(Photo: submitted GMFA)
Youth sport organizations have made adjustments to their programs due to the pandemic and the Greater Moncton Football Association is no different.
President Dennis Ronan says being at the red level of recovery meant they couldn’t hold their traditional winter skills training camp.
Instead, they are combining the winter and spring seasons, offering flag football, which is non-contact. They’ll be offering four weeks of skills training indoors, and the remaining eight weeks outside on the field, “Much like the design of the fall flag season last year. Players from five years old, right up to 17, lots of field time, lots of action, football skills. Just let the kids have fun and get ready for the fall season.”
The spring season begins on March 13th, and it appears the pandemic isn’t stopping youth from wanting to get out and get active on the football field.
Ronan says the Association began offering non-contact football, under new COVID-19 protocols, “We’ve had to adapt, make some changes. A lot of them, quite frankly, had some silver linings with the introduction of flag football last fall. It was tremendously successful, when we had that window of the yellow phase where we were permitted to actually play some non-contact games.”
Ronan adds that registration numbers for the upcoming spring season, are way up. He says 20 per cent of them are kids who have never played football before.
“Our spring season was cancelled last year, and we thought our fall season registration would be down, but numbers were actually were up. Football is one of the few sports where we provide every bit of equipment, right down to the mouthguard. The cost to outfit one player for example for tackle football, is about $800. We have to throw away helmets after ten years of use. These range anywhere from $250 to $350 a piece, depending on the age of the player. Community support with registration fees are our main support,” Ronan says.
Ronan says they also rely on help from parents and others to help keep the Association running.
“We’re 100 per cent volunteer coaches, and parent volunteers assist in other areas. Nothing happens without coaches, they are our most valuable asset quite frankly. We have our annual general meeting this month, the first one in two years. We couldn’t hold one last year due to the pandemic. It will be held on March 20th at 10am. Even our Board of Directors, it’s a 100 per cent volunteer organization. We are in a unique position, where all nine Board positions are open, and we’ll be looking to fill them with interested individuals. We also have ten or twelve portfolio positions, for those who may not want to be on a Board Of Directors, but would like to be a fundraising coordinator, or managing the field on game day, or parent coordinators.”
Ronan hopes they’ll be able to re-introduce tackle in the fall, while incorporating flag football as well.
