A message from FFT President Sean Collins.
Hello everybody,
This is the first of what is intended to be a regular communique from the FFT Board to our stakeholders. We have used the off season to review some of our strategies and processes and the idea for this type of communique is one of the ideas we’d like to try out. Feedback has been that while stakeholders are informed reasonably quickly about key changes by the CEO and other operational staff, the reasons as to why the Board has made such decisions is sometimes not widely understood. One of the goals with this communique is to try to address this gap and improve our communications with stakeholders.
February was a busy month in terms of meetings and engagement with key stakeholders. The month included the AGM, a very valuable wide ranging discussion with stakeholders after the AGM, two Board Meetings and a Junior Advisory Committee Meeting. We ‘re very grateful to all those who gave up their time to participate in the various meetings and provided excellent feedback.
A recent emphasis for the Board has been to complete a strategic risk review with respect to football in Tasmania and FFT as a business. The focus was very much on strategy and future progress with the Board delegating activities relating to operational risk and challenges to the FFT staff as part of their normal work.
The other major strategic priority relates to infrastructure which will be a priority in 2017. FFT will conduct an audit and review of all football infrastructure in Tasmania and this will be done in conjunction with clubs and local councils. Jim Lange and Daniel Hanna have been nominated from the Board to lead this process with the support of FFT CEO, Mike Palmer. A terms of reference will be developed and each club will be contacted individually to participate in developing a detailed picture of the current status of infrastructure and their likely needs going forward.
As part of our push to achieve better infrastructure for our sport, FFT remains committed to the development of the Cambridge precinct for youth and junior football and recent meetings have taken place with Premier Will Hodgman, Opposition leader Bryan Green and the Clarence Council General Manager, Andrew Paul, to continue to advance the project.
In regard to Women’s Super League, it was determined in October last year that we would continue with phase 2 in 2017 and to that end a deadline was provided for clubs to confirm their participation. We have eight clubs who have been approved for the competition and this will kick-off on the weekend of 17-19 March. The intention remains to grow the competition to become parallel to the men’s and to launch a Women’s NPL as early as 2018 if feasible.
Over the past few months there has been discussion with clubs regarding the future structure of youth football in Southern Tasmania. We will maintain the status quo for 2017 and participation in different levels will be determined primarily through grading of teams based on their performances on the pitch. This will include matches played at the Hobart Carnival over the weekend of 29-30 April. Our goal as football administrators is to try and run evenly matched competitions, regardless of the level the game is being played at.
Regards
Sean Collins, President, Football Federation Tasmania