President's Message
Dear BHLAC Families,
I would like to welcome you all back to the new season of Little Athletics at Box Hill Little Athletics Centre for 2023/2024. We are thrilled to be back! I’d also like to extend a very warm welcome to all our new families and athletes joining BHLAC for the first time. We are so glad to have you with us and know you are going to love being a part of our Centre. Last season was a success on many levels. Record membership numbers with more than 400 athletes, a spike in Sunday program participation and a number of athletes selected for State and representative squads. All in all, it was so pleasing to see our Centre thrive and achieve so many great results. We have an action packed season in store for everyone this year. A full program of 13 weeks plus a number of optional events such as Box Hill Relay Day, Eastern Metro Region (EMR) Relay and Track & Field events and finally, the State events. If you include the Knox LAC Open Day in December and the Four Pillars multi event in January there are over 20 weeks of Little Athletics this season. Our final Centre program event this season will be a Championship Day. Whilst we are still working on that day and its program we are excited about being able to offer our biggest season calendar in many years. Athletics has featured prominently once again this season on a global scale. With the IAAF World Championships being held recently in Budapest, Hungary, we have the opportunity to capitalise on that interest generated and really promote our sport in the best possible way. With the IAAF Diamond League also gaining traction, our children not only get to watch regular athletics on a big scale but also can dream of one day being an athlete just like those stars. In most cases, those stars also started in Little Athletics. So the pathway to dream might just be that first step on our track this season. I would like to take this opportunity to officially welcome some new members of our Committee: Greg Rankin, Steve Sinclair, Danusha Lahde, Simon Baird, Jessica Cornish and Will Curlewis - a big thank you to all of you for stepping up and committing to our Centre. Along with our existing members, Aidan Schanssema, Rosa Deol, Aggie Sutherland, Debbie Plant, Sam Hassett and Warren Patterson, we have one of the largest committees in our region. It really is great to have so many parents willing to ensure that our athletes have the best experience possible. Last season we changed the communication strategy at BHLAC. We slowly moved away from email and newsletter communication and shifted purely to TeamApp. This allowed us to streamline our communication to all members and was a much faster way to reach you all. Being able to relay training announcements quickly, or the need to cancel an event for inclement weather is really important so we will focus more heavily on this method this season. If you are not on TeamApp already then I would strongly recommend you join up. This guarantees you will not miss out on all the news at BHLAC. I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge and welcome back our Centre sponsors: Lexus Blackburn, Smile to Go Dentistry and Robinson Gill Lawyers, which have been a big part of our Centre for a number of seasons. Thank you once again for continuing to support our Centre. We greatly appreciate your support. I am really excited to see you all back at Hagenauer Reserve this season. Dust off your shoes and get ready for loads of fun, competition and even more friendships than before! I am always keen to hear from our members, with questions and feedback always welcome. You can get in touch with me at President@boxhilllac.com.au See you at the track!! Best regards, Dean Williams President - BHLAC |