The President's Corner

 PRESIDENT’S REPORT   2009

Once again, our Club continued to do exceptionally well on and off the field. Rick Temelini and Linda Crane were very successful in assembling a submission to the Trillium folks that resulted in a grant of 31K. This allowed Myers to add a Varsity level program in the OVFL as we were able to procure additional equipment required.

The Flag program, managed by Gianna and Claudia continued to attract many local kids and they along with their parents experienced a very healthy and satisfying recreational activity. It’s amazing to see how capably Gianna and Claudia were able to attract so many volunteers to help coach and manage this program. The good news also must be the additional dollars this program brings to our Club to assist in the general funding of our tackle programs.

The OVFL program had a banner year with our Peewee and Junior Varsity teams making the finals in London. The Peewees captured the provincial championship in overtime to bring Myers Riders its second ever OVFL championship. The JV got off to a very difficult start but managed to briefly hold a lead till late in the 4th quarter before surrendering it to the London Falcons. The two games were outstanding to watch and our teams demonstrated not only a high skill level but exceptional sportsmanship.

The Varsity level also came very, very close to making the finals. They lost the Conference final to the Toronto Thunder, the eventual Varsity Champs. Our Varsity team was predicted to not make the playoffs nor likely to win a single game.

Ralph Siciliano was named Coach of the Year with his perfect season and several of our players were named all-stars. I also thought Matt and Max deserved similar recognition as they did outstanding work as well.

This program also did very well off the field, making record sales of signage plus good participation in the sale of the Lottery calendars. Further, we had excellent support at our gates and canteens and I believe we had our most successful financial season. A special thanks to our over worked Team Managers, Brenda and Ann.

It may be argued that our NCAFA teams did not do so well in 2009 if one compares to 2008, where all levels captured the “A” Championships. This was a first ever for NCAFA in that single Club did sweep the finals. However, 2009 was very much a successful season by any measurement. Our Club won 27 regular season games while only losing 5. All levels made the “A” round of the playoffs and I believe we should all be proud of our kids and coaches.

Once again, our volunteers including our Executive, Coaches, Team Managers are the best. The kids in our community are so very fortunate to have you folks volunteer your time. I appreciate you all for your commitment and dedication to Myers Riders. Its very gratifying to me personally to have Winnie, Linda and Sam continue to volunteer their time for all these years.

 

Sandy Ruckstuhl
President

January 25, 2010