Your Club Update June 2024

Our Club continues to move forward... Last week we held our ninth Board meeting in Launceston, with the Board working through a packed agenda.

Our agenda covered a range of matters, all focused on delivering the elements that will shape our Club's foundations. I am pleased to report that we are continuing to make positive progress in all areas.  There are a few specific areas that I would like to update you all on:

Membership Update

We are nearing the 200,000 member milestone, to help us get there we ask you all to encourage family, friends, colleagues or customers to join up and be a part of our journey.  We are thrilled to have such a broad and diverse membership base and we trust that you will all be excited to keep your Tasmania Devil Founding Membership status for life.  

In the coming weeks we will be releasing a brand new merchandise program, please keep an eye on our communications to stay updated.  All our products are exclusive to members and many of the items are limited in numbers so we encourage you to get in quickly.

We have had tremendous feedback from our Foundation Jumper sale, with over 16,000 jumpers now being shipped, we are loving seeing 'mappus mappus' pop up all over the world.  We have had a lot of feedback from Founding Members about another Foundation Jumper sale, and we can confirm that we have listened, and they will be available for purchase again a little later in the year.  Keep an eye on our communications to get more information on when and how to purchase.

Training and Administration Facility

Our Training and Administration Facility is a critical development for our Club and we are working hard to ensure it is ready for when we are welcoming players to our Club.  The Facility will boast state of the art facilities for our team and house up to 150 staff members as we approach 2028, it will also be a place that will welcome the community in for programs and services that are relevant to them.  

In terms of the current status of the Training and Administration Facility, we can update you as follows:

• The State Government on behalf of the Tasmanian Football Club is the developer of the Training and Administration Facility.
• Late in 2023 the Tasmanian government announced Rosny as the preferred site for the Facility.  
• The final two locations that were considered for the Facility were Kingborough Council municipality at Twin Ovals and Clarence City Council at Rosny, both sites were deemed suitable, but Rosny was deemed to be the preferred site subject to further due diligence.
• Within the City of Clarence precinct, Rosny was deemed the only suitable site for the Facility in the area, this is still the case today. The Clarence City Council are working tirelessly to progress this opportunity with the Government and the TFC.
• Within the Rosny site there have always been multiple options for the location of the Facility. The Club's preferred location is the one where the entire Training and Administration Facility would be housed on the site of the former Rosny Golf Club.
• As noted, at the time of the preferred site announcement, more work would be required to assess the land area to fully understand risks and challenges within the site.  This investigative work is continuing today.  
• It is the Club’s hope that it will have a sufficiently complete picture on all these risks in the coming weeks to have a more definitive view on the suitability of the Rosny site.
• It’s also important to note that the Kingborough Twin Ovals option remains under consideration whilst we are completing our investigative work.

We are passionate about this Facility being the best it can be for our on-field and off-field teams, but also ensuring the facility represents Tasmania Devils and Tasmanians in a way that makes them proud and provides opportunity for Tasmanians all over the State to visit and experience.  Of course, all of our Founding Members will have their names displayed in the facility as we committed (we are still trying to work out how we get all of your names displayed given how many Founding Members that we now have!).

Other news 

Since our last Board update, we have announced the appointment of our inaugural CEO, Brendon Gale.  We trust members are excited about this announcement, and like us, look forward to Brendon's commencement in early 2025.

I also want to acknowledge the great performances of our Coates League boys and girls teams, it is so wonderful seeing such an exceptional group of young athletes performing so well - well done to all of the athletes, support staff and parents and carers contributing to the great progress of both teams.

In this next month we are excited to see Auskickers across Tasmania receive their Tasmania Devils t-shirts, our 12-15 year old Talent Academy's across the state progress forward and of course our men's and women's State teams play in their matches against Queensland in June and Canberra/Sydney in July.

Thank you all for your ongoing support of your Club, we are really confident with the progress that we are making, and we are working through the priorities ahead of us in a considered way.  

We feel very privileged to be steering this organisation that we know is so important to so many - your enthusiasm, engagement and passion the Club is palpable, and we thank you all for that.

Go Devils.

Grant