Happy New Year and welcome to 2021.  Hopefully a better year than last and with a more fruitful rugby and netball season. The CFC Board have kept busy over the Christmas and New Year period and we thought it timely to update the members on a couple of key appointments that have been made.

Firstly we would like to welcome Craig Dunlea back to CFC.  Craig stepped into the recently vacated RDM role on January 18th.   

Some of our older members may remember Craig, when he played for the Club in the late 90’s early 2000’s, before heading overseas to play for Clubs in the UK including Llanelli Scarlets, Exeter Chiefs & Borders.

Craig returned to NZ and played a few times for Otago and Southland.

Settling back down in the area of Rakaia, where he grew up to raise his own family, Craig took on the role of RDO for Mid Canterbury from 2011-2014. He gave this up to purchase a pub in Rakaia but kept his hand in coaching roles including Mid Canterbury Heartland, NZ Heartland U19s and more recently Lincoln University Premiers.

Craig’s goal is to help develop and retain players and coaches across all grades and attract new players by helping make Christchurch Football Club a club where players can have fun, learn, develop and most of all have a good experience.

While initially nervous of the sizeable shoes Simon left when he departed for Australia, we were fortunate to secure the services of someone of Craig's caliber and I am sure the members will join me in making him and his family very welcome when he is in the Club.

The second key appointment recently made is that of Nic Flint who will take on a contractor role as a Business Development Manager. This role will, for the interim, be a fixed term until the end of March with the view to rolling it over to a new term should she and the Board be satisfied that there is sufficient mutual benefit to the respective parties. Nic's remit, certainly in the initial term, is to foster, develop and build relations between the Club and new and existing sponsors. It has been recognised for sometime now that this is an area that demands improvement from the Club's perspective and that our sponsors deserve better access and return for the support they give us.  

It has allowed us to bed down some key changes to how we manage our sponsor relationships and our respective team managers will have a process to follow when negotiating their own sponsorship to ensure there is a consistent and transparent approach to our sponsorship agreements. It will ensure that not only will teams benefit from sponsorships but that benefits will also flow through to the Club as a whole.

With revenue into the Club from various quarters becoming more difficult to secure each year, sponsorship and fundraising are two areas we know can be improved with some dedicated resource.

Nic's role may expand over time as she and the Board agree but for the time being the position is one that centers around business generation and revenue.

Nic has been a longtime champion of the Junior club having held numerous positions including treasurer. Her enthusiasm (as some may have witnessed at our last AGM) is second to none and she is a huge advocate of the Club as a whole.  With extensive business skills and acumen, as with Craig above, we are fortunate to have her skills working for us.

The role is not a replacement of that previously held by Tim Murdoch but some of the responsibilities that he had will now be for Nic.  We wish her every success in her endeavours.

Rugby wise, our preseason training for senior teams is well underway with good numbers in attendance at the Monday and Wednesday all in sessions.

Our Men's Sevens team who won the CRFU Sevens tournament before Christmas are heading off to Auckland next week. As local winners they were invited to attend the  NZ National Clubs 7s tournament. Each Club team that wins their Provincial Union tournament get to compete for the Middlesex County Wavell Wakefield Cup. This is the first time CFC have entered. We wish Brendan and the boys all the best next Saturday. 

There is little else to report other than to say the Joint Venture Project Steering committee has also continued to meet and work over the summer and have made some good progress with respect the the proposed development.  An update on this will be made in due course.

Regards

Mark Thompson

Chairman of the Board