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President's Year End Report

submitted by: Jeff Persson (Nashville, TN)

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Dear Kangaroos Fans,

It has been a privilege to lead the Nashville Kangaroos through its 13th year of operations. 2009 has seen the Nashville Kangaroos return to its roots as a club, one that is more than just a bunch of guys getting together for a kick in the park. Below is my report of how we did in 2009.

CLUB FINANCES
We are in the black for the fourth consecutive year, with around $21,000 in revenue and the a little over $20,000 in expense. Our current cash balance is about $6,000, spread across our three operating units (footy, netball, and golf) and our administrative account. We have no debt. As we head into 2010 with sufficient operating cash, we are looking to expand our cultural programs, improve the football and netball programs, and if all goes well, we may be adding women's footy as well.

SPONSORSHIP
Our sponsorship declined from 2008, primarily due to the overall economic conditions that forced all companies to reconsider sponsorship funding. However, because of the circumstances, we proudly say, "Good on ya, Mate" to the following sponsors who stepped up to the plate for us. Sponsorship is our life blood and I will continue to dedicate myself to exceeding both the number of sponsors and the total sponsorship dollars in 2010.

NETBALL
The Netball club greatly exceeded expectations this year. We increased the number of paid players to 10 and casual players to 12, a total of 22, our biggest squad ever. The Netball Committee is now a full group and includes president Moreen Logsdon, Vice President Rachel Charlize, Secretary/Treasurer Alan Denton, Events Director Bina Patel, and Marketing/Development Director Dee Patel.

With the core of dedicated players who worked hard off the court, we ran two competitions, a Winter League and a Summer League, each of which had two full teams competing in a seven game season with a grand final. And the travelling team place third of six teams at the AGAPE tournament in the spring. We are planning on three to four local teams in the 2010 Nashville Kangaroos Netball League plus travel to several tournaments.

The Netball team represented Australia and New Zealand at the Festival of the Nations at the 2009 Tennessee State Fair where we gained significant exposure to the Nashville community.

Moreen Logsdon continues to lead our efforts here at the same time as working to grow Netball America, which will promote the sport even more and allow the US to get national teams sent overseas.

FOOTBALL
And of course our footy team had another winning season. The year turned out to be a real up and down roller coaster ride, with strong wins against Baton Rouge, Minnesota, and Atlanta, and on the other end, losses to Florida, Chicago, and Atlanta. The season closed with a 1-2 record at the USFooty National Championships, and all three matches were tightly contested affairs. The final tally was 7-6, the sixth consecutive winning season.

Our player roster was bolstered by fourteen this year, ten of whom competed at nationals. We picked up a real Aussie-gun in Matt Langley and an all around club man in Neil Cumming. As for new Americans, we are incredibly fortunate to have the likes of Justin White, Cliff Cosnahan, Tim Kleman, Daniell Liepply, Val Revin, Ryan Stringfellow, Dave Ackley, Todd Haralson, and Aaron Rummage all pulling on the jumper with the Tennessee Roo this year. In fact, our roster had no less than 36 players this season, breaking last year's record of 34. For the fourth consecutive year, we had a Rooboy play in his 100th game as a Kangaroo: Evan Ling!

MEMBERSHIP
Our membership has grown by leaps and bounds in 2009. We had 36 footy players and 22 netball players. We also had 59 Members including 8 International Members and 10 KangaKids, bringing our active membership to 100, exactly our goal for the year.

CULTURAL EVENTS
Our cultural events also grew this year. We sponsored the Nashville Zoo 5K Run (and found Daniell Liepply who then became a player) and celebrated Australia Day in January. We continued with our traditional Jersey Presentation Night in March and another great Allyson Todd Memorial Golf Tournament in June in which we raised over $5,000 for local charities! The footy and netball teams took a weekend off for our second Picnic at the Lake in July. Due to scheduling we missed out on the Mayor's First Day Festival in August, but look for that to happen in 2010. September was truly great with the Festival of the Nations at the Tennessee State Fair and of course our always fabulous Grand Final Party with over 100 attendees. We closed out the playing seasons with the Year End Awards Banquet and Silent Auction in October and the last official function, our third annual Holiday Party, will close out 2009. We have a few more events on tap for 2010. What a great year it will be.

INTERNET
Our new website is now in its third year. We continue to see over 1000 unique visitors every month; 100,000 pages viewed; and 500,000 hits. Thanks to Jesse Wells for running our Nashville Kangaroos Fan Club on Facebook which is now at over 400 fans from around the world and to Alex Benjamin for his broadcasts on Justin.tv which has had almost 75,000 views in 18 months of operations.

Our site's key additions this year were the football Team History and Records. Who is the all time games played leader? Now you can look it up. What was our record in 2002? It is there in full detail. What is our all-time record against Atlanta? No problem. Check it out and if you played for the Roos, be sure to drop the Webmaster a note and get your game credits.

We still have plenty on the way too: we are looking to reopen our online shopping cart for Nashville merchandise and importantly, we will be looking to bring all of our archives to the new site (we have them, we just need some volunteer time to make it happen). We have plenty of plans to grow our media presence in 2009!

VOLUNTEERS
At the board level, thank you to Evan Ling, Nick Parker, Travis Quigley, Marty Thompson, Mike Todd, and Grant White for their service this year. Their commitment to making the Kangaroos a better club is self evident by the success we saw on and off the footy field and netball court in 2009. This club would not function without the efforts of many others whom I have not had a chance to name specifically, including all the football and netball umpires and officials who made games possible; our dedicated fans coming out to our games and functions; the wives, girl friends, husbands, boy friends, and family members for supporting our "habits", and especially our broader fan base that today reaches around the globe. It is this kind of selfless dedication that makes this club great.

As we enjoy our celebration of a successful 2009, take pride in what we have accomplished both individually and collectively. The Nashville Kangaroos is a special group, a second family to many of us, myself included. Thank you all for making 2009 great. Let�s see what we can accomplish in 2010!

Cheers

Jeffrey Persson
President
Nashville Kangaroos, Inc.