Page 6 - AFL Queensland 2014 in Review

Twenty-fourteen was a big year within the Infrastructure Planning unit, with a number of structural changes and new projects keeping us busy.
Nationally, we hosted the AFL Facilities Conference at Yeronga and Burpengary, exposing facilities staff from interstate to some of our key precincts. The two-day summit canvassed the facilities challenges that many local clubs are facing across Australia and allowed us to share best-practice innovations and new designs to further improve our grassroots football facilities.
Locally, we became the first state sporting organisation in Queensland to roll out a state-wide facility audit of all our football precincts. This new Football Facilities Audit benchmarks club facilities so that every community club understands where their facilities stand in comparison with other
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INFRASTRUCTURE & PLANNING
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clubs in their league and other leagues and allows our stakeholder network
to compare average facility provision across leagues and regions. In 2015,
we will incorporate the few stand-alone junior facilities that are yet to be audited. This will ensure that all clubs in Queensland and the Northern Rivers have access to independent and transparent ratings of their facilities, along with specific recommendations for precinct improvements.
Supporting the roll-out of our Football Facilities Audit was the release
of the AFL Queensland Facilities Plan 2014-2020. Again, we are the first state sporting organisation in Queensland to publish such a plan, which explains our new document hierarchy, the strategic challenges that we face in improving the community facility network, outlines our facility planning principles and specifies the support that AFL Queensland will offer clubs, leagues, schools and councils to develop their facilities. The plan also describes the improvements that players, volunteers, officials and other stakeholders should expect to see at a local level as the strategies are rolled out. Copies of the plan can be obtained via our website or by contacting our office.
A number of clubs completed new facilities in 2014. New change rooms and player amenities were opened at Northern Beaches in Mackay, Pacific Pines and Ormeau on the Gold Coast and Park Ridge and Sherwood in Brisbane. More than a dozen clubs state-wide upgraded their oval lighting and 11
new ovals were constructed or secured at locations including Wynnum, Toowoomba, Byron Bay and Harrup Park in Mackay. These projects were in addition to dozens of minor facilities upgrades across the state, ranging from goal netting installation to new scoreboards and solar panel installations.
A lot of effort was invested into lobbying the Queensland Government for funding and 14 clubs successfully secured Get Playing grant funding, with several receiving support from the new Get Playing Plus program. This will mean the commencement of a number of projects of state significance
in 2015, including the reconstruction of the AFL hub at Zillmere, total renewal of Palm Beach Currumbin and Wilston Grange change facilities, new amenities for AFL Cape York House, plus new green-field projects at Brendale in northern Brisbane and Townsville’s North Shore community. New ovals will also enable a number of junior clubs to be formed or expand in South East Queensland.
With state elections to be held in Queensland and NSW in 2015 we hope that more funding will become available to further realise our facilities strategy. Clubs are encouraged to engage with their local members of parliament and councillors to highlight their facilities needs and request funding support.