What does the CBVA Board do?Many of you often say (in a nice way), ‘I have no idea what you do as a Board member’. This 2023/24 season, a lot of effort has been spent to improve how we’re organised to lay out some strong foundations for the future. Filling sub-committee positions last year has taken more of the operational needs of the Club off our hands, which has now given us more headspace to think and plan ahead.We took a short break and some time away to disconnect, and return refreshed as the summer season and membership year comes to a close. The end of the summer season means preparation and planning for next season starts to ramp up, while still having involvement coordinating events like the recent King and Queen of the Beach tournament and Randwick Pride.Here’s some insight into what has been happening in the first 6 weeks of 2024.Randwick Council – We met with a representative from Randwick City Council to introduce ourselves and the Club, and discuss court usage on Coogee Beach. It was an opportunity for us to build this key relationship, begin to understand how best to approach our upcoming lease renewal due this June, and to learn how we can better work with RCC to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes.Tournaments – We have welcomed Chantal as our Tournaments sub-committee lead, and she’s proposed a tournament plan for the season ahead. Having a plan for tournaments of various formats provides us with enough time to support the organisation of court usage requirements, prizes, equipment and uniforms where necessary.Budgeting for 2024/25 – We’ve also been budgeting for next season across all areas of the Club – a huge thanks to Blake for coordinating and compiling. The budgeting process gives us the opportunity to be aspirational about what we want to achieve next season.Purpose, vision and values – We’ve had this topic open for a number of months, progressively sharing our thoughts and ideas on what these mean to us. Recently we’ve started to refine these ideas to re-define the Club’s purpose statement, vision and values, which we will socialise with you soon.Website update – We’ve spent time working with Nicole, one of our incredible sub-committee volunteers, on revisiting all aspects of the website, and how we expect users to interact with it. In doing so, we’re re-launching the website with a design that is more intuitive for new and returning users, and will make updates quicker and easier. We are also planning to launch the web store (it’s coming, we promise) together with the updated website.Junior Program – We’ve spent time with Arnaud, our Junior Program lead, to get a deeper understanding of our Junior athletes needs and aspirations and how to better support them. As our Junior Program continues to grow, we are aiming to provide more structure, opportunities to play and train and development for coaches. The Junior Program continues thanks to the support of Avion (who featured us in a blog recently: Link: Avion continues support for beach volleyball).There’s always more to do and improve, and we do appreciate the feedback and suggestions that we receive.Coogee Digger Grant Funding SuccessWe’re pleased to announce Coogee Diggers have committed to supporting CBVA for a second year through a $5,000 community grant for the 2024/25 season. Our team of sub-committee members helped to coordinate a response to Coogee Diggers with Ann drafting the grant response template, while Mully and Nicole provided us with their inputs on where the funding could be allocated.We have proposed to spend the funds on producing new shade sails for all courts, new ball barriers between courts for tournament days, and a significant design and technology upgrade of the website.If you would like to find out more about Coogee Diggers and their membership and gym offerings, please have a look at the Coogee Digger websiteRandwick PrideCoogee’s Mardi Gras Angels would like to thank you for showing up, helping decorate, and bringing great energy to kick off of Mardi Gras. Our friends at Freezone volleyball had a wonderful time – Diving on indoor volleyball courts is a whole lot different to sand.If you missed out, we look forward to having you next year – happy pride! Volleyball NSW Beach Volleyball TourLast weekend was the final round of the 2023/24 NSW Beach Volleyball Tour. The Tour was made up of 7 rounds over approximately 5 months, so it was an intense period of competition (when you consider other tournaments going on at the same time). CBVA was well represented at all of these tournaments.Congratulations to the following CBVA members who placed inside the Top 10 of their respective gender divisions: Chantal Tung, Alice Chen, Michaela Levy, Anja Gudbrandsen, Yulia Tkachenko, Anna Dahmen, Gareth Mann, and Thomas Romo. Special shout out to Pancho for seeing the organisation of the Tour through to the end. Upcoming eventsVNSW Youth Beach Series Coogee Round – Saturday, March 2ndOur CBVA Juniors are back in action at Coogee on Saturday, March 2nd. This is the last tournament of the series for this season, so support from Club members would be great to see. The Juniors are getting ready to represent NSW and Coogee at the Australian Youth Beach Volleyball Championships in Coolangatta from the 18th-21st of March.Clean Up Australia Day with Plastic Free Coogee – Sunday, March 3rdWe’ve been invited to join Plastic Free Coogee and the Coogee Run Club to clean up our beloved beach. Last year we had a small and enthusiastic group of members participate and it would be wonderful to have an even bigger presence for this event. We’ll be there with gloves on, led by our man most passionate about a clean environment, Loz. We’re very proud to see our members support these community initiatives while wearing CBVA apparel. Attending these events is a great way for us to grow our presence in the community and extend our relationships with other local organisations. Thanks for taking the time to read our update! Until next time, ciao ciao <3Loz, Alessia, Calvin, and BlakeCBVA acknowledges the Bidjigal and Gadigal Clans, who traditionally occupied the Coogee area of the Sydney coast, and pays respects to Elders past and present.
