AFL Community Camps 2005

[Beaussie]

AFL Goes Camping
9:06:05 AM Tue 16 November, 2004
http://afl.com.au/default.asp?pg=aflfoc ... eid=177681


AFL teams will travel to 10 new locations around Australia for the 2005 Community Camps. And in a continued bid to boost the code's popularity in the northern markets, four teams will visit New South Wales.

Meanwhile, Fremantle will travel to the Pilbara region in north-west Western Australia, the Demons will journey to Cairns, while Carlton, Geelong, Richmond and St Kilda are all going to regional Victorian centres.

Essendon and Collingwood will visit northern Sydney and greater western Sydney respectively and over a two-week period. Essendon's trip between February 8 and11 will coincide with its annual pre-season match against Sydney at the North Sydney Oval. All the other teams, aside from Melbourne who will spend February 15-18 in Cairns ahead of its Wizard Home Loans Cup match against Brisbane, will travel between February 1 and 4.

For the first time in two years only one side, Hawthorn, will travel to Tasmania. The Saints, who also play home-and-away games in the island state, will rotate their community camps in Tasmania with the Hawks from now on.

The focus of the camps is reaching grass roots AFL football supporters and promoting the code. The teams conduct several public clinics and seminars and also visit surrounding schools and community centres.

"Our investment is substantial, in fact in cash terms it is over $500,000. But it's almost impossible to quantify the value of players, coaches, administrators and umpires who get to go to 16 parts of the country. And that would, in dollar terms, certainly exceed over a million dollars in investment," AFL chief Andrew Demetriou said at the launch of the camps on Monday.

"These camps without doubt are about deepening our connection with local communities and having an impact on everybody from children ton coaches, managers and administrators."

The clubs largely see the opportunity for their teams to travel together as a valuable bonding experience.

The AFL says that 95,000 people came into contact with AFL players and coaches during the 2004 Community Camps, while 308 primary schools were visited, which is an increase of 47 per cent from the 2003 camps.

The league also says that $63,600 was raised through official functions over the 2004 camps to assist local development.

In 2005 the teams will be visiting the following venues:


Adelaide Port Augusta*
Brisbane Lions Gold Coast
Carlton Shepparton*
Collingwood Greater Western Sydney
Essendon Northern Sydney*
Fremantle The Pilbara*
Geelong Horsham*
Hawthorn Hobart
Kangaroos Wagga Wagga
Melbourne Cairns*
Port Adelaide Mt Gambier
Richmond Mildura*
St Kilda Bairnsdale*
Sydney Wollongong*
West Coast Busselton*
Western Bulldogs Darwin


*New locations



Great to see NSW and QLD are top priorities for the AFL. :D