PRESIDENT’S WELCOME – SEASON 2025

Dear Warrandyte Junior Football Club players, families, supporters, sponsors and the wider community;

Welcome to the 2025 season!

With our Bloods cricketers winding up the summer season and the footy posts still in storage, preparations are running full steam to get ready for this year’s junior footy season.

I’m excited to introduce myself as the new President of the Warrandyte Junior Football Club. It’s an honour to take on the role. I look forward to meeting those of you I haven’t met before and working with all of you to keep our club strong, our kids fit, healthy and happy and provide a fun and friendly social outlet for the Warrandyte community.

I would also like to take the opportunity to introduce Anna Johnston as the incoming Vice President of the club and thank our outgoing President, Brad Byrnes, and Vice President, Dave Greenstreet, for their tremendous efforts in leading the club for the last couple of years – and especially for continuing on the Committee for another season (at least!). The club is in great shape and financially sound. We have quite a large Committee filled with dedicated and enthusiastic volunteers who keep the show running, always in good humour and with sleeves rolled up.

One of the Committee’s key goals is to continue to improve our programs to give coaches and players the tools they need to be their best. We’ll keep focusing on skills development, teamwork and sportsmanship, so our kids can excel on the field and grow as individuals. And the development of a pipeline of young, new players through our Auskick program remains a key focus, with a hugely successful program last season introducing Warrandyte’s littlest sport stars to Australia’s game.

But our club is more than just a place to play footy. It’s also a community where friendships are made (especially between parents) and great memories created. We want to make sure every player feels supported by the club and their team, no matter their skill level and that every family feels welcome and included. As with previous years, we’ll be organising several social events throughout the season. The events are great fun, and a terrific opportunity meet families across Warrandyte who you may not run into at school drops-offs and pick-ups. We’ll send out save the dates through the usual social channels, and I look forward to seeing as many of you there as possible.

This year we’ve entered 10 teams in the Yarra Junior Football League: girls under 12s, 14s, 16s and youth girls; and boys under 8s, 9s, 10s, 12s, 15s and youth boys. Consistent with recent years, player registration numbers have meant that in some age groups we were not able to reach the necessary size to enter a team. As mentioned above, developing our pipeline of young bloods recruits is high on the priority list and we will work to recruit and field as teams in as many age groups as possible into the future.

I would encourage everyone to share your ideas and feedback with me and our committee. I love to chat and meet new people, so please feel free to reach out at any time even if just to say hi.

Finally, a huge thank you to our coaches, volunteers, sponsors and supporters. Your dedication and generosity are what keeps our club going, and we couldn’t do it without you.

Here’s to a fantastic season of footy ahead.

Go the Bloods!!

❤️🤍❤️

Best regards,

Duncan Loydell

President, Warrandyte Junior Football Club

president@warrandytejfc.org