Football Wagga elects new members to board for 2024 season

After struggling to find volunteers to take on the role ahead of recent seasons, re-elected president Paul Galloway said it's exciting to have personnel to fill the roles.

New faces include Junee's Matthew Stubbs and Wagga United's Adam Raine, who will take on the media and marketing and football operations roles respectively.

Meanwhile Wagga City Wanderers' Andy Heller takes on the strategy and planning position, with Donna O'Grady (Tolland) and Rachael Barrell (Tolland/Wanderers) as treasurer and secretary.

"I've talked in the past about how difficult it is to get volunteers to help, so for us to have a full board moving forward is really important," Galloway said.

"We've got a new person in the media role which is fantastic, that enables us to promote the sport, Matthew Stubbs he's got a heap of experience in Sydney and Northern Sydney, and we have a new guy in the operations role and he comes with a heap of experience outside of Wagga as well, he's spent a lot of time involved in the admin inside of sport in Dubbo in the regions up there, and he's also a referee which I think is important.

"We've got Andy on the board in the strategy and planning role and that's really important for us because he has a broader view of the game than probably most."

An Englishman, Galloway is excited for the new perspectives Heller will bring to the competition.

He said bringing in diverse perspectives to the board is essential to future proofing their sport.

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"It's exciting for the sport in the fact that we've got people new people in roles who bring a different perception, a different knowledge of the game and I think in the current status of where we are, that's going to be really important," Galloway said.

"For the sport, we want to have a successful season in 2024 and build on the success that we got with girls football.

"There's already lots of, grant opportunities floating around for female football, so we really need to continue that growth in the junior space and into the senior space, the numbers have been strong and I think the board need to be creative in terms of the competitions and the structures that allow females to play the game."

Now looking for more volunteers to take on sub-committee roles, Galloway said he'd like to see people nominate from across the competition.

"I think you volunteer in sports admin is a couple of reasons, either you've played and now you don't play and you're looking to do something else and you want to stay involved, either as an admin or in a referee capacity, or you've got kids that play and you want to be involved because your kids are there and you want to have an impact on the sport that they play and, you know, not everyone's a coach, so this is another way you can get involved," he said.

"If you're passionate about the sport in general, this is what you need to do, you need to get involved in the sport because it's pretty easy to sit back and be critical of the administrations and boards and stuff like that but if you're not actually participating yourself and you're not actually contributing to the sport in any way, there's plenty of opportunity."

With volunteer positions typically lasting for 12 month periods, Galloway said the board welcomes any new faces interested in taking on roles.

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