The Committee wish to acknowledge the support and assistance given to the Box Hill Athletic Club by numerous people, both on and off the field, during 1999-00.

Our thanks to the City of Whitehorse for their continued support, to sponsors Banksia Sports Clinic, Box Hill Central Shopping Centre and all those who made donations to the Club and particularly to Stewart Livingston, Alan Cross and Eddie Hassett who work tirelessly in maintaining the track and facilities. Also to Alan, on his recent retirement, for the tremendous amount of work he has done, over many years, looking after ground hire bookings and opening the track for hirers.

We would like to express our sincere appreciation to all of the above, to the coaches and team managers and many other behind the scene helpers.

PRESIDENT : Graeme Olden

SECRETARY : Julie Milner

TREASURER : Angela Robbie

COMMITTEE MEMBERS : Adam Pepper
                                            : Joan Hines
                                            : Dale Bickham
                                            : Colin Organ
                                            : Tom Waters

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * *

COORDINATOR OF LIFE MEMBERS : Allan Barlow OAM

AUDITOR : Jan Collyer

REGISTRAR : Angela Robbie

VENUE DELEGATE : Stewart Livingston

AV DELEGATES : Graeme Olden

: Julie Milner

: Andrew Dunner

: Angela Robbie

: Elizabeth Marshall

CLUB NEWS EDITOR : Cameron Baker

* * * * * * * * * * * *

TRACK CAPTAINS : Tim Cherry

: Georgina Connell

TEAM MANAGERS : Val Armstrong

: Chris O'Connor

: Rob Falkenberg

: Cathy Tilley

: Stewart Livingston

: Elissa Ward

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Presented at the Annual General Meeting of the Box Hill Athletic Club Incorporated, conducted at Hagenauers' Reserve, Box Hill, on Wednesday 21^st June, 2000

+ Deceased

The past year has been a mixed year for the Club, with some great successes but also some big disappointments.

Clearly the biggest thrill for the year was the success of the Women's State League team, winning the State League Final and finishing a close third in the National Club Championships. Congratulations to Val Armstrong and the team for a fantastic effort after several years of second placings and frustrations at being beaten in the final after finishing on top of the ladder.

After several years of lobbying the City of Whitehorse, we were delighted that the track was resurfaced ready for the start of the track season. We are fortunate to have developed a strong working relationship with the staff at the City of Whitehorse through the work of Eddie Hassett who has recently taken on the role of President of the Whitehorse Sports Advisory Board. As a result of our careful planning and good relationship with the Council, we were able to negotiate a 10 % contribution towards financing of the resurfacing contract. This also included a number of other works which were completed at the same time including installation of a new inside running rail and resurfacing of the pole vault runup. In addition the Council has approved the resurfacing of the long jump runup this winter which will leave us with one of the best track surfaces in suburban Melbourne.

The Club has once again had an outstanding year from a financial perspective. Despite a large expenditure on resurfacing of the track, loss of revenue from ground hire during this period and losses from a break-in and theft from the canteen, the Club managed to return a small net profit for the year. This is largely due to the diligent work by the Treasurer, Registrar and Canteen Manager, Angela Robbie who has once again dedicated a huge amount of time to the administration of the Club. We are all greatly indebted to her hard work and dedication.

It is with great sadness that I report the passing of long term Secretary and Life Member, Fred Cron in December last year. Fred was a tireless worker for the Club and was instrumental in Box Hill becoming the first suburban venue to install a red polyurethane track. His enthusiasm for the Club and the sport were an inspiration to myself during my early years at the Club, as I am sure he was to many other members of the Club.

In contrast to the success of the women's State League team, the men's team experienced their worst ever season since the Club was promoted to A grade, finishing in eleventh position and having to compete in the promotion / relegation match for the first time. Despite some frights early in the evening, the true Box Hill Club spirit showed through in the end to enable us to maintain our position in State League competition. This poor performance by the State League team reflects a gradual decrease in membership numbers and competitors over the past few years and is a great concern to the committee. Despite having some promising juniors, we have very few senior athletes competing in the throws, jumps, hurdles and walks and a lack of coaches to coach athletes in these events. This is a problem which the committee must address over the winter months to ensure that the Club returns to the top of the ladder in both men's and women's competition.

Club membership remained fairly static over the past year at just over 200, but well down on numbers from several years ago. With the Olympic Games fast approaching, the Club must make the most of this opportunity to attract new members to the Club, however we must ensure that we have facilities and coaches in place to retain them at the Club.

Another big disappointment for the Club this year was the rejection of our grant application to the State Government for upgrade of the Clubrooms, despite support from the City of Whitehorse who allocated funds for the project in their budget. We have re-submitted our application this year and are hopeful of receiving support from the government. There has been significant deterioration in the Clubrooms over the past year with several break-ins causing a lot of damage to doors and equipment so it is critical to the Club that the Clubrooms are upgraded within the coming year.

I have once again been most fortunate to have had the support of a great committee during the past year. Although the committee is small in number, the dedication and hard work by all members means that the administration remains quite strong and a lot has been achieved. However, we badly need to continue to recruit new members over the coming year to overcome some of the challenges which the Club faces in the years ahead. New committee member Adam Pepper has been a great boost, taking on a number of projects to promote the Club and win sponsorship from Sunsmart for some new shade structures around the ground. In addition, he has taken on the onerous but extremely important job of ground hire manager with the retirement of Alan Cross after many years of wonderful service. The Club has been forced to commence employing outsiders to open the ground for school hirers and put out equipment as we can no longer find volunteers with the time, dedication and enthusiasm of Alan Cross to carry out this job. With fewer volunteers coming forward to assist with general cleaning and maintenance at the ground, we are going to be forced into the situation of having to pay external parties to perform more of these tasks which is going to be a major problem for the adminstration in coming years.

Julie Milner has once again been a very efficient and industrious as secretary as well as providing great support to Angela with operation of the canteen. Colin Organ has done a great job in coordinating activities to enable the Club to achieve Active Australia status, has taken over administration of the Barlow and done a lot of work in preparing the Club for the GST. Joan Hines continues to work tirelessly to ensure efficient conduct of competition at the venue, while Tom Waters has administered supply and distribution of uniforms most efficiently. Merv Blundy has worked in the background to collate Club records.

The Club has tried to keep pace with changes in communication technology by revamping our web page and establishing our own domain name on the internet at http://www.boxhillathleticclub.org. This has enabled us to post results of competition within a week for club members to review and has meant that the club newsletter can be posted on the web page and distributed to members with e-mail access at least four or five days earlier than to those members receiving a hard copy through the mail. The web page provides a facility for storage of historical and archive material about the Club as well as Club records and ranking information and the Committee plans to continue with a program of gradually updating and publishing this information.

The Club was most fortunate to gain the sponsorship of the Box Hill Central Shopping Centre during the past year which assisted us to fund the ongoing developments at the ground. We were also fortunate to receive assistance from Ethertech with the establishment of our web page and domain name. We are extremely grateful for their support, along with that of long term sponsor, Banksia Sports Clinic. Without the support of our sponsors, we would be forced to raise our fees to cover the increasing costs of running the Club.

The Club faces a number of challenges over the coming year, however there are exciting opportunities for us to grow and prosper with the Olympic Games fast approaching and the prospect of substantial improvements to our facilities at Hagenauer's Reserve. With continued hard work, the Club is in a strong position to take advantage of the opportunities ahead.

Graeme Olden
President

SECRETARY'S REPORT

It’s hard to believe that another year has gone by so quickly. There have been many successes on the track this year both individuals and teams. But for being one competitor short in Sydney, the Women almost made a clean sweep with State League, Cup and 3^rd in the National Club Championships (only a few points seperated the top four teams all day). I would like to congratulate Val Armstrong who has worked long and hard to achieve these great results.

I would also like to congratulate Georgina Power for taking out the AV Athlete of the Year award. I believe she is the first junior athlete to receive this honour. Georgina and sprinter Tim Williams have both qualified for the World Juniors to be held in Chile later this year. Wendy Muldoon must also be congratulated on obtaining an Olympic A qualifier in the walk, unfortunately Wendy has missed selection due to the depth in her event – so near and yet so far. Brigid Isworth is another athlete knocking on the door of Olympic selection and I’m sure we will all be behind her during the trials in August.

Kerri Jorgensen ran a PB in the 1500m final at the Nationals and will also be competing at the trials in Sydney. Anna Thompson is another athlete who topped off a great season by earning a place in the World University Cross Country team and the International Ekiden Relay.

Thanks must again go to Cameron Baker for his excellent efforts with the Newsletter and to Jamie Strudley and Adam Pepper for once again organising Presentation Night.

It goes without saying, thanks to my fellow Committee members.

TREASURER’S REPORT

The 1999/2000 season has not been a profitable one for the Club as you will see from the financial statements that a mere $765.61 surplus was achieved compared to $32,364.78 last year however the Club does have an excellent new track and poles and speakers to improve the P A System.

The low surplus was due to:

• the expenditure by the club in the sum of $13,052,00 to the City of Whitehorse for the new track. A further $2,000.00 is still to be paid.
• the expenditure by the club in the sum of $4,205.00 for poles and speakers to improve the P A system.
• the cessation of the street collections
• two to three months loss of ground hire due to the new track resurfacing
• loss of canteen profits due to less canteen openings because of the closure of the track
• increased Bank charges to give club members the opportunity to pay membership fees by credit card
• the cost of having the Collex bin (large rubbish bin in the carpark at the track) emptied on a regular basis which cost was previously paid by the City of Whitehorse.
• yet another break in to the club rooms at which time canteen stock and equipment was stolen and needed to be replaced.

There were no special fund raising efforts again this year as there was no one to organise any. The club continued to rely on the canteen profits and street collections but with the cessation of the street collections and only a small profit from the canteen the Club will need to look at future fund raising if it is to contribute the promised $70,000.00 to the construction of the new clubrooms. An enthusiastic fund raising organiser is urgently needed to help in this regard.

The Club will continue to hire out the ground and realise a profit from the hirings but due to the retirement of Alan Cross who worked tirelessly and voluntarily as Ground Manager it would now appear that any new Ground Manager will have to be paid therefore decreasing the profit margin from this source of income.

Thank you to all those who have made donations to the Club, it is greatly appreciated. The 2000/2001 season will see a slight increase in membership fees due to the GST which has been placed on fees set by Athletics Victoria.

The Club this season has again been run by a small Committee which means that each Committee member has carried a huge workload. It was pleasing to have Adam Pepper as a new Committee member with new ideas and Colin Organ to keep a watchful eye on the financial statements and advise the committee when they should or should not invest their resources. I would like to thank all members of the Committee, the President Graeme Olden and Secretary Julie Milner who have all worked tirelessly for the Club throughout the season for their help and support.

Angela Robbie
Treasurer

CANTEEN REPORT

The canteen profit this season was down compared to last season and it was very disheartening to me and no doubt to all the volunteers that all the hard work that was put in only realised a profit of approximately $3,000.00.

I feel the decrease in profit was due to:

• not opening for several Saturdays in August and September for the private schools due to the track closure
• less venue meets
• less athletes and spectators at venue meets
• the failure to open the canteen on some Saturday mornings for Little Aths due to my unavailability and no one else to run the canteen
• the failure to spend the time required to purchase stock at bargain prices.

The canteen cannot operate without volunteers and I would like to thank all the ladies who volunteered their time and helped out during the season. The assistance given by you all was greatly appreciated. The roster system put in place by the Little Athletics Committee for help on Saturday mornings was again very effective and I thank those ladies for their time and help.

Thank you to Adam Pepper who purchased fruit at Box Hill market each Saturday so that fruit salad could be made and placed in containers for sale. This was a good idea but unfortunately there was not a big demand for such an item.

A special thank you to Julie Milner who has been my right hand helping on most Saturdays, giving me full support through the whole season and taking over when I could not be in attendance.

It is important that the canteen remains open during the coming season, as it is one of only two sources of profit for the Club. The running of the canteen should be shared by two people so that one person is not required to be at the club each Saturday. As I cannot continue to run the canteen each and every Saturday it will be necessary for someone to share the workload or fully take over the canteen to ensure that it continues to operate.

Angela Robbie
Canteen Manager

Well, we finally made it. After several years of being beaten by combine teams, this year we can rightfully claim to be the top club in the State.

The season got off to a great start with a convincing win in the pre season Cup competition then going on to win State league.

It was great each week to know so many of the girls were always available, Wendy Muldoon, Georgie Power, Kerri Jorgensen, Sally Ogilvy, Sandy Milner, Erica Sigmont, Jenny Marshall, Cathy Marshall, Laurisa Tourchinskaya and Anna Thompson. We were very fortunate in gaining a thrower of our own.

We were helped by the new rule which allowed athletes from metropolitan clubs to join State League teams 2^nd claim. Kelly Carvill, Simone Purvis and Claire Findlayson were a great help as were our oun junior girls, Beth Bird, Jocelyn Keage, Jess de Bruin, Sheridan Bishop, Alethe West and our second walker Kim Coltman and our string of Pole Vaulters.

To our small band of girls who tried so hard in the National Club Championships, to gain us third place, and to Cathy Tilley who was always there to give support and so all the running around, a very big thankyou.

To everyone in the club who gave us encouragement, it was all a help and with so many dedicated athletes and such strong juniors coming on, we can look forward to even greater success in the future.

Val Armstrong

Team Manager

The Box Hill Men’s state league team had a disappointing season finishing second last on the ladder and being forced to compete in the promotion/relegation match in order to hold our place in state league.

In retrospect it is not really so surprising that the team would struggle this season as a number of athletes who competed for the team in 1998/99 were unavailable this season. Richard Rancie, Daniel Allender, John Goulding, Andrew Vearing, Chris Ferreira, Leigh Miller and Ross De Valle all missed the entire season due to either injury or other commitments while second claim members Cory Prout and Matt Griffin, along with Jason Richardson competed elsewhere. Tim Cherry, Ryan Hartshorne and Julian Dwyer also missed most of the season with injuries.

On the positive side, Michael Jones continued to improve to win a number of state league 800 metre races and in the same event Simon McNamara returned to his best form after many years of struggling with injury. Marcus Tierney kept improving over 5000 metres and Tim Williams finished the season in outstanding form in the sprints.

Steven Hooker dominated the pole vault throughout the season (and fronted up for the hurdles when needed!) while Luke Yeatman was a welcome addition to the team in the 5000 metres and steeplechase, as was Trent Hartshorne in the 200m/400m.

For a number of reasons, when it came to the crunch, we were short of sprinters in the promotion/relegation match. Two juniors, James Fildes (U/18) and Lane Harrison (U/16) stepped up and competed admirably for the club. Having so many talented juniors in the club gives a great degree of optimism for the future of our state league team.

Mention should also be made of our top points scorer for the year, Andrew Wilcox. Andrew "carried" the sprint team this year competing in the 100m., 200m., 400m., as well as 4x100m and 4x400m relays. Despite some niggling injuries he missed only on round of interclub and always gave his all for the club.

The 1999/2000 season had mixed results. The brilliant success of the State League team left the Division 1 team fairly depleted with very few senior athletes competing on a regular basis at Box Hill. Most weeks it was not possible to field a relay and Winona Nettlebeck often found herself a run in the mens 4 x 400m team (she must have been desperate!).

In contrast the U18’s had a very big turn up each week, which is unusual as this age group is often down on numbers due to VCE studies etc. They went on to take out the Association Final in no uncertain terms.

The U16 team was certainly boosted by newcomer Cecilia Azcura who tried her hand at nearly every event and was even attempting to master the hammer throw. It was through her unmatched enthusiasm that Cecilia went on to take out not only the top points award for her age group, but for the overall club points aggregate. Cecilia was joined each week by Jocelyn Keage who competed consistantly every week.

U14 athlete Roslyn Moore has also been a great addition to the club this season. This speedy 13year old actually, on one occasion, managed to run the fasted 400m for the Venue on that day.

It was unfortunate the new format for junior competition, trialed and abandoned by AV during the season, created lots of confusion for athletes, parents and officials and no doubt cost some of our junior girls a chance to contest the Association Final.

Thanks to all who assisted in various ways throughout the season, especially Cathy Tilley, and I look forward to an exciting year ahead.

Elissa Ward

The Box Hill interclub senior men’s teams showed quite a bit of improvement from the previous years. As anticipated, the influx into the senior teams of past juniors helped to bolster our middle distance areas and in some cases helped to fill our sprint teams as well. In the finals our middle distance and distance teams along with our Pole vaulters proved to be the springboard on which our successes arose. The addition of some extra talented vaulters next year and some new sprinters into the senior teams is expected to strengthen our B-grade teams even further and also relieve the pressure on the C-grade team which has been constantly undermanned over the past couple of years.

I expect to see improvement in the High Jump and Long and Triple jumps in the coming years as well. This leaves us with an ageing Javelin team and no real Shot, Discus and Hammer throwers at B-grade level.

This year’s Association final at Doncaster was an absolute disgrace. The venue was poorly officiated with the final insult having Box Hill protest on a vaulting issue and being told that it was technically correct but the protest disallowed. At the end of the day we lost the final due to points that were allocated in the pole vault. If interclub athletics is ever going to stand with other sports on a professional level, it must stop playing around with subjective decisions and abide by it own rules otherwise it will stay in the "amateur world".

The usual grass roots support from our well known stalwarts was again present this year and I am always grateful for their support. Without people doubling in events, trying new events and officiating when asked, we would not have enjoyed the year just passed. I think it would be very helpful for the club to look at grooming some new managers to work with the current managers so as we have better coverage in case people are missing from time to time. This will also help give the club some depth in its management as well.

I look forward with great enthusiasm to next year and I will be working to get both of our B-grade teams into the Venue final. We have not been able to do this for over 15 years but I don’t believe we are far away.

Rob Falkenberg

Season 1999/2000

The 1999/2000 season provided some mixed results for the junior boys teams. The U18 team was the only one to participate in the Venue Final and finished as runner-up for the Box Hill Venue. The U16 and U14 teams performed well at the Venue level but as a result fo the change in format of competition for these teams, we did not focus on these teams for the Venue Finals.

The splitting off of the U16 and U14 age groups for the Junior Sunday competitions was not successful. Box Hill could not support a system that placed such additional demands on the time of athletes, parents, coaches, officials and managers and did not support the format. The system was abandoned after a number of weeks. Box Hill was not placed highly enough on the ladder to be eligible for the Association Final in either grade. Clearly a rethink of this approach is necessary.

The season’s competition revealed a promising group of young throwers, who with coaching and encouragement will most definitely be very successful in the years to come.

A number of sprinters and distance athletes also emerged to produce consistent perfirmances each round of competitoon. It is noticeable that a number of our junior athletes are finding it difficult to meet a growing range of demands on their time for both training and competition. Employment options, academic and other sporting obligations all place additional stresses on our juniors and I can see that the format of competition will need to adapt to cater for their needs in the near future.

Having said that, we do have some outstanding athletes who ar vying for selection for the Australian team for the World Junior Championships in Chile later this year. Best of luck to them.

The efforts fo a wide range of people need to be recognized – without their contributions the athletes and teams just do not happen week in and week out! The parents for their outstanding support in many ways, the coaches for their enthusiasm and never ending optimism, and, for always being there! And, the officials – without womebody to start events, to take times, to measure distances, to rake the pits, to put out the hurdles and all those other tasks that are involved in making a track and field meeting happen we would not have structured competitions.

Stewart Livingston

Team Manager

1999 WINTER REPORT

The 1999 winter season was a season of mixed performances by Box Hill teams. The number of Box Hill athletes competing fluctuated throughout the season which led to some disappointing performances by the Open men's team which finished well down the ladder at the end of the year, however the senior women's team built from a slow start to finish the season in second position overall.

The season once again started with the 5km Club Handicap race in which Marcus Tierney blitzed the course record to run 14:34 and almost win the race outright. While entrants were down slightly on the previous year, the strong field of 25 promised a successful year ahead. Many thanks to Ian Sloane for once again organising the handicaps for this event.

The cross country relays saw strong performances by the junior teams with the men's under 20 and women's under 18 teams both winning, while the Open men's team ran well to claim the bronze medal. The men's under 18 team and women's under 20 team finished second which bodes well for the future.

The remaining winter season was disappointing from a team perspective for the men's teams, with there being insufficient Box Hill runners to field a scoring team in three out of the six winter championship races. Julian Dwyer's absence for most of the year through injury greatly weakened our team, however there were some fine individual performances from Marcus Tierney to finish 15th at Flemington and Albert Park and run a fast time of 18:35 at Sandown. The Under 20 runners showed great promise for the future with Christian Ashby finishing second at Bundoora and Brimbank Park and Tim Renowden finishing third at Albert Park while Ben Bissett was not far behind.

The depth of Box Hill runners competing in the Open women's races was the best the Club has seen for many years, with two teams being filled on many occasions and a Box Hill women's team competing in the Coliban Relays for the first time. The input of Dave Bullock who stepped in to manage the women's teams during the year was largely responsible for this big improvement. Anna Thompson made a huge breakthrough during the season to have four top ten finishes including a third placing at Bendigo. This depth was highlighted by fine results at both Sandown and the Coliban Relays where the Open women's team finished second on both occasions.

There were also some outstanding performances by the junior women. Charlotte Roberts won the under 16 race at Bendigo and finished third at Brimbank Park, Jessica de Bruin finished second in the under 18 races at both Bundoora and Brimbank Park and Kate Thornton finished third in the under 16 race at Flemington. In addition, the under 18 team won both winter relays, while the under 16 team won the Sandown Road Relay. These fine performances by our junior girls indicates that the Club has the potential to develop a strong senior women's team in future years.

The winter athletes were once again most fortunate to have afternoon tea provided after each race by Ian and Megan Sloane. This hospitality is greatly appreciated by all athletes who stay back after the races to compare notes on the races for the day. Thanks also go to those members and parents who helped out with officiating and serving in the canteen on a miserable day at Bundoora Park. Without this support our teams lose points so we are indebted to the efforts of those who come along to provide support for the athletes who are competing.

1999 WINTER RESULTS