Welcome to 2010. I hope that you all enjoyed a festive and restful holiday period.
I am sure that you are aware that it is not long to go now! Football will be back in March with trial games and I think that our draw starting on March 27 at Glenelg is one that gives us a real chance of a strong start to 2010.
You would be aware that it has been a busy summer with Baseball at Coopers Stadium, the lighting upgrade, new coaching structure and all the traditional preparation that goes into a football season.
On top of this, many of you will have seen the Eastern Courier’s coverage of the recent council meeting that committed $20,000 to develop preliminary designs for the return of a members facility at Coopers Stadium.
This commitment by the council is recorded in the minutes of the meeting as such “That the council approve the allocation of up to $20,000 for the Norwood Football Club and Returned Services League of Australia (SA Branch) to engage external consultants to provide advice on the location of the new members facility at Norwood Oval, including preliminary design advice and concepts, car parking and access costings, funding arrangements and consultation strategy”.
The club has for some time now been looking at the opportunities to return a members facility to Coopers Stadium and this has included discussions with the RSL. We took these discussions and concepts to the City of Norwood, Payneham and St Peters during the course of 2009 and now reach this point where the council will support us with the next phase of this project.
The club appreciates this move by the council and is keen to move forward with them and the RSL as soon as possible. It is hoped that this consultative work will take place in March and the project can take shape later in 2010 and of course our aim would be to have a facility that is ready for the 2011 season. It must be stated that this is a massive task but when combined with the lighting upgrade it does represent an exciting time for the ground, the club and its members.
I look forward to updating you with our progress as soon as it is possible.
Dominic Shepley