While the concept of staying safe has taken on a confronting new Covid-centric context in the past 18 months, a WorkSafe Club Safety Fund that dates back to 2006 has never been more welcome than in these challenging current times for community sport.
This year’s 11 WorkSafe Fund recipients from among 31 applicants extend across the length of regional Victoria, from Traralgon in the east to tiny Tyrendarra in the far west, and from Horsham in the dusty Wimmera to Woori Yallock in the Yarra Ranges.
Three of the eligible football/netball clubs - Gisborne, plus fellow Bendigo League duo Kangaroo Flat and Sandhurst - received the maximum $1500 available for a variety of projects, while Swifts Creek was granted $432 for first aid kits.
The latter is a perennial need on a list of regularly requested items that includes defibrillators for cardiac emergencies, cordless leaf blowers to help volunteers clear courts, portable marquees for shelter from the elements, new goal posts and - as part of a separate $11,000 WorkSafe allocation - padding for existing ones.
A more recent essential: Covid cleaning materials, which have added another layer to costs as, simultaneously and often drastically, revenues decline.
“So any little bit that we can get from different sources is a big help,’’ says Gisborne Football Netball Club secretary Mandy Dimasi, who estimates the income loss this season has reached the tens of thousands. Think gate, canteen and bar takings, functions and sponsorship from local businesses also hurting. Badly.
Which is where the WorkSafe Club Safety Fund has been so gratefully received, with its objective to provide financial support at a local level to assist with occupational health and safety initiatives.
For Gisborne, that meant adding to what was achieved last year in what Dimasi describes ruefully as “the longest pre-season ever known to football/netball clubs”.
Back then, the winter shutdown was used to build a second netball court through the sweat, toil and generosity of club members, as well as accessing a state government grant combined with local council support to construct a dedicated and long-overdue female-friendly change facility to replace the existing tin shed.
The WorkSafe Fund has helped with the next stage: installing fencing and bollards to protect the netballers and their much-improved home from the constant stream of traffic on the internal service road; one that encircles the Gisborne football ground and abuts the netball area, from which balls roll free and players would inevitably follow.
The caveat: clubs are required to demonstrate a 50 per cent co-contribution of the total project cost, and Dimasi says the full amount for the fencing and bollards is well over $4000. But, as is acknowledged, every cent helps.
“I don’t even know who thought of it, but it was a jolly good idea,’’ laughs Dimasi of the WorkSafe application. “Look, I don’t know that anyone really thought that we’d have any success, but there you go.’’
Netball Victoria’s Northern Region Manager Pam Ferrari is a strong advocate for the program, which has distributed over $150,000 to more than 280 local football and netball clubs through funding and assistance dedicated to the health, safety and wellbeing of regional communities.
“It’s just a terrific partnership between Netball Vic and WorkSafe,’’ says Ferrari. “It provides WorkSafe with a way of getting their message out to our clubs - specifically our country clubs - but it also helps our clubs with funding for things that it’s not always easy for them to find.’’
Especially now, as financial realities bite. Community sport in regional Victoria may be scheduled to resume - without crowds - this weekend, but what has been a vastly improved season compared with the 2020 wipeout has still been interrupted multiple times.
“A lot of our clubs are struggling, and especially at the moment where they can’t have crowds; when there’s no gate, they are hit two ways because they can’t have functions as they normally would,’’ says Ferrari.
“And at a lot of smaller places, the local pub might have been the club sponsor. Well, the local pub now doesn’t have those sorts of funds, so they have lost a number of sponsors, and a number of sponsors have probably lost their livelihoods as well, due to Covid. So they are doing it fairly tough.’’
