Please allow me to welcome everyone to our Annual General Meeting.
I will start off this Presidential Address by quoting an old Croatian Saying…Ko radi taj grijesi….he who works also makes mistakes.
In 2014 the Mississauga Croatia executive did a lot of work and I know we made some mistakes too….so….in the name of all of the members of the Executive I start off this address by apologizing for any mistakes that we made.
While we may have made some mistakes,I believe that we achieved many great things
In 2014 Our club grew in more ways than one, we achieved some great things and as we look to the future we can say – more great things lie ahead..
To begin my report, I begin with our house league program. Those who know our history know that the house league program is our foundation.This year we had another successful house league season in the Father Kamber park. We attracted a record number of kids to join. Kudos to Ante Tony Pavelic who was the House League director this year. Running the house league is not an easy job at all. He was the front man for dealing with all issues – parents complaints, special requests etc etc. He could not do it without the help of his house league committee that included Rick Baric ( who was our house league field manager – untiring in his responsibilities for the fields), Anthony Toric ( who was our House League Registrar – ready to help out in scheduling and all other aspects of the house league) and Dave Tonkovic ( our House League uniforms manager – who likewise is always working in some way for the club).
For over 4 years now our house league program has started off young soccer players using the first touch concepts originated by our very own technical director Katie Bond. It was great to see parents bringing their kids to our club because they heard that we had a positive and proven program to start off young soccer players. The best advertising is word of mouth and we saw the power of that advertising in the U5 and U6 registrations
In 2014 we ran our 3rd Mississauga Croatia summer school thanks to the good work done by Ivica Milkovic our House League summer school manager. When we first rolled out this program we were one of the first. In 2014 we had a lot more competition but Ivica and the team that worked with him still pulled off a solid summer school. In 2015 I am sure that we will improve on our 2014 result.
For those that are unaware, the house league program is partially paid for by our sponsors. This year we had a record number of sponsorships. This is thanks to the good work done by Harvey Tokic our Director of Fundraising and the 2014 Mississauga Croatia Executive. The sponsors were not just recognized in 2014 with the traditional logo on house league shirts and a plaque. In 2014 they got that and they also received a 2 new forms of recognition. All sponsors were also recognized on our website for the first time, We had a dedicated page for our sponsors and allowed people surfing our site to click and visit our sponsors sites. In addition we created a set of Mississauga Croatia flags – to be used at tournaments to identify our teams – that also proudly listed our major sponsors. These flags are now available to our traveling teams going forward.
Since I mentioned our website – I most take a moment and recognize our Communications Director Josip Mesic. This is one of the toughest jobs in our club. Working on the website is a never ending assignment. In 2014 I can say with some pride that our website was more than simply a posting board. It became a site that was updated regularly. It allowed our club to communicate directly with our members, post notices, post news of victories, post updates. Thank you to Josip.
Since I mention the website and Josip Mesic this is a great opportunity to now recognize and thank the members of the Mississauga Croatia technical sub-committee. In 2014 our executive created a new subcommittee to bring our club and our systems into the 21st century. Thanks to this subcommitteee we are now making use of the latest Microsoft product Office 365. We are now using this technology to have mississaugacroatia.com e-mail addresses, we are storing our information in this modern cloud based system and we are just starting to use this product to better organize the work of our Mississauga Croatia Executive. This work is not easy and its challenging. Full credit goes the members of this technical committee – they all deserve recognition.The members are this subcommittee are as follows – Jsdip Mesic – Communications director – Anthony Toric – House League registrar – Dave Vrbanek one of our members at large – and Sami -Al -Azawi.
Since I mentioned our members at large – please allow me take a moment and recognize these very important members of our Mississauga Croatia Executive. This year we had 4 members at large – Dave Vrbanek, Sam Al Azawi, Joe Buntic and Dave Maljevac. This is a great way for people to join our executive and learn how our club operates and also to provide help. Each one of these gentlemen provided their work and their voices in helping our club in 2014. Dave Vrbanek has been an intelligent voice of reason for our executive, Joe Buntic is a highly respected soccer specialist. Sam Al Azawi has never missed a meeting and has been there to help at setting up our fundraiser and has been ready to help out throughout the year in our house league and our men’s house league. Finally Dave Maljevac is one of these quiet gentlemen that every organization needs – he does not say much but he does much. When we needed someone to set up at the fundraiser – he was there – when we needed someone to help with fields – he was there – when we needed someone to hep out with cleaning up nets – he was there. Thank you members at large
Since we have mentioned the Men’s House League, this may be an appropriate time to share with everyone the success of this new program of Mississauga Croatia. 2014 was the first year of the Men’s over 35 house league program. We had about 60 men join the league in 4 teams playing every Friday in the summer at 7 pm at the Father Kamber Park. Many of the members of the executive were played in the House League program. I speak as one of those players when I say that the highlights of my summer were the Friday games and the after-game socializing. the house league was fully registered under the OSA and it was referred by OSA refs. It was had a scgeudle, kept scores and stats and at the end ran a play-off and crowned a champion. All in all this was a great success. Two people deserve the credit for ensuring that this program was run properly and was a success. Joe Sostaric ( our Assistant Rep Registrar) and Dave Tonkovic ( Our House League Uniforms Manager). They were their to organize the teams, the schedules, order the uniforms, organize the refs, play the game, record the scores and finally order the trophies. Thank you gentlemen.
The next success that I would like to share with you was the 2014 Mississauga Croatia Men’s team. In our second year of existence Tomislav Friscic and our head coach Tony Pletin deserve credit for helping field a strong team that showed energy and passion and a true team spirit on and off the field. The continue to grow and I am sure will show greater success each year. One success that I must share with you is that at this year’s Croatian National Tournament for North America our men’s team – beat New York Croatia 1 -0. This achievement is noteworthy for a number of reasons. Our team, unlike some teams at this tournament fielded a team without any “guest” players. We fielded our own boys – many of whom are former Mississauga Croatia rep team players that are now men. This victory is even more sweeter because it was against a top flight opponent and was our first victory at this prestigous tournament in over a decade. I am convinced that this was the first of many victories.
I mentioned our rep team program and this was a major source of pride for our club in 2014. For the first time in our history a rep team from Mississauga Croatia made it to the Ontario Cup finals. The pinnacle of club play in the province of Ontario is the Ontario Cup and our Boys 1999 U15 team made it to the finals this year. Our small club challenged the giants clubs in soccer and we came 2nd in the U15 tier 2 category. Our club name and our colours were on display on the provincial stage. Credit for this great achievement goes to our boys and their coach Hrvoje Kamba Kanisek, his wife Manager Carmen Kanisek and assistance coach Mario Knezevic.