President’s Report Season 2014 – 2015

Stealers Summer season 2014 / 15 was a great success. Celebrating not only our 37th year as a Baseball & Softball club but also the ‘turning on of the lights’ @ Jubilee, officiated by Mayor Anderson from KMC.

Junior numbers were up at 252 players, Senior numbers were down to 130 players, W14 up to 65 players & Softball numbers are 81 players.Total = 528 players. This is steady with last year

Having had our first full season of games at Jubilee after the re development, the 3 new diamonds are playing well and still looking fantastic after a long summer. Thanks to Adrian and Damian for all their hard work.

Our Junior presentation day was held late March and all who attended were impressed with how spectacular diamond 1 looked on the day when we played the Presidents Cup, our traditional farewell game to the leaving U16 players – this year the game was won by the Presidents team.

Pre-season & in season junior development training sessions were a success and will be planned again for next year and we hold our first winter 8 week coaching and competition for LL & LL Jnr players.

Revenue was up in café Stealers despite having only 2 gala days this year. Thankyou to Eastern Rd Butchers, IGA St Ives, East Wahroonga bakery and Danes coffee for their continued support and to all the parents who assisted with their BBQ duty on a Saturday morning.

With $50,000 still to be spent on upgrading our batting cages ready for summer 2015, providing a covered area with lights for night practice including a motorised pitching machine, Stealers is in a very good position going forward.

We held our 1st Christmas raffle, raising $5000 for our 2nd storey – a BIG Thankyou to all players and parents for your support.

5 year plan achievements for 2014
Conduct baseball development programmes for juniors and coaches pre season & in season, Jubilee in season ground maintenance completed, financing of batting tunnel up grade achieved and Stealers Baseball Facebook page up & running.

5 Year plan goals for this year
Form a summer softball senior team, form a masters softball team, develop a succession plan, develop a 12 month ground utilisation plan and review our club structure.

Challenges for the future
# improve the playing standard of all juniors # improve our coaching of the coaches # focus on driving sponsorship and alternative revenue bases # maintain our focus on providing a pathway for all players to improve their baseball standard so they can achieve the highest level of success possible.

Vision for the future remains the same
– to watch a night game of baseball from the second storey of our clubhouse

Thankyou to Rob Scott – Treasurer and Stuart Quirk – Secretary for managing the financial and correspondence parts of the club.
To my 3 VP’s
Thankyou to Adrian Steer – juniors baseball, Mark Radovic – seniors baseball and Evelyn Pettit and of late Stephanie Koehn – softball
Each has done a fantastic job running and managing the day to day issues that arise when managing so many teams and players.
To Stephanie Koehn – registrar, a great job keeping track of all our players
To Guy Jeffrey – Head Coach, who has done a great job coaching the seniors and was awarded the ‘Club Person of the Year’ award
To Rob Scott – Umpire Co-Ordinator, who managed the ‘Junior Blues’ programme with Adrian Steer
To Damian Kunce for continuing to push council to get the batting tunnels completed and for your tireless efforts maintaining our grounds.

To all the coaches, managers, scorers and umpires who assisted throughout the year, Thankyou for without you the kids do not get to play ball.

Every year there are 3 awards which maybe handed out where applicable – the J.V.G award for coaching excellence and sportsmanship, the Life member award for service and commitment to the club and the ‘Club Person of the Year’ award for outstanding commitment to ensuring Stealers runs smoothly.

Guy Jeffrey was awarded the ‘Club Person of the Year’ for his tireless efforts in coaching the seniors on every Tuesday night and assisting with the web master role.
No nominations were received for either the JVG or Life Member award.

We remain a great club striving to be better.

Thankyou,
Chris Rainnie, President.