Welcome to the pinnacle of the GVFL season – the Grand Final
Today sees the culmination of a lot of hard work for many people. Beginning late last year or before, Clubs would have been preparing both on and off the field and we see five of those represented today. To those clubs, well done on getting to this point and good luck for today.
To Clubs that are not playing, there are signs with every Club that show promise for the future.
To the umpires, thanks for your efforts during the year and to those in control today I wish you well.
From a League perspective, a large part of the 12 months leading up to this season was taken up with preparing for and then making a decision on the future administration of the competition. The Clubs decided late last year to have that administration provided by AFL Goulburn Murray. In what has been a very steep learning curve, the team have grasped what has been needed and serviced the Board and Competition with hard work and efficiency.
I particularly want to thank League Operations Manager Simon Devine, who came to us from AFL Queensland and has adjusted to the climate in more ways than one . We have also been lucky to have Melissa Wells transfer from the former GVFL office and Bailey Opie as our official photographer, and the other AFL staff have been great value.
A big thank you to all our Clubs, with whom the Board has met four times this year ,as well as through attending games and Club functions . There have been excellent discussions on significant issues, such as the draw and the points system as well as operational matters. These have been open and professional and we have come up with some good consensus.
We have started to include the umpires in our meetings with Clubs which will be a positive thing for the competition.
From a media perspective thank you to our media partners – Shepparton News, One FM, WIN TV and the Footy Show who have projected our competition to a wider audience, including an Echuca local who only last week emailed me saying he had enjoyed the live stream of the Under 18 Preliminary Final while on holiday in Vietnam !
Live scoring has proved to be a huge success and our social media hits and other activity has increased substantially .As an example during the Morrison Medal we tweeted 27 items which were then read/retweeted 112,000 times !
The league could not function without our sponsors, in particular our naming rights sponsor – the GOTAFE GVFL is now a much used phrase around the area. Thank you to GOTAFE and all of our sponsors
As we continue to strive forward I want to encourage all supporters of the GOTAFE GVFL to jump online and complete the fan survey. We are asking for 5 minutes of your time to let the board know your thoughts about the league.
Now it is time to sit back and see which Clubs will take home the flags for 2015 – enjoy!
Last Modified on 12/10/2015 11:07
