Hello Folks,
By now we’re all well into lockdown – again. It’s obviously disappointing to be in this situation, but hopefully everyone is staying well and hopefully you’re all back playing very soon.
In answer to some questions I’ve received, at this stage the AFL hasn’t announced plans for next weekend (ie 10th of July), or whether there might be any make-up games on the 17th of July for teams that have a bye scheduled for that weekend. I expect there could be information about those things during this week.
We’ve also been asked questions about the status of our upcoming events – Back to Bears Day and the Red & Black Ball. At this stage there are no changes to plans for these events, but that’s obviously subject to what happens over the next week. We’ve had relatively few opportunities to come together as a club over the past few years, due to Covid and also the ground redevelopment, so it would be fantastic to really make the most of Back to Bears and the Ball this year. Fingers crossed and we’ll keep you posted.
As might be expected, we are suffering a loss of income from the lockdown and from Covid generally, but unlike last year, we haven’t yet been able to secure any cost reductions to offset this. In fact ground hire costs are up about 20%. So with income down and costs up, it is vitally important now for players who haven’t paid their registration fees yet to get those in, to help make sure we get through another disrupted year as best we can.
These are challenging times for sure, but as we’ve done during the disruption of the ground redevelopment and now in Covid times, we need to work on turning negatives into positives. It’s also important that if any of you need help at a personal level, please reach out and we’ll do the best we can to help.
See you all soon.
John Goode – President
