GENERAL MANAGER OPERATIONS 2022 REPORT – CAMERON HUTCHISON

This system was also used in our Veterans football competition which had three new clubs join for the 2022 season in, Devon Meadows, Neerim Neerim South and Phillip Island. This brought our Veterans teams for 2022 up to eight, the largest it’s been in quite some time.

Our U19 boys’ football would also see the teams from Premier and Division One combine into just one competition but pleasingly we were able to facilitate an U18 boys’ competition as well, mainly consisting of Division two club, teams.

Some great Theme rounds and matches took place in 2022 including: Anzac Round, Indigenous round (Warburton Millgrove Vs Powelltown and Yarra Glen Vs Healesville held special Indigenous games). The Pride Cup played between Yarra Glen and Belgrave in 2022, was the precursor for our first competition wide Pride Round which I look forward to expanding on for season 2023. Through this I organised our first Pride Round, staff education session facilitated by the Pride Cup team and it was a great education experience for us all.

During the 2022 season we had a couple of staffing changes, firstly with Sebastian making his way to the Melbourne FC and then Lachlan departed to MSAC. I’d like to thank them both for their time with us and I wish them both the very best for their future working endeavours. Both gentlemen contributed greatly to our organisation during their time with us. On the back of both of them leaving, we were able to welcome Georgia Chisholm and Aaron Gillard to the team with both of them fitting in magnificently to our organisation. Unfortunately, we also said farewell to John Howarth at season’s end as the rigors of AFL Umpiring and the requirements at community level were not compatible. I will always appreciate the time and conversations with John on umpiring, as I learnt so much from them, especially that there are only 34 people in the country that truly really know what the rules are. Some work to be done on correcting that is required from the top level, I’m sure.

The 2022 Finals series ran well, given it had been a few years between them happening and it was so pleasing to be attending finals matches with good crowd numbers for both football and netball again. The weather on multiple occasions made for some eventful , challenging, and stressful times, but our staff and clubs responded well on all occasions to ensure all matches could be facilitated. I thank all of our host clubs for their assistance this season in getting the finals back up and running again, with a special mention to Rob Thompson and Woori Yallock who were able to assist with their venue on multiple occasions when the weather and facility availability played havoc with our plans.