Dear All,

Last Wednesday night, we had our first regular committee meeting since I became your president.

First can I say again, what an honour it is to be asked to do this job in our Centenary Year.

There are a few things to report to you coming out of the meeting.

Last Wednesday night the Centenary Committee we’ve established also had its first meeting.

I attended and I’ve got to say we’re off to a good start with lots of good people coming up with lots of good ideas.

Still quite a few of the logistics to lock away but at this stage we plan to hold a weekend event in February that will include a major function on the Saturday night followed by some 20/20 cricket on the Sunday at Queens Park.

Venues, times, etc for the main dinner are still to be finalised as we try to get a feel for just how many people we will have attending. As most of you will know, our facilities at Queens Park can’t cope with huge numbers.

One thing the committee is doing is sending out a survey to see how many people will attend. Please fill that in and get it back ASAP.

Also get the message out to as many former N&CCC players as you can about this being the Centenary Year and make it clear they are welcome, along with their partners and other family members.

This is a huge year for our club in so many respects. Hundreds – and the celebrating of them – are one of the core bits of cricket. So let really start thinking Centenary.

Our coach Bryan Thomas came along to the main committee meeting and he and I were able to report that we are working together on some solid recruiting programs. We will have more on that over the next little while. Best just to say we’re on the job and things are looking promising in a lot of areas.

Scott Mullen presented his first treasurer’s report and things look good in that area at the moment. However, we do have the expenses of the new practice facilities to meet, so that is going to require good financial management and lots of new fund-raising ideas.

Phillip Morgan is also working well in terms of getting us the news sponsorships we need. Again, if you know of someone who should be sponsoring our club, then let Morgo know.

And I use the word should because as a club, we provide an enormous community service for six and more months of the year, catering for cricketers from five to 50, even beyond in the case of the new Over 60′s team that uses our facility.

Memberships are another vital revenue source. Col Cunliffe is again off and running in this area and details will go up on our new website soon. There are some small but important changes for you to note but I will leave that to Col to explain in full.

Can I just say, take advantage of the discounts for early payments. That helps you and it also helps the club generate money early in the season.

I don’t know a lot of about websites, but when also during the meeting Scott showed the committee a draft version of our new website, it met with great approval around the table.

It was suggested that when up and running, no other club in Geelong would have a website even close to as good as ours.

That will be a great way to showcase our sponsors, our news stories, our results and in our 100th year – our history.

Of course websites don’t you win you premierships, but they are all part of the process of making sure your whole club is working well – and working together.

I want to reiterate the need to ensure that people like Phillip Morgan, Colin Cunliffe and Scott Mullen are not to be left to work alone.

In that regard, I am pleased to announce that Wednesday three more portfolios were filled: Kevin Simonsen as the Assistant Secretary, James Purcell and Tom Levick as Complex Managers and Brett Loats as Social Committee Leader.

I am again asking people to come forward to be part of all our support teams. They will certainly be out there seeking that support.

We have within our club people of many diverse talents that we should all be using to ensure we’re going forward.

Don’t wait to be asked. We didn’t get to be one of the greatest clubs in Geelong with a century of fine achievement because of people who waited to ask.

As the life members in gold lettering in our rooms attest, we got there because of people who came forward willingly to do all the jobs, big and little, that had to be done.

I would love to see new generations of gold letters up there, drawn from people who came forward in our 100th year.

We are a club going forward, make no mistakes about that. The speed of that progress will only be enhanced by a whole of club approach from within.

We can debate internally, and we do, but once we make a decision to take a certain path, let’s all get behind it.

I’ve been in cricket long enough to know the rewards of unity, of team play.

Neville Crane
President
N&CCC