The Team

AGM President’s Message – Season 2023

December 18, 2023

Hello Life members, members, past Presidents, and Committee members to the AGM of Eastern Lions Soccer Club.

This Annual General Meeting and Presidents report will cover events for season 2023.

Eastern Lions in 2023 celebrated its 60^th anniversary in 2023 and it’s something that everyone involved should be extremely proud of. Let’s get moving for a bigger and better 60 plus years. The Football Club in 2023 was home to;

Senior Men’s team (NPL2)
U21s (NPL2)
U18
U16
U15
U14
2x u14 (community teams)
U13
U12
U12 (Girls)
2x U11
2x U10
3x U9
2 x U8
1x u7

In total that was 21 teams and just over 300 Players/Members of Eastern Lions Soccer Club. Thankfully, we managed to host all our home matches on Pitch 1 & Pitch 2 throughout the season.

In 2023 the ELSC, under the guidance of Mr Trieu Hoang (Treasurer), implemented a new Point of Sale system (POS) which track more accurately sales data for the club to analyse. The data tracked, was Gate takings, canteen, bar and merchandise sales. Regarding accounting details, the club use Xero Accounting software and again, with data being entered correctly, gave us more accurate analysis on where our income was derived and distributed.

Just prior to the NPL2 and JBNPL season, the club hosted its inaugural Season Launch, to present the senior and 21s players to its club members. The night was truly a successful and most enjoyable event, and we look forward to hosting a bigger and better night again in 2024. I want to thank everyone that was involved in the organisation of the event and importantly the players. Parents and members who attended.

On the pitch, our Senior team, under the guidance of our first-year senior coach (Chris Greechan) and his assistants, Darragh Ryan and Ash Peshin finished a very credible 5^th in a hugely entertaining and competitive league. We were in the promotion hunt up until 3 weeks to go in the season.

The JBNPL teams were all competitive throughout the season and we look forward to improving on our results in 2024. We want to thank all the coaches, team managers and players for their contribution throughout 2023.

The Junior community and Mini Roos program was better than the season prior and I would like to thank the coaches, our TD (Joe Zaida) Achille Costabile. (Coordinator) Theo Georgakopoulos for organising and pushing the U12 Girls team. In 2024 we are looking for more teams and hopefully a few more Girls teams.

I’d also like to acknowledge the tragic loss of Clive Pieterse. Clive was a much loved and respected figure within the club and community in general. He served the club as a coach and for the last 5 years was our Technical Director for our JBNPL teams.

Off the pitch, the club hosted an “80s social night”, 3 School holiday training programs and an “end of season presentation for all our six NPL teams, the night was attended by 170 members. All these events were.

An opportunity to get members to socialise as one big family.
Keep the culture of the club growing and improving.
Raise money for the club.

In late July, the Coterie Group hosted our 60^th Anniversary dinner. The event attended by 180 people was an opportunity for past and present players, members, politicians, sponsors and committee to celebrate the hard work of our founding members in establishing the club we have today. Congratulations to Norm Willcocks, Nigel Ried and Rob Morrey in organising the event. In November, the Coterie Group hosted the Billy Whiteside Cup, the day once again was a success and rewarding for the Club and the Charity that the Coterie will be donating money too.

In September 2023, after continued lobbying by our committee to Council for many years, finally saw the redevelopment of Pitch 1 start. We are excited to announce that the works are running on time, and we hope by March 2024 the Contractors responsible for the work will hand it back to the City of Monash. Once that’s done the City of Monash will give the final say when we can start using the pitch for matches. We’ll keep all members updated with works in progress and you can view great drone footage on a weekly basis on our Facebook page every week.

The redevelopment will consist of:

Complete redevelopment of the Natural turf soccer pitch
Installation of new 200 lux LED lighting (to support night competition matches)
Upgraded of new PVC coated chain mesh perimeter fence
New perimeter concrete walking path
Hybrid turf surface to all high traffic areas.

The cost of the redevelopment is just over $2.2 million.

The next phase of the Redevelopment of Gardiners Creek Reserve will be the demolition of the current Northern Pavilion and build a new pavilion including.

Female friendly change rooms
Female friendly referee change rooms
First aid room
Social room
Canteen

2024 will see ELSC have its struggles financially with lost revenue through the Pitch 1 redevelopment and the need to move our senior matches to a neutral venue. We need to raise more sponsorship money and find different ways to generate new income to the club. Apart from the Committee endeavouring to tie in sponsorship, should any member be able to help, please contact me to discuss the opportunity further.

Senior Women Teams

Under the guidance of Norm Willcocks Eastern Lions is working towards a Senior Women’s and Girls team to compete in 2024. We have a coach in place and currently working with players to form a team. Norm will keep us updated on the progress of this very important and much needed team.

A huge Thank you to the following sponsors of Eastern Lions Soccer Club, your contribution and support does not go unnoticed.

Open Corp
Easi Form Drawer Systems
Thai Yim
Age Of Stone Stonemasons
Promptex
Key Insurance Brokers
Total Security Services
Ray White Mt Waverley
Piling Systems
Barber on Station
Banks Group
Elon Interiors Plastering and Partitions Contractors
Bendigo Bank Ashburton
Australian It Group
EFDA Academy

I’d like to officially thank the following people (no particular order) for their support to me and their continued dedication to Eastern Lions Soccer Club:

Alex Rusmir (Kit Manager, Committee)
Achille Costabile (Juniors Coordinator Committee)
Amanda Motoki (Secretary, Committee)
Bronson Justus (Grants, Committee)
Trieu Hoang (Treasurer, Committee
Norm Willcocks (VP)
Joe Zaida (Mini Roos TD)
Theo Georgakopoulos (pitch allocations)
All volunteers and paid staff that helped on Senior match days in 2023 and generally around the club.
All volunteer parents helping out at Junior match days

Kind Regards

Ange Stamatelos
President – Eastern Lions Soccer Club