Hi everyone.

The recent break from football activity (fingers crossed the weather improves this weekend) has provided me with some downtime to put pen to paper and share a few bits and pieces with you all, in relation to progress at our wonderful club.

The club have invested £4k (with much more investment in plan for 2024 and beyond) on various pitch improvement initiatives, aimed at maintaining and enhancing.  To protect this investment, we have created a small club committee, who engage and make the final decisions with regards to whether matches should be played or not in the event of challenging weather.

Naturally, this committee works closely with coaches, ensuring we land on a sensible decision.  Of course, getting our footballers playing is of paramount importance.  We also need to ensure it is safe to do so, as well as having one eye on the future with regards to pitch protection.  It can be a difficult task to make the correct call in relation to whether a match should be played or not as I am sure you will appreciate. .

Just a little reminder, it is a club and FA rule that anyone who is involved in coaching must be DBS checked and completed the entry level ‘playmaker’ online course.  I have shared this non-negotiable with all coaches recently and it is critical that we are working within these rules.  As a club, we should pride ourselves on ensuring our young footballers are being coached and engaged in a manner befitting with the club philosophy.  If you are reading this note and you support your coach at training or on match day, please take the necessary steps to ensure you are meeting the requirements.

Linked to this is a little reminder of what behaviours we expect from parents and supporters on a matchday. We request that all parents stay behind respect barriers and that in game coaching is left to the clubs coaching staff. Whilst messages of praise and encouragement are welcomed for good play, additional coaching from the sideline can be quite confusing for the players and may conflict the message that the coaches have given.

I love this strap-line (which came courtesy of Ryan Long, one of our Under 10’s coaches).  It came as a result of an exciting partnership opportunity we are creating, which when revealed in January, really plays to this statement.

In addition, we have created a little working group whose task will be to identify further partnerships that will be mutually beneficial to all parties.  For example, having a club recognised photographer would be wonderful, providing the opportunity to capture memories on and off the pitch.  Lots of potential and I look forward to sharing more in 2024.

Another little plug for our website, which features a fairly regular flow of news articles in and around our club.  Have a little visit, if you haven’t done so already.  Any feedback would be gratefully received.

Finally, some other bits and pieces

**The club has purchased a VEO Sports Camera, which has the ability to record match footage for playback and coaching purposes.  This is available to all teams to use, of course.  Another positive step

**Saturday 9th December sees the final Greetland FC Quiz of the year.  Hosted at Greetland Community Centre, 4pm kick off with food for the youngsters at half time

**Fundraising in 2024 will be one of our key priorities.  If you would like to support the creation of fundraising ideas, then please get in touch with your coach as we are looking to pull together a group of like minded people who can support this initiative.  Money raised will be reinvested into the club and I am keen to align specific events with tangible and visible outcomes

I think that is everything.  Thank you for your support over the past 12 months.  We really are growing as a club and the future is extremely bright.  I hope you all have a wonderful festive period.

Take care.

Ian Chapman

Chairman

Greetland FC