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Dear Parents and Players
First of all, thank you to all those of you who have offered their words of support and encouragement. Our aim is to always, offer the best learning environment for all to enjoy. This detailed memo is not so much to recognize what we have achieved over the past few months but rather it is an attempt to provide all parents and players with an update regarding some of the issues that have recently surfaced and what we are actively doing to address them:
Running the program in its first year has been challenging, we have spent endless hours planning before the launch of the program; however, the learning curve continues to be a steep one for us and we continue to document our shortfalls to ensure they are addressed now and are eliminated in the future.
We pride our selves in providing clear, open and honest communication at all times. We treat our players as customers and therefore we have always intend to provide the best customer experience and our intention has been that from day one.
While we attempt to update you on the specific issues that have surfaced, we hope you can trust that these issues have not surfaced due to lack of trying but rather due to unanticipated events that occurred beyond our knowledge and control.
1. Advanced Fixtures to allow planning for travel and accommodation:
This has definitely been one area that has consumed many hours of our time, the difficulty has been the late confirmation of the AFS squads from all the different regions. i.e. from the final trial date, to sending out letter of offers, acceptance from candidates and commencement of the program all happened within two weeks.
This meant that we were not able to finalise the list of squads across all the zones in the state up until two weeks into the program.
Current Update:
Rounds 4-6 have now been completed and have been posted on our website.
Future Action Plan:
Trials for 2008/2009 season will be planned in advance, to allow sufficient time to ensure that the list of squads are finalised prior to the commencement of the program. Our aim is to provide these fixtures with the players welcome pack at the commencement of the program.
2. Condition and Availability of training grounds and facilities
This items is more relevant to the Manningham participants with regards to the limited training space during one of the sessions, Please consider this as a one of event and down to human error, when the FFV grounds were booked (in September),it was communicated to us that there will be two weeks in November where Tuesdays and Thursdays will not be available. We have therefore, decided to switch the training nights to Mondays and Wednesdays for those two weeks. Unfortunately, it was an oversight and is something we do not anticipate to re-occur.
Future Action Plan:
Booking of grounds and facilities will be completed in June 08, a full training schedule will be provided to the players at the beginning of the program to ensure any such events are well communicated in advance.
With regards to the field conditions, such as uneven surfaces, grass length and un-marked fields, all these items will be included and highlighted further in every facility contract agreements in 2008/2009 season.
3. Match Day Apparel (the parents' favourite)
It was always known to the management team that the players' apparel would be an issue and this was raised at all our parents' information sessions that were held prior to the commencement of the program. This was also communicated to all our coaching staff, but nevertheless we apologise for any miss-communication.
The situation is that every apparel supplier we approached quoted us an 8 week delivery time frame on apparel and equipment.
As you can appreciated, being a new program meant our inability to accurately forecast our numbers and uniform sizes. We were therefore unable to place any firm orders until our numbers were confirmed and some players were size profiled which was not possible until the 2nd week of October. This meant that our delivery on apparel would not arrive until the 2nd week of December.
We have however been able to negotiate a deal with a local supplier "Sports Mart" to supply the apparel in phases where we would get the training apparel at the commencement of the program, bags, hats and water bottles a few weeks later and the match day uniforms in December. This is the best we could do.
Current Update:
The playing uniforms is due to be completed on December 6th, We are desperately trying to put everything in place to ensure it is handed out to the players for round 4, we have escalated to our supplier on several occasions and we have been assured that our concerns and wishes are well noted. You can have a sneak peek at them below:
Future Action Plan:
Trials for 2008/2009 season will be completed early, anticipated date is August 08, we should be able to forecast our numbers and estimated sizes now that we have gone through the exercise once.
4. Communication with our Coaching staff:
The issue here is an internal Management/staff communication. The Australian Football Skool employed 110 coaches in a 6 weeks period. We have taken three initiatives to address this: The first is that you can contact us any time via email
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or by phone 1300 436 682(1300 4 Football), there is always someone in the office from 9-2pm Tuesday to Saturday. The other is that we are currently holding a number of information sessions for our coaches to communicate our direction and activities. You should see an improvement there. The third is that in December we will be formulating a list of frequently asked questions on the web for parents to quickly refer to them. We will also be soon launching zone specific websites which will provide you with all the information required that is specific to your zone.
5. Transport to regional areas:
Transport is provided for travel to Mildura only. The cost of the transport is paid by the AFS, however every player traveling to Mildura will incur an accommodation and meals cost of $65 per player for the overnight stay. Some questions were recently asked as to why the $65 cost was not included in the players fees and the reason for this is not every player or team will be traveling to Mildura as Mildura have limited number of teams and therefore not every player will have the opportunity to make the trip to Mildura.
6. Cost of additional training activities (i.e Futsal/Pool Recovery):
Every coach in the AFS program has been encouraged to vary the training environment and hold Pool Recovery, Futsal, Beach and gym sessions…etc, these sessions are included in your fees in terms of coaching staff delivering these sessions, however the fees does not cover you for either entry into these premises or court hire where applicable. The additional cost here is approx $3 per player for each of these sessions where hire fees applies. We understand that this is something that is familiar to most parents in the program, however a limited number of parents have raised it so we thought we should address it.
Please note that the Futsal Championship in December 15/16th is an AFS planned event and no additional cost will apply to the players for court hire.
In Summary:
We wanted to put on something special for our parents and players, who despite the teething issues experienced so far continue to be supportive and offer words of encouragement. In return and in conjunction with our sponsors, we will be offering the following to all participants as a token of our appreciation:
- A sport Mart membership for every player which entitles him/her to a 20% discount at any Sports Mart Store.
- A $50 Dinner voucher at the Lobster Cave Restaurant.
- Lobster Cave Membership card to every player, which entitles him/her to unlimited free soft drink with their meal.
- A special discounted rate from Sofia's Restaurant of $12.50 for all you can eat pizza and pasta, this will be a one of event organised by your zone manager as an end of year Christmas party in December.
We hope the information we have provided you with is to your expectation, please feel free to contact us for any general inquires or feedback, we aim to provide superior service and every feedback is appreciated to ensure our service is always at the highest level.
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