Blues News Round 3 & 4 Wrap Up

Blues News
Round 3 & 4 Wrap Up 
 
We are almost at the halfway point of our reduced 2020 season! Check out our upcoming events, latest news and match reports from round 3 and 4 below:
​Prestige Settlements Ladies Day This Saturday - 1 August 2020
Past Players Day Wrap Up
Sponsor a Colt Program is Back
The Clubs Lifeblood is Under Threat
​1999 and 2000 Premiership Reunion Round 7 - 15 August 2020
​Willo Hoodies
Membership Fees and Membership Jackpot
Social Memberships
​​Annual Gibb Medal Awards Gala – Saturday 3 October 2020

Prestige Settlements Ladies Day This Saturday - 1 August 2020
 
Following on from round 3 being the big day for the boys round 5 is the big day for the girls with the annual Willetton Football Club Ladies Day sponsored by Prestige Settlements on the 1st of August 2020.

Come down to the Willetton Sports Club for a great day full of drinking and dancing! For those wanting to indulge in unlimited wine & champagne tickets will be $35 a head if bought online in advance or $40 at the marquee. Not only does this include drinks but also a delicious grazing table and watching our League team vs Warnbro Swans between 2pm - 5pm up in our marquee on the hill. If you aren't an alcohol drinker you can purchase a ticket on the day for $20 a head so that you can still enjoy the delicious grazing table and fantastic company in our marquee.

Once the League game finishes after 5pm everyone is welcomed back to the club for the night to continue the night with raffle prizes and a DJ to encourage lots of dancing.

To secure your tickets follow this link: https://rebrand.ly/willettonladiesday2020

Past Players Day Wrap Up

To all those who were able to attend on Past Players day thanks so much for helping us create a day that was a raging success.  Of the 6 teams we put on the park on the day we had 5 wins, with our Womens team recording their 1stvictory for the club, holding the opposition scoreless, colts sneaking home by 2 points, the Reserves with a solid victory and the league team smashing their opponents by 10+ goals.

Other highlights included Ian (Elbows) Millar winning the meat raffle with a ticket purchased by Steve Bingham, safe to say Steve wasn’t impressed and expressed his disappointment very descriptively, using just about all available adjectives. Ian, if you’re reading this the meat pack is in the deep freeze waiting your collection, call me if you like on 0411 117 086.

Meat Raffle, winners & losers, can you pick the winners grin?

Kim Barrett with the coin toss.  If you weren’t watching this unfold Kim recognised the old goal umpire from back in his playing days and I think he might have recognised Kim as well because straight after the toss that guy turned around and quickly started limping away.  Its hard to say for sure if he was deaf or just trying to ignore Kims calls for his attention but it took some calling his name to turn him around again.  Pretty sure Kim was challenging one of his decision from 30 years back!... meanwhile the central umpire was trying to get Kims attention to get off the ground… You had to be there I guess. Maybe next year we’ll do a commentary over a PA system to add some commentary.

A special thanks to our game day sponsor’s Trent & Kristy Fry and their business TJK Auto Repairs, Trent is a past player, having ended his Willo career last season with a serious knee injury in the league team, aged 39 years. TJK Auto’s is located in Jandakot and if your car needs a service I would ask that you give serious consideration to adopting Trent & Kristy as your new mechanic.

Thanks to Mick Little and his Spinifex Brewery for donating 6 cartons of beer to the day.  If you didn’t try the F88 beer he gave you definitely missed out, very unique, refreshing and enjoyable.  I’ve asked my local outlet, Celebrations Riverton, to find and stock this craft beer and all past players should be doing the same to give Micks business some well earned support for his years of service and support to the Willetton Footy Club.

To Chris Pobjoy and his transport business ABP Freighter.  On the day Chris sought me out and presented me with a very generous donation to the club. The club cannot thank you enough Chris.

To John Dawkins, a current 3rds (and sometimes reserves) player at the club and proprietor of the C.Y. O’Connor Village Pub and Melaleuca Farm Merchants for supplying us with the meat raffle, not to mention the 3rds Sponsor and already has his hand up to be the sponsor for the 2nd womens team in 2021*.  You can thank John by getting along to CY O’Connors for a drink and try their food.  After 5 years as the bridesmaid in the best Steak Sandwich in the state competition, finally in 2019 Johns pub can now lay claim to the reigning WA’s best steak sandwich.

Event Match Day Funds Raised
Throughout the year the club will run feature events to coincide with home games.  This will include Past Players Day, Ladies Day, Anzac Day, Indigenous Day and so forth.  They will be a fund raisers for a specific charity in the most part, with ladies day this year benefiting Cystic Fibrosis, Indigenous Recognition day will raise money for The Clontarf Foundation, Anzac Day for the Riverton RSL and so forth.

Sponsor a Colt Program is Back
Colts are the life blood of every amateur footy club and if you can’t ensure a constant flow of juniors coming into the Clubs colts program the footy club will quickly become irrelevant. In the past the club has run with the Past Players a “Sponsor A Colt” program where individuals will donate a small amount and get allocated a Colt player from a draw.
 
For the 2021 season we are asking for as many Past Players (and anyone else who wants to get on board) for a donation to the club that will qualify you as a Colts Sponsor.  We will be offering a two-tiered system that will combine the Colts Sponsorship with a full social membership being the Blue Sponsors or you can just be a Colts sponsor being a Brown Sponsor, clearly the naming here is designed to make the Gold option the one of choice.

Blue will qualify you as a sponsor and also for a full social membership which includes merchandise and entry into the Thursday and Saturday evening membership # jackpot cash draw.  Blue level will be $80.00
Brown will earn you a colt sponsorship and a sense of community service and knowing you’re doing a good deed for the club.  Brown level will be $50.00. Colts and colts sponsors will be provided a free drink by the club at a meet your sponsor event early in the season in 2021.

Your Colts Sponsorship will go directly to providing the entire Colts list with fee cost relief and remove this discounting of fees as a cost to the club.  Registration for 1 team costs the Willetton Footy Club is in the area of $3,300 per season, so to discount this for any team if a significant financial impost to the club that we would like your help to fund and thereby underwrite the clubs future playing stocks and status in the Perth Football League. To register your interest as a colts sponsor click the button below:

TO REGISTER YOUR INTEREST AS A COLTS SPONSOR IN 2021 CLICK HERE

The Clubs Lifeblood is Under Threat
In days past it was a given that there would any number of young guys finishing juniors and moving into the Willo Colts, well apart from the fact that we now also have girls, them days are long gone.  Today the Willetton Junior Club & Rossmoyne Junior Club have combined sides in their years 10, 11 & 12 age groups and the competition has had to move to a merged year 11 & 12 age group just to create numbers to form full teams, a position that was unthinkable as recently as 5 years ago.

Even more horrifying is that as recently as 2015 the East Fremantle Zone alone had 8 teams competing in the year 12 (under 17’s) age group but today there less teams than that in the combined East Fremantle & South Fremantle competition AND they have had to combine their year 11 & 12 age groups within that combined zones to create a competition.  In effect these two zones have gone for 32 teams competing across 2 age groups to 7 teams across the combined age group.

Clearly the flow of youth into the senior Colts program is drying up faster than the Murray Darling basin and one way you can help is getting on board with the Sponsor a Colt program

                                          What is the Club doing about it?
Sponsor a Colt
Firstly were reaching out to our past players and our supporters a very small, individual financial support to assist us in reducing the upfront cost to Colts in joining the Willetton Football Club.

Reducing Fees
As already mentioned, we have been subsidising the Colts fees structure internally in the club but this practice is unsustainable for the club to continue with on its own, hence the Sponsor a Colt program

Restructuring Fees: With high school behind them and these young people entering university or the workforce the Bank of Mum & Dad isn’t as forth coming as it once was and incomes for this cohort aren’t that flash either, so, the club is looking at a restructuring of the registration fees and game days fees to lower the front and add some of this into the regular weekly game day costs that all players in the club have.

in 2019 to attract numbers we made Colts registration free and in 2020 it was 50% of the senior teams.  What we learnt in 2019 was that you still need to ensure the Colts have some financial skin in the game, hence the 2020 result.

Youth Employment Pathways (YEP) program.  
We have mentioned it in an earlier newsletter but to clarify the Club has developed a program where youth can qualify for worthwhile career employment opportunities through a program where they play their football at our junior aligned clubs of Willetton, Rossmoyne & Riverton.  Subject to them being model citizens in that time, attending training and so forth the club will recommend them to panel employers and they will be motivated to continue with their footy at Willetton
We launched this program this year into Clontarf and now have 8 past Clontarf boys playing in our Colts list and one girl in our Womens team.  Next year the YEP program gets expanded into the Clontarf years 10, 11 & 12 groups where these players will be allocated to our aligned junior clubs.

The club will need to grow the employer panel to support this program, particularly as it expands into high schools and other areas.  We have had a few Past Players connect with us on this and if there are any others who are in a position to help or influence their connections your club would be greatly appreciative.

Relationship Building with Junior Clubs
Now more than ever its vital for the WFC to bridge the void that has always existed between the junior & senior footy clubs at Burrendah Reserve and over the last 18 months the committee has been working hard at achieving this.  We are no also extending that strategy into other clubs in the district that don’t have a Colts program, including Rossmoyne, Riverton & Lynwood by including them as beneficiaries of the YEP program, giving support in the areas of Coaching and mentoring with representative from our club.

High Schools
Similar to junior clubs we are opening up discussions with all the local high schools, building awareness, offering support in coaching and training etc to better the connect the club to the grass roots in the community.

School Holiday Camps
The club is working on a program, likely to be available for the 2021 school year, to offer a footy camp program to the local community during school holiday.  This is something the local basketball club has been doing for decades and perhaps the reason it captures so many of our promising footy kids and is able to steel them away from us.
This will not only be a revenue generator for the club but will also connect the local youth and junior Footy players directly to the Willetton Footy.

​1999 and 2000 Premiership Reunion Round 7 - 15 August 2020
 
To commemorate the 1999 and 2000 League Premierships the club is hosting a Premiership Reunion Luncheon at midday on the 15th of August 2020 at the club. If you were a premiership player or know anyone from the premiership teams please share this information with them so they can attend. The club will be putting on some food and drinks for the premiership players and there will be a speech from Premiership coach Paul Kujawski. Once it hit’s 1:00pm everyone will move up to the hill where the beer shed will be opened and everyone can support the reserves and league sides.

Willo Hoodies
 
Are you finding you are a little cold rocking up to games or just want to wear your Blues colours everywhere in winter? Your club has just placed an order for club branded hoodies. We have already sold heaps of pre-orders so make sure your buy yours at our team store now! We should be receiving stock any week now so make sure you order yours to secure it now! 

Membership Fees and Membership  
Jackpot
 
While the majority of players have taken advantage of the early payment discount on their fees before round 1 there is still a large number of players yet to pay any fees. Fees have been cut in half because of the season being cut in half so make sure you get your fees paid. Any player who hasn’t paid their fees is not eligible to win the membership jackpot which currently sits at $100 for Thursday and is drawn every Thursday and Saturday. The membership jackpot is available to financial members and social members. You have to be present to collect the prize when the draw occurs otherwise it jackpots to the next draw. Riley Hunter was our first winner pocketing $150 last Thursday! If you haven't paid your fees make sure you pay them at the team store now

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Social Memberships
 
We still have a number of social membership on offer for just $30 each. For that $30 you will get a Willetton Blues Hat, a stubby holder and a membership card. The membership card will put you in the weekly membership jackpot draw each Thursday and Saturday night however you will need to be around to win your prize or it will jackpot to the following week! Buy yours on the team store now!
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Annual Gibb Medal Awards Gala – Saturday 3 October 2020
 
Lock the 3rd of October 2020 in as a night to get dressed up, have a couple of drinks and dance the night away in style as your club hosts the annual Gibb Medal Awards Gala at Beaumonde on the Point in Perth. 
 
Beaumonde is situated above Embargo where the old Ku De Ta used to be.
 
Tickets will cost just $119 which is over $30 cheaper than last year’s awards night. Plus anyone with a ticket can get 15% off a hotel room across the road at Fraser Suites for the night. 
 
With this being the first year of our girls team it promises to be the biggest awards night we have ever had. 
 
Lock your ticket in at the team store now!