A MESSAGE TO THE FALCONS FAMILY

A MESSAGE TO THE FALCONS FAMILY

As we approach the start of the season it is a timely opportunity to update our members on the developments that have occurred in and around the club during the off-season. To say it has been a challenging period for the club would be an understatement with staffing changes, the completion of new facilities, water damage to our new facilities, facility defects and new membership services are amongst a plethora of challenges we have faced since last season.

I would like to provide more details on a number of developments since 2017.

Staffing Changes

As many of you would be aware, the departure of former CEO David Crute in January marked a complete turnover of our staff from the beginning of 2017. The club has now created an entirely new staffing structure designed to meet the demands of running a commercial facility and an elite football club concurrently.

Linda Hamersley – Chief Executive Officer            

In sourcing a new CEO we were conscious of the need to find someone with experience in developing high performance programs, managing commercial facilities, developing a business plan, servicing members and sponsors and developing a positive staff culture. In Linda we have found someone with a proven track record in each of these areas.

Linda joins us from Athletics New Zealand and returns to Perth after professional stints in New Zealand and Europe. In just a few weeks she has displayed a strong desire to familiarise herself with our people and our history and we are confident she will be an outstanding leader for our club.

Roy Depczynski – General Manager: Commercial Operations

The appointment of an experienced venue manager was critical given our lack of experience in this area for the past 25 years, so we are fortunate to have secured the services of someone with extensive experience working at some of WA’s biggest venues.

Roy joins us from Tourism WA where he was managing major events development, but prior to that he was the Events and Business Development Manager for Perth Stadium Management, (aka – Domain Stadium) and prior to that was the Stadium Manager for NIB Stadium and spent 9 years running his own event company. Roy is extremely knowledgeable in all areas of event and venue management and has been invaluable in getting our new facility operational in time for the season.

Steve Trewhella – General Manager: Football Operations

In restructuring our football department last year we were keen to appoint someone with extensive management experience and the ability to develop our club culture. I think you will agree we could not have found a more suitable candidate than Steve Trewhella.

After just four months in the position, the former club captain and premiership player has stamped his personal style on our football department, supporting our coach Bill Monoghan in setting standards, programs and procedures aimed at raising the professionalism and performance of our senior football program. His ability to build relationships with our players and football personnel has also had a significant impact on the positivity coming from the football department in the lead up to this season.

Casey Haw – Manager: Talent Development

Casey is the only member of the 2017 staff still with us and the work he is doing with our talent programs continues to set standards across our competition.

Casey has made the transition of the talent structure to the WAFC both seamless and without any external changes to our operations. If anything, the work Casey has done to link our talent programs to the past players of West Perth has enhanced the link between our talent pathway and our club. I encourage our members to go to our Facebook page / Instagram to see the AV production from our colts / 16’s jumper presentation as an example of the outstanding work being done to develop our future players and retain strong links with the players of our past.

With Tracy Venner back job running our front of office and Anthony Donetta joining Steve in the past fortnight to support our football department, our staff have been amazing in working together to get our organisation ready for round one from such a short lead-in time. I ask that you introduce yourself to any / all of these people as you come across them in the coming weeks and support them as they grow into their new roles. They are all keen to make a significant impact on our club and your support of their efforts is vital.

Facility Update

Many of you have had the chance to inspect our new facility in the past months and while we have been buoyed by the positive feedback so far, there are still a number of issues to face as we familiarise ourselves with its functionality and capabilities.

The flooding experienced as a result of a burst main in late February has certainly been an unwanted set-back in our preparations.  Added to this are the large number of defects still being rectified to bring the building up to completion. Repair works will continue in the coming weeks to get the venue back to pristine condition.

It is going to take a few home games to get used to how our events will operate, where our members will want to watch the games from and what catering services are therefore required in various areas. It will also take our members some time to get used to how our member services will be operating. What I encourage you to do is come through the facility when you attend our first game and start to familiarise yourself with our members bar, merchandise shop, catering services and our reception area. I also ask that you understand that our staff our working hard to come up with the right formula for each of these services, so your patience and positive feedback is appreciated.

Most importantly – come and use our members bar! We need members to understand how important it is for us to maximise our home games as bar trade opportunities, so bring your mates, opposition supporters and anyone you can to our home games and enjoy the facilities now on offer.

Membership Update

The new “chipped” membership cards have raised some questions, so here is the purpose for us moving to this form of member identification:

1. They are transferable across years, saving the club money renewing cards each year;
2. They allow members easy access to the venue through electronic entry;
3. Soon you will be able to load funds onto the card and use them for any service offered within our building, (merchandise, catering, etc) to eliminate the need for cash.

There were also some concerns about the inability to purchase a gate entry option with memberships prior to Christmas. To explain this, the club is currently in the market trying to sell our stadium naming rights and gate entry to a corporate partner. It is our desire to be able to offer admission to our home games free to everyone and really promote the WAFL to a broader social demographic. With this in mind we did not want to take money off members for gate entry until such times as we were confident our target could not be achieved for round one. We are still working on this project and believe it is a vital commercial property for us to develop and will continue to keep working towards this outcome.  In the meantime though, we have allowed for home game entry packages to be purchased alongside our memberships.

Recruiting for 2018

Some members have asked why we were unable to secure key recruits for 2018.

There was much publicity over the summer about the players West Perth were courting and make no mistake, we were extremely active in the recruitment space during the off-season. The club committed more money to recruitment this off-season than we have done for many years. We also made three trips east to court potential recruits. There were however a couple of common issues we encountered that prohibited us from being successful with many of the 30-plus players we talked with this past off-season;

1. Distance of Joondalup from the Perth CBD or potential accommodation;
2. Availability of suitable employment to include in the package.

Football Director Peter Cutler, Steve Trewhella and Senior Coach Bill Monaghan have already addressed these issues and will have a comprehensive recruiting strategy to roll out at the end of 2018.

We would like to welcome Liam Tedesco & James Finchett (both from Wanneroo FC), Mitchell Dzelebdzic (from South Fremantle FC), Fraser Foley & Daniel Del Prete (from Subiaco FC); Bailey Marriott (from Noranda FC); Bailey Ash (Scarborough FC); Sam Murphy (LA Dragons USAFL) & Nijal Eades (Nollamara FC) to the club and welcome back Keegan Knott who spent last year playing at Federals FC in the Avon League. We wish them all well for the 2018 season and hope they can make an immediate impact on our team performance.

Although recruiting is critical, equally as critical is the continued development of our local players to underpin our success. To this end we have made a few key changes to our football program in the off-season to complement our new facility and maximise the training resources available to our players.

Our strength and conditioning work is now being managed by Corey Green from the Athletics Institute. Corey and his staff have already had a significant impact on the preparation of our players and the ability of the players to access our gym facilities 24 hours a day has seen rapid advances in the conditioning of our players.

Kim Beasland joins the club as our Reserves Coach. The former military officer and East Fremantle development coach has travelled the country with his career and has coached development programs all over Australia. He is already making in-roads with player welfare and development programs and these will expand in the coming months.

Finally, we welcome back another former premiership captain in Jason Salecic as a senior assistant coach. Aside from his obvious football experience, Jason’s ability to impart his leadership skills on our next generation of players was a key reason this club favourite has returned to the club.

Season 2018 will be a year of exciting opportunities both on and off the field, but the support we get from members and supporters is critical to our success. Attending matches and club events, patronising our bar, buying merchandise and becoming a member are all ways you can support the club and our players as we look to build on the wonderful opportunity afforded us through these long-awaited facilities. Make sure you do your part to make the next phase of our history a successful one.

I look forward to seeing you at the football.

Regards

Scott Ballem

President