Seasons Greetings from the President, Jimmy Ware!

Dear Sainters and Sinners!

Season’s greetings to each and every one of you.

First off, I would like to thank you all for giving me the chance to become the Cowwarr Football & Netball Clubs President, it’s an honour and a privilege.
I have some extremely big shoes to fill following Micks departure and I will work to fill them in earnest, always having the best interest of the club in mind with every decision for the club now and into the long-term future.

A bit about what we have been up to at the club in the off season.

On the field

We have been busy this off season with a change of guard in the thirds and senior coaching ranks.

Jase Eenjes has taken on the thirds alongside young Brady Hood in which they are doing a fantastic job so far with, having got a full side already and some new young promising players the year will see much improvement for the boys.

Luke Hegarty will take the reins in the seniors, alongside him is Josh Jennings. The amount of Football experience between the two of them is phenomenal. There has been a great buzz at training with very solid numbers each night.

Having recruited well with some youth and experience we are expecting really good things come ’23. Our goal is to build sustained success on the field, to give ourselves every chance to fight for premiership number 13 and we believe the off field coaching appointments and recruits are giving us every opportunity to do that.

On the court

Eden Bourke has once again taken charge of the A & B grade. Having done a fantastic job with the girls this year we will be hoping for more improvement come ’23 and have the right person in charge to lead us back up the ladder.

Lily Hawkins has taken charge of C grade, having only spent a short amount of time at the club she has impressed everyone and we look forward to her taking the reins of C grade.

Amanda Farmer will be coaching the D grade for the second consecutive year, alongside her is her daughter Liana Farmer, we love a family connection like that – it’s great to see. Kellie Tomholt has taken the reins of the U/15 & U/17. What a fantastic get it was for us to have her coaching the juniors, they will be in fantastic hands under Kellie and we are looking forward to a fantastic year for them. Danielle Walker will be working alongside Kellie as an assistant coach.
Off the Field/Court

We have purchased lockers for the men’s and women’s changerooms. This will help people put away their bags and help tidy up the change rooms. We are looking to number each locker and put up how many games a past/current player has played on there if they meet a certain games criteria.
This will help us pay respect to our past players that have given the club a great service.

Traralgon golf club were upgrading their tables and chairs at their social rooms and we come across buying their old ones off them we think they look fantastic in the rooms.

Traralgon Rodeo

We were lucky enough to be asked to run the Bar and Parking at the Traralgon Rodeo. To say it was a great day would be an understatement. The day was well organised by the Rodeo committee and went off without a hitch. From our side of things, the day went off as smooth as could be, we were busy but had so many helpers come along so as the saying goes many hands make light work. Having talked to everyone post the rodeo there was nothing but positivity from the day and we can’t wait to do it again.

Grants

We have been fortunate enough to land some grants for the club that we are much appreciative of.
Our first one was the Bendigo Bank $5,000 contribution to the Netball lighting upgrade.
We then went on to land a $6,000 grant from the Wellington Shire towards our resurfacing of the Netball court which will commence in February.
Following on from our good fortune our very own Wenz Whelan put in for a grant to get a new playground. After a few weeks we heard back that we got the grant from Energy Australia, a whopping $10,000 towards a new playground. The playground has been delivered and will be installed in the New year.
Wellington Shire have also been generous enough to accept our grant application to concrete in a spoon drain and are contributing $2,500 towards the project.
All up we have received a whopping $23,500 towards new projects, we would like to thank Heyfield Community Bank, Energy Australia and the Wellington Shire for their generous contributions.

I would like to thank all our volunteers for all the hard work you have all put in we couldn’t run this great club without you!
I would like to wish all our saints and sinners a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Stay safe and healthy and we look forward to what should be a cracking 2023!
GO SAINTS!