Past Players Day August 2019

Past Players Day
Well, what a day the past players day was!  It was a shame the weather wasn’t kinder It would have got a lot more of you old boys out on the hill, make sure you let them know what they missed.

Thanks you to all who attended and we do sincerely hope that this went some way to make up for the poorly managed event in the early part of the season

If you weren’t able to make it to the game it was a pretty close affair for most of the day but in the last quarter Willo was able to apply sufficient pressure in our forward half to create a number of errors and turnovers and we skipped away to a 32 point victory.  Well done boys, will be a while till you hear the club song sung with such exuberance.

CELEBRATING WFC’s HERITAGE
Next year will be WFC’s 21st birthday in the amateur competition following the switch over form Sunday League.

This in no way diminishes the overall 43 year history of the club and there are plans afoot to include reunions for premiership winning teams and of course the 50th anniversary in 7 years.  Who knows, maybe by then we’ll have a brand new facility to hold the celebration in.

There would be thousands of people who have been involved with our Club.  Some of you have even met your wives and established your families during your time at this Club. It’s fair to say that The Club has played a significant role in your lives. 

In the lead up to next season we would really appreciate any old stuff from the club that you might have around, any old pictures, programs etc.  We’ll make copies and return your originals

PLAYER SPONSORSHIPS by PAST PLAYERS
I was able to get around to meet many of you on the day and took the opportunity to explain our Sponsor a player program. 

To be a player at Willetton Football Club is no small effort for those that chose to wear the jumper and keep the tradition alive.  With annual registration and insurance fees + game day fees to pay for umpiring each player is putting up around $600 per year to run onto the field.

For the Colts squad the club now pays their registrations and they continue to pay the game day fees.  The decision to do this was twofold, firstly Colts are generally lowly paid or students with no income and this is a significant hole in their weekly cashflow.  Secondly, we are competing with other clubs for the scares numbers available throughout colts and we all know how vital Colts are to the long term viability of the club

As much as we would love to pay for all players this is simply not possible so we are putting it out there to all our past players for some support to subsidise the cost of player registrations for its playing members.  The rules we must comply with state that we cannot provide a benefit to one person in a squad and not another, so this must be a contribution to the clubs “Sponsor a player Fund” and this fund will be used to offset the total costs across the board for all the squads.

Any help would be greatly appreciated but if we could please have contributions from $100 upwards and you can make your donation to (face book / website, same as buying tickets so we can work out

TRAINEESHIP PROGRAM
Some of you not so old past players will be familiar with 15 years odd sponsorship support from BGC.

Unfortunately at the end of 2019 this will come to an end with the retirement from BGC of its driving force Eric Thompson and the likely sale of the BGC empire. 

The money aside, the BGC relationship extended to providing a conduit for our Colts players into a career pathway within the BGC conglomerate as trainees and cadets.  Many of Willettons colts have benefited from this program and we are seeking expressions of interest from Past Players who are employers and or business principals who would be willing to investigate this program as a benefit for both the Football Club and their own enterprise.  Any expressions of interest should be directed to myself at perry@gr8corp.com.au

We are working with the traineeship MEGT on this to ensure that participating employers benefit from the generous government subsidies that are available and rest assured, candidates will be carefully selected and put forward by the club for your business to interview and have the final call on.  We can identify what ever criteria you require for your preferred candidate.  Positions shouldn’t be considered limited to blue collar tradie type rolls, scheduling & estimating, business management etc are also approved traineeship programs that qualify for government subsidy.

PLAYER INJURY INSURANCE
2019 saw the clubs playing group succumb to a total of 5 season & career ending  knee injuries.  Recovery from a knee or perhaps a break can take some time is a significant financial loss to the player involved.  The insurance cover provided through the Amateur Association only provides cover for death and / or Total & Permanent Disability / paralysis. 

Extensions to cover are available at an additional cost to the individual club that chooses to take this on and this would have seen our 2019 knee injuries covered for the emergency treatment they require.  As far as we are aware this tends to be restricted to the well-funded “A” grade clubs and goes a long way to support their recruiting of high quality players.

I have noticed that many of the past players on our database are now captains of business and employers.  This presents as a solid opportunity for a business to fulfil and community service requirement in their business model and come on board as the principal sponsor for insurance at the club, offering the clubs players the financial and medical support that’s lacking.  The personal Injury insurance Sponsorship will cost a generous past player or business the sum of $1,500 and we would be making a big deal of it amongst the playing group and the supporter base.

Annual Ball
The Willetton Football Club will be holding its annual ball on Friday 27th September at Optus Stadium.  The event was a huge evening last year and the talk of how spectacular the location was is still going on around the club.  The night is a one price all inclusive evening of food, alcohol, music, dancing and the feature being the last 3 rounds of the B&F Count.  We're not used to seeing any Past Players attend the end of season ball but it would be a fantastic for the club if we could encourage a table of 10 to attend this year.  Tickets are available on our website at $150 pp all-inclusive and dress is formal ball dress, so why not treat your lady, get all glammed up and come and enjoy an eventing at the most spectacular location in Perth.