Okay so I'm sure you're keen to hear about this sporting facility now that I've mentioned it. Len Atkins (Life Member) advised the Board that the ICA Sporting facility in Salisbury was up for sale and that we should investigate it. The facility had been on the market for about 12 months and the price had reduced significantly to around $2 million. The Board members went to inspect the site and discuss the options. The site itself is a bit run down and would have to be re-developed for a squash or multi-function sporting facility. The real questions we had to consider were: can we afford it? Is it a good investment? And does this fit with the strategic plan?
In order to answer these questions the Board members and Squash SA staff including our Auditor Rod Shearing went away and performed analysis on our cash flow, loan servicing repayments and our ability to still implement other initiatives that are part of the Strategic Plan. The results showed that we don't have the capacity to service the loan for ICA and still implement our 2010 strategic plan actions like hiring squash Development Officers and upgrading the Racquets carpark. It would financially tie us up for 10 years so we would be putting all our eggs in one basket instead of being able to invest in the creation of multiple set of courts around SA by joining in with multi-function sporting facility projects. We decided that building more courts in population hubs around SA is better than building one mega-facility. I know this may be disappointing to some but think about this - if we can successfully get government grants to help us with the building of new squash courts in the multi-function facilities we may be able to support as many as 2 new sets of 6-courts built every year. Imagine how many new courts we will have in 5 years!
Okay so next we had the presentations from the new staff at Squash SA. They have put their heads together and come up with a 6-month strategy that they want to implement going forward. Here are some of the main points from their presentations:
Jane Intini - Marketing Manager
- Upgrade the font on the logo to make have more youth appeal
- Get into Social Networking in a big way eg. Facebook, Twitter
- Upgrade the website so its fun, interactive, up to date, uses podcasting, court booking online, members only pages.
- Raise the profile of squash: create heroes, get corporate sponsors, re-engage with the media.
- Refine our brand and brand everything
- Ideas: Exhibition matches to show off our SAAS players, put inflatable courts in unusual public places to attract attention, prize money for junior events.
Patti Wilson - Membership Manager
- Re-establish relationships with clubs
- Improve standards of clubs - affiliation standards
- Create Member Benefits Scheme - develop reasons to become a member, what we have to offer.
John Cranwell - Pathways Manager
- Formalise and initiate agreements with focus schools/clubs - targeted squash programs
- Review schools program - evaluate current programs with participants, research why kids do/don't transition to senior squash.
- Build Junior Club Programs - assist the clubs, develop a pool of coaches.
- Focus on grass-roots participation and retention.
- Pathways Planning Workshop
Tanya Virgens - Competition and Administration Manager
Will Gray - Pennant Registrar
- Allow individual players to nominate for pennant instead of in a team.
- Review the length of the pennant - consider shorter seasons.
- Improve communications with players: email, website, social media
- Matrix - the new system is coming soon, players can update their own information and nominate for pennant and tournaments online, increase "in-house" competitions on the matrix, amalgamate junior and senior rankings.
As you can see the new staff are full of great ideas and are very motivated. This is going to be start of a new era of squash in SA. I can't wait!
Other Items:
- Mark Goldstone (President) will be attending the National President's Dinner for Squash Oz in June.
- The Board has resolved to make itself more visible and approachable by attending as many squash events as possible.
- It was proposed that Grant Norman perform a 2-month contract to research and create a country development strategy that will address the needs and challenges faced by country squash.
- Expression of Interest for the Development Officers will be out very soon.
