Before I get into wrapping up what has been a frantic and challenging first year in the President’s role, I’d like to call out the magnificent contribution Darren Graetz has given to the Tanunda Cricket Club in the role of President over a period of nearly 2 decades. On behalf of everyone currently involved at the Tanunda Cricket Club, and those that have been involved over this time, a huge and sincere Thank You!

We head into each cricket season with the aim of not only having as many cricketers enjoying our great game and representing Tanunda with pride each Saturday, but hoping to come home with some silverware. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be for the Tanunda Cricket Club in Season 2015/2016.

Congratulations to the A1 Reserves for making it to ‘the big dance’. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be this season, but the hunger should burn over the off season ready to hit next season head on with a view of getting your hands on the trophy the club wants more than anything, an A grade flag.

Commiserations also to the A4s on not being able to defend the title, a good effort in making the Semi Finals given the constant disruptions to our ability to put our strongest side on the park each week caused by player unavailability due to work or injury.  Hopefully 2016/2017 is when the new fancy ‘Yourtech Services’ cup will return to our club.

The Tanunda Clubhouse continued as our Major Sponsor this season, with Tundarri Sales & Service becoming a Gold Sponsor of the club. We were also privileged to have Adelaide Brighton Cement, Barossa Valley Brewing, Lynas Valley Ford, Ultimate Engineering, WFI Insurance and Ultimate Engineering as our Silver Sponsors. Overall, the community and business support of the Tanunda Cricket Club has been outstanding, with a large number of organisations on board as our sponsors beyond those listed here supporting our great club this season (refer to the sponsors page). This support makes a huge difference to our ability to continue to move forward and make improvements that will benefit for all involved in cricket in Tanunda. Thank you to all of our valued sponsors, we look forward to your support continuing into the future.

To the hard working committee at the Tanunda Cricket Club, thanks for your support (and patience with me in my first year as President, a significant learning curve). A club doesn’t run on its own, and many players would be amazed by the number of volunteer hours given behind the scenes each week to make our great club run. While all of the committee do a wonderful job, I’ll call out special mentions to Sam Cox and Melissa Roestenburg who have put in a huge effort, I’ve appreciated your support greatly, and I know the players and captains do too. Thanks also to Grocke’s for always being there whenever asked, no matter what inconvenient time it was, greatly appreciated!

The club commenced the year on a great note with the arrival of our new roller, which has made a significant impact on the quality of the turf pitches we are able to prepare each week, with this years’ pitches have had great bounce and carry. Thanks to Darren Graetz for not only sourcing this roller, but also for ensuring it’s well serviced and good to go. A game changer for the Club, and a credit to those who have worked hard over the last couple of years to raise the funds to make this possible – well done to both the Senior and Junior Committees for making this purchase possible.

After a few issues with the turf coverage on the pitch last season we enlisted the help of Justin Groves from the SACA to ensure we’d be much better placed for 2016/2017. A pitch working bee prior to the season got us off to a great start, with Jon Farley, Brett Grocke and James McMahon working with Justin and the Barossa Council to ensure we got off to a great start. A further working bee to plant turf in closer to the season start at the oval now has been worth all the effort with the pitch square looking sensational. Thanks to everyone who helped with the re-planting, your help was greatly appreciated.

With Pistol Pete stepping aside from the curators role (thanks for a great job done Pete), Darin Gladigau, Scott Gordon and Mikah Linke took over the responsibility of ensuring we had high quality turf pitches available to us on Tanunda Oval. They did an outstanding job, and I’m delighted to say that Mikah has agreed to continue in this role going forward.

We had a very interrupted season from a Tanunda Oval playing surface point of view, with only a couple of months of cricket able to be played due to the ongoing oval drainage remediation works. Those who have seen the oval during the middle of winter, for the long term benefit of all users of the oval, the drainage needed to be addressed, so we’re in a short term pain for long term gain period over the next couple of years at the oval. We’ve had excellent support from former Adelaide Oval curator Les Burdett in this process, so we know we’re getting advice from the best, he has been outstanding. The Barossa Council, Tanunda Football Club and Tanunda Cricket Club have learnt quite a deal on “what lies beneath the surface” this year, and now have a clear plan of attack on how to resolve the problems whilst minimising the impact on our ability to play a full season at Tanunda Oval going forward, well that’s the aim!

Not only did the purchase of the new roller result in better pitches at Tanunda Oval, it also allowed the old roller to head to Chateau Tanunda, which in turn allowed turf pitches to be prepared for our junior cricketers on a weekly basis. It’s outstanding to see our Under 14’s and Under 12’s now able to learn the art of turf cricket from an early age. For anyone who has been to the Chateau on a Friday Night or Saturday morning would agree it’s a truly special cricketing experience. Thanks to Chateau Tanunda for agreeing to make this possible. We look forward to continuing this arrangement for years to come.

Our relationship with Chateau Tanunda also allowed us to hold a six a side big bash for our sponsors in February. The day was a huge success, and great fun to boot! Well done to the winning team from The Clubhouse / Yourtech services. Thanks to everyone who helped make that day the day it was – a real team effort from all at the TCC to say thanks to our sponsors for their support. An important day that went as well as we could have hoped. Thanks to Tom Oliver for ending the day on a memorable note J – I trust everyone has seen the footage!

Ben Tucker arrived at our club as a player and took on the role of our club coach, looking at not just where we stand today, but also preparing for tomorrow. A challenging role in recent years at the TCC with a general lack of numbers on the training track being an issue. It was great to see a return to fielding training as part of this, with good numbers returning to training, until the old vintage bug kicked in, with Brett Grocke continuing to do a great job as our cricket training coordinator.

A focus area for the Senior Committee this season was to ensure we increased the integration of the Under 16 playing group with the senior playing group, with the Senior Committee taking on the running of this team this year. Coach Mark Hartigan’s decision for the Under 16’s to train on a Tuesday evening to coincide with senior training proved to be a real success, with many of the senior players training along the Under 16’s at this time. This was coupled with a dedication to ensure the Under 16’s were also given an opportunity to play senior cricket for Tanunda on a Saturday afternoon if they so desired. This also proved highly successful with a large number of Under 16’s representing the TCC with pride on a Saturday afternoon. Well done to Mark and his assistant Stuart Ratsch for your job with coaching our next generation of stars, and a special call out to A2 captain Kym Farley for your dedication of making our A2 side the breeding ground for our next group of A grade cricketers. We’re delighted with how this integration has gone.

Towards the end of the season we were handed our key to the TCC / Faith storage shed at Faith East. A fantastic community effort with Faith, the SACA, BGI Building Group, Hanson Concrete and Ultimate Engineering making it all possible. It’s going to make a big difference on a Saturday to just roll the trailer out of the shed at the start of the day, and to reverse it back in at the end of the day.

Congratulations to Phil Graetz on reaching the 150 game Player Life Member mark, a great bloke around the club over the years. Hopefully you can get that back sorted and add another dozen games to the tally in the 2016/2017 season.

This job is a busy one, with things throw at you from left field slightly more often than you’d hope (I truly respect how long you did this role for Darren!). There are a few others that have made a significant contribution to the TCC this year that deserve a call out….

Thanks to “Fish and Bish” for your efforts in ensuring the “IshBar” remained stocked (thanks too to you Mel) – I know the players certainly appreciate that! To Wayne Akkers, thanks for your help with everything finances this year – I’m glad we’ve got switched on folk who are good with numbers.

To Chris Collins and the Junior Committee, along with all of our volunteer junior coaches and team managers for your outstanding efforts with our 70 odd next generation of TCC cricketers – this is a hugely important part of the future of the TCC going forward. A huge thank you from all of us involved in senior cricket at Tanunda, be that as a committee member, a player or a supporter.

To our Captains, Nathan Justin, Kym Farley and Jamie Roehr. I’m sure all of us who play the game would agree that we are blessed with 3 excellent, level headed, humanistic captains who also have a terrific understanding and love for the game. You’ve all done an outstanding job, and I hope you all look to continue in these roles going forward… maybe a couple less fines for missing the deadline for scores in MyCricket the only area for us to collectively address J

To “Pommy” Tommy Oliver, Stuart Ratsch and Craig Smith – thanks for always being willing to lend a hand when it was asked, no matter what the task, or day of the week. To Fish for improving the security at our facilities post an unfortunate break-in at the end of 2015 and to Gatters for installing our new bowling machine power point… you’re rippers – cheers lads.

To Jon Farley… Pete Goers and Kym Vanstone have set the bar high when it comes to being our BBQ Chefs at the TCC. This year has seen the ‘temporarily’ retired, 300+ game, life member of our club took on this challenge, and what a great job Jon did. Jon was also happy to help behind the bar at Tanunda Oval and also to hop on a roller if that’s what was needed. Thanks for your contribution Jon, it saved Gatters and Pommy Tommy from having to worry about cooking most weeks.

To Damien and the team at JAX sports. Thanks for coming onboard as our clothing sponsor, it’s great to see everyone decked out in our new on field and off field attire. Again – thanks for being flexible, and on behalf of those Norman boys, thanks for the Trucker Caps! Another relationship we look forward to continuing into the future.

And last but not least – thanks to my patient family, Sandy, Ben and Riley. Work is busy enough as it is, let alone everything that comes with being involved with both Junior and Senior Cricket at Tanunda. Thank you is not enough, but sincerely, thank you for always being willing to give me a hand to get things done, generally involved with collecting stuff, setting something up or packing up the mess afterwards. Thanks also for putting up all the cricket related interruptions over the last 6 months.

Cheers

Swanny

President, TCC

Get back to The Clubhouse on Saturday and let’s celebrate 4 wins and support our Major Sponsor:

A4 Game versus Kapunda October 24, 2015 will now be held at Kapunda.