our fantastic Website, www.stmarysfc.org.au We are now able to communicate to our Members, important Club news on a weekly basis and not rely on the old printed copy of the “BURRA” which quite often ended up at the bottom of the player’s bag.
Thanks to Chris Freeman, Terry Derham, Tom Chapman, Phillip & Cathy Cattenazzi for their hard work.
SOCIAL EVENTS
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2005 was a fantastic ( I’m starting to sound like Kevin Wilson) year for the Club’s Social events.
The year started with a Cocktail/ Karaoke night held in the Clubrooms. Over 100 members and friends danced the night away and due to popular demand, Chris Freeman will be banned from the Karaoke machine next year.
Thanks to Wayne & Liz Mace for organising the night.
We had another Sell-out Trivia Night hosted by the boys from ‘Flash Back Trivia’ and the guests were taken back in time to the music of the ‘good old days’. Thanks to Steve Driscoll and Neil Heaslip for organising the night.
This year’s Sponsors Night really went up-market with AFL/VFL stars Adam Ramanauskas and Vin Catoggio entertaining the crowd.
Andrew Smith and Chris Freeman did an outstanding job organising the night. Well done Boys.
The Social year was capped-off with a very successful Dinner Dance held at the Manor on High. Over 240 members and guests danced the night away (yes, we love our dancing at St Mary’s).
The highlights of the night were the acknowledgment of our Senior Colts Players and the awarding of Life Memberships to Rod & Debra Johnston and Phillip & Cathy Cattenazzi.
This is a very hard event to organise and once again Steve Driscoll did a great job.
CLUB SPONSORS
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To all our Sponsors, a big thank-you for your on-going support.
Andrew Smith took on the role as Sponsorship Manager this year and he has done an amazing job, bringing in a number of new sponsors to the Club.
FOOTBALL DEPT.
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With the large increase in Player numbers this year, our Football Manager and his 2 assistants certainly had their hands full.
Young Patrick Redmond, Ian Fennell and Walter (Disco) Ferronato did a great job looking after 22 teams, 22 Coaches, 22 Team Managers with all game day activities.
Thanks Boys.
THE COMMITTEE
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2005 saw the introduction of the Executive committee of 8, with a whole range of Sub-committees reporting direct to the Executive. Over all, the new format was a great success, with a bit of fine tuning required next year.
A special mention of Tony Seneca & Kym Irvine . Both these fine gentlemen are stepping down from their committee roles after many years of great service. Tony has been the Club’s Treasurer for the last 4 years and his humour will be sadly missed.
Kym is a Past President of the Club, past Super Coach (won a premiership) and a great organiser. I would personally like to thank Kym for his assistance and guidance over the last 2 years. Special thanks to all the sub-committee members for their efforts during the year.
I’ve saved the best to last, being Tom Chapman & Jan Nanni. Tom has completed his 1st year as Club Secretary and he is Brilliant. His ‘people’ skills are outstanding. Jan has looked after player’s registration for a few years now and is the only lady on the Executive committee. She must be congratulated for sitting thru some fired-up committee meetings.
As usual, I like to leave the best news to last. This is my last year as the’ Prez’ and I have been very honoured to be a part of the Best Junior Football Club in Australia. Whenever I felt like the ‘job’ was too much, I would just go and watch a Tackers game and realise how much fun this club can be.
Traditionally, this is the time that I thank my wife for all her assistance. OOPS, I forgot, I don’t have one of those!!!!!
Bye for now.
Livio Basile
President
