Sponsorship, Volunteers, and Survival. Inside Gippsport's Playbook

The transcription is a conversation between Melanie Cahani and Daniel Poynton, the CEO of Gippsport, discussing the organisation's role in supporting local sporting clubs in Gippsland. Gippsport is a regional sports assembly providing support to over 800 sporting clubs in the area. They offer services like club support, consultancy, and guidance on compliance issues. The organisation operates with funding from the Victorian government and aims to help clubs navigate challenges like volunteer burnout and increasing compliance requirements. They also discuss the importance of planning ahead and sharing responsibilities within the clubs to build resilience. On today's show, we're shifting gears from the boardroom to the sideline to discuss something essential to every Gippsland community, local sport. It's more than just a game. It's the heart, soul and social fabric of our towns. But keeping those local clubs running strong takes serious resilience, strategy and some business savvy too. Joining us today is the person leading that charge, Dan Poynton, the CEO of Gipps Sports. We'll be talking about how they're future-proofing our local leagues, tackling today's biggest challenges in participation and volunteering and ensuring the Gippsland sporting spirit is built to last. So stay tuned, we'll be back to talk to Dan right after a bit of Powderfinger. Today, like I said before we went to that song, we have a special guest with us, Dan Poynton, the CEO of Gipsport. And today we're going to be talking about all things local leagues, challenges, participation, volunteering, a bit of commercial side thrown into that too. Dan, you're joining me now. Welcome. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. Thank you for joining me today. I've been really looking forward to this chat. Basically, sport is huge in Gippsland. I've only been in the area for about four years and I did not realise how absolutely fanatical people are around sports. Yes, very much so. And I'm learning a lot as I go. So I think the subject today and talking around the business of sport is highly relevant to people in this area. I know lots of people now that are involved in their local sporting clubs. I work with businesses that sponsor their local sporting clubs. And I think it's just going to be interesting to see your guys' perspective and what you guys do because you don't just cover AFL, which I know is probably the sport of many down in this area. You guys are doing the breadth across lots of different sports. So I guess then to start off today, can you give us an overview of Gipps Sport and its role in supporting the breadth of sport across Gippsland? Yes, certainly. So certainly as you touched on Mel, Gippsland is a massively passionate sporting community. So across the six local government areas of Gippsland, there's roughly between 800 to 1,000 sporting clubs across all codes. So we are the regional sports assembly for Gippsland. So we are an independent, not-for-profit organisation that primarily operates from Victorian government grants. And then we also have our own consultancy and fee-for-service arm as well that we do a lot of projects in partnership with the six Gippsland local governments. So one of the important differentiators for us is whereas in AFL Victoria, Netball Victoria, et cetera, they have a one-sport mandate across the whole state. We're not a governing body. We have an every-sport mandate across just Gippsland. And really our core work is supporting the soft infrastructure, which is the people that make sport happen out in the community. So when volunteers are stuck with compliance issues and need help running a program or a governance issue or applying for grants, that's when our team can jump in and just help club volunteers navigate what is increasingly becoming a bit more complex. Is that a service-free of charge to them? For the most part, yeah, absolutely. So that's the funding we receive from government is to provide subsidised one-on-one club support for volunteers out there. Now once it ticks over into something pretty significant, like a club needs a strategic plan or something like that, that's where our consultancy services kick in. But for the most part, yeah, it's fully subsidised by the Victorian government. So the consultancy services are maybe like a private arm of Gipps Sport? Yeah. Yeah. It's still embedded within our organisation. We've got Damon who heads up our consultancy. He does some really, really great work across the region. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I didn't realise that was part of the offering there and I knew that there would be the sort of government side of things because I think an organisation like this is important to the area. Do other regions have organisations like Gipps Sport? Do you have people in Ballarat and are they called Ballast Sport? Yeah. Yeah. Sport Central over in Ballarat, so for the Central Highlands region. So yeah, so there are nine regional sports assemblies that cover all of regional Victoria and we sort of sit, you know, if your listeners are familiar with regional development Victoria, we sort of sit and align to the regional development boundaries that exist. So we cover Gippsland, so from, you know, Baw Baw, sort of in between Pakenham and Druin, down around Phillip Island, all the way up to the New South Wales border and then back down the Great Dividing Range. So we cover about, I think it's almost 30% of Victoria geographically. So it's a very big region. It truly is. And you're covering the entire Gippsland, the East Gippsland and like you mentioned before those, is it Six Shires? Six Shires. Yeah, that's right. So we've got offices and our team are based in Inverloch, Terrelgan, Thale and Bairnsdale. Oh wow. Okay. It's a big team. Is it a big organisation? Look, we are the largest regional sports assembly in Victoria. We have, I think, about 18 people in our team currently at the moment. The team that work on this club support staff, this core staff, is a team of six. Yeah. Okay. There you go. Yeah. There's something else I didn't know today, so I'm feeling smarter already. Excellent. Great with health. I think in recent years, local sporting communities really have faced, I guess, significant periods of disruptions from natural events to that wonderful health crisis that we all had called COVID. What do you think true resilience looks like in Ditchland sporting clubs and what do you think the most persistent challenges are that they've had to overcome? Yeah. Look, I think it's a lived reality for many Ditchlanders is that we're constantly battling fires or storms or floods or, yes, COVID, and then there's the ongoing, I guess, structure and operational challenges that sport navigates week to week with changes in councils and communities and league structures and bits and pieces like that. So there's never a dull moment in community sport land and really amazingly, the whole sector runs on volunteer time, which is just exceptional. Isn't that incredible? Yeah. When you look at the persistent challenges, I think we've probably got that as number one is just volunteer burnout. People just have less time. Cost of living pressures are rising. I think there's becoming increasingly a number of car park parents that will just drop kids off, off they go to participate. Guilty. To pick them up. Yeah. Especially in winter when it's really cold. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, absolutely. So I think volunteer burnout is certainly probably the number one. Along with that, there's rising compliance obligations as well. So over the past probably decade, there's been some really significant and important compliance things come in around safeguarding children and young people. Some really important stuff there at a really simple level, like working with children checks. But it's a really complex situation and then there's just the not for profit compliance stuff that clubs are expected to do as well. And it's just getting harder and harder, food handling stuff. If you want to serve behind a bar, you need your RSA. There's just all this compliance stuff that's coming in for volunteer organisations. That just makes it harder for clubs to operate generally. Definitely. I've got my working with children's card on a volunteer base and that's only, I figured I need that. I can't help out any other way when I do get out of the car. Yes. So I think in regards to resilience in sport, it's a little bit similar to when the word resilience is used when we think about regional communities anyway. But clubs that can plan ahead and not react, I think it's generally really good and positive committees that share the load and not just rely on one person, the president, who might be doing three or four other jobs at the club as well. Making sure the club's really connected to the community and like important networks. So your local government, organisations like ours, your league, your state sporting association, and ideally for clubs over time, able to build a bit of a financial buffer so it's not running month on month. I think that sort of helps clubs in that resilience space. Yes. I think you mentioned volunteer burnout. I guess with my work with the business chamber, we had a series last year around business burnout and looking at some of the volunteer boards and committees, various that I've been sort of around and involved in, volunteer burnout is huge. Does Gipps Sport offer any sort of programs or communication material that sort of addresses this or can direct people towards resources for clubs that might not actually A, know that this exists or B, don't know how to deal with it? Like you say, there is usually that one person. I always thought it was the secretary that got the lion's share mostly of the work or the hardest role. What sort of supports are in place for local clubs? Yes. So I think certainly the model that I mentioned, there are six people working across club support area before. They are fully funded to be able to provide hands on tailored support to clubs and so that can involve coming to a committee meeting, thrashing out some big issues or even little issues with the club in regards to what's important for them. It can be planning new junior programs. It can be navigating complaints that might have popped up or anything like that. So that team is there. Internally we basically call that our triage service and we do tend to find that most of the phone calls or emails that we get from clubs tend to land on a Wednesday because committee meetings are often on a Tuesday night. So people come home and they're like, what are we going to do? Get in touch with us and then our team can help. Certainly trying to work with the club around strategies for volunteer recruitment and retention and recognition is something that is very important to us and we can certainly help clubs out. Probably the most exciting thing that we're working on at the moment, well no, all of our work is exciting, but this is one that we've been sort of concepting for a few years and we've just recently had it funded. And so we are working to develop what we're calling sports administration hubs. So we've got some funding from the Victorian Government. We've got two and a half years to pilot it and we're just finishing our first year at the moment. But the theory is that we will employ a club administrator and then we will work with about five or six clubs as a hub. Our first one that we've been doing this year is down in Druin. We've been working out at Bellbird Park in Druin with West Gippsland Hockey, Druin Soccer Club, Druin Junior Footy Club, West Gippsland Umpires Association and Druin Squash Club as well. And so the idea is that our administrator can pick up all the grunt work, the stuff that just takes volunteers heaps of time. They can do it and they can do it during the day, during the week when volunteers are not available. So they can go to council, help navigate community grants, can talk to state sporting associations during business hours and the whole idea is that that then frees up the volunteer time so the volunteer can do what they actually put their hand up for in the first place which is just helping the underpins or something like that. So it's a really exciting project for us. We've got two and a half years to pilot it, to get the model right. One of the really important parts of the project is having some really good, open, honest conversations with the clubs we're working with around developing the value proposition because we've got limited funding on this so we really want it to be successful. We think it will help the community but we're very conscious that we can't price it at two things. A, that it makes it unaffordable for the club but B, we don't want to add another cost pressure that raises the price of playing sport for families because it was sort of touched on before, cost of living is getting tough for people and so whilst we think this service looks really valuable, we need to do it in a responsible way that doesn't add cost too much somewhere in the system. Yeah. Sports administration, I feel like there's actual degrees in it. Yeah, I've got one. Talking to the right person. It's an actual thing. So I can't even imagine if there was a uni student out there who wanted to come on board and learn things like this. I feel like it could benefit lots of people, not just clubs but people wanting to dip their toes into that area and the clubs that you just mentioned, there's hockey, there's football. It's like you've taken an area but you haven't just limited it to one particular sport and I imagine, I don't know whether there would be similarities across it but I imagine there would be. That administration side of things might just be around governance and keeping things in check, making sure because some people who are joining the committee just want to help out with the under 10s, they might not know that there's governance issues and all of those regulations and the red tape that needs to be abided by legally. I think that's fabulous that it's also educating and somebody that can work alongside the club directly, it can also teach the club so that maybe if the funding moves elsewhere or they don't want to continue that, there's also that knowledge transfer. Okay, so last year we learnt that we had to do this particular thing in order to have a day like this. So yeah, what a fabulous initiative. Yeah, it's really exciting. So we're just looking where we might go for our second hub in year two. We're sort of thinking potentially clubs around sort of Moorwell, Churchill area for year two and year three next year. I'm going to say next year, 2027 that'll be. Potentially thinking Wellington or East Gippsland somewhere as well. So yeah, we've got really big aspirations for it. Exactly as you said, the whole intent is around reducing the administrative time and administrative load for volunteers so they can crack on and do the stuff that they enjoy doing. A big part of that is building capacity within the club. Now we are looking at introducing digital tools to modernise some systems around registration, volunteer tracking and bits and pieces like that just to make that transition as volunteers and committees turn over year on year following the AGM that you can really transition the IP and the knowledge to the next group to keep the club rolling really well from year to year. Definitely. And is that the point where you guys step out or are you there as continuous support? Yeah, it'll depend on the club and the situation. I know the conversations you're having with the drawing clubs currently at the moment is do you want us to keep going because we're happy to and then if that's the case, are you able to contribute? What's your value to service at? We'll still have some grant money that we can make a matching contribution but certainly in regards to our service agreement to the Victorian Government we've got to crack on and start another hub as well. So we're looking at ways that we can build the value of this service with the Gippsland sport community to then enable it to be sustainable outside of just relying on the Victorian Government because they're in a pretty tight fiscal situation themselves at the moment. Yes, I think Victoria as a whole maybe and even businesses are really feeling the pinch of everything and I think a lot of those issues around burnout is relevant in business. The regulation, the red tape, the cost of living, just business in general. So it feels like while the sporting clubs and volunteers and you're certainly seeing it at Gipps Sport, it's just echoed across everywhere in Victoria so it's highly relevant. Do you think with that program you might be able to look at developing a template for clubs to use just based on the knowledge that you maybe get in the next couple of years of identifying I guess that every club has this issue? So some comms or some learnings to clubs that you can just roll out without having to really bring them into the program like these are what we've identified as the biggest issues facing hockey clubs or footy clubs and this is what you can do to mitigate it to take that work off the volunteers as well. Yes, definitely. So that's all work that's happening currently at the moment and our play space team that's spread out doing that core club support staff will absolutely be using those resources in the conversations they have with clubs every week. Fabulous. I can't wait to sort of hear more about how it all goes. Where do people get information about this? Is it just jumping onto your website? Yes, jumping onto the website. So gippsport.com.au is the best place to see that or certainly flick us an email, info at gippsport.com.au and Deborah who's our admin officer can certainly direct people to the best person to speak to. Fantastic. I can see why you've got the grant funding for it. Yes. That's good. So that's supporting I guess the structures of clubs and helping volunteers navigate those sort of challenges. A very innovative program I guess. I'm looking forward to seeing it. So hopefully and I think you may have touched on this, it will become part of a permanent strategy for Gippsport to be able to run this. Do you guys have to employ new people to do this, like coordinators to work with these clubs or do you just manage that in house with the teams that you've got? So we have recruited a coordinator specifically to deliver that program. So Trevor in our team is doing that and then as we grow and evolve the program we'll be absolutely looking to bring on more people as well. So yes, we're hoping that it grows and scales to a size that we can have people all over Gippsland sort of working with clubs in different communities doing that type of work. Yes. Love it. So I guess looking at today have you observed any fundamental shifts in participation or volunteering levels across Gippsland sports and what are some of the biggest operational community engagement hurdles clubs are struggling with this year in 2025 do you think? Yes. The last couple of years we've sort of done a bit of a research piece and done a Gippsland sports census. So I think what we've noticed and certainly in our conversations with the six Gippsland local governments is that some of the participation data that's available from the sector is not really too reliable. So we're trying to work with councils to develop our own local data set. So overall what that's showing is participation in sports pretty good at the moment. It's certainly rebounded after COVID when everything sort of shut down. Women and girls sports growing significantly. Junior numbers are back and are really strong. We've had some really good engagement in our own sort of social programming that we sort of run that complements mainstream community sports. But certainly in regards to participation that traditional youth drop off at 13, 14, 15 is absolutely still there. We're seeing that young people are getting jobs, the pressure at school increases, social life's kicking and just the traditional sport model of training one or two times a week and then playing all day Saturday just doesn't suit the lifestyle for many young people at the moment. And parents as well. They're exhausted too. Yeah. That's right. And like we said right off the top, the size of Gippsland, travel is just such a significant issue for our region as well. So we're talking to the state sporting associations all the time about how we can work to retain those young people, provide them another alternative. But obviously we don't want to cannibalise the core product of community sport because it's amazing and it's really good and the clubs do an amazing job facilitating that. So I think that's something that there's certainly no silver bullet for that one. It's a wicked problem that the sector has been navigating for many, many, many years but we'll keep having a crack at doing what we can to keep those young people engaged in sport. I think just generally with volunteering, volunteer numbers are definitely down. Our census report showed that there's on average about 20 to 40% fewer volunteers than there were pre-COVID. Committees are generally smaller and I think on average, I think your traditional club volunteer is doing about three jobs. You know, whereas pre-COVID you volunteer and you're doing one specific job, like you might be, yeah, as you sort of said, the president or the secretary but also doing the ground maintenance and doing the lines and then helping stock the bar, like all of these different bits and pieces as well. So I think that's probably one thing that would just be amazing if people can really just put their hands up. You don't have to just jump straight into a committee role. There's lots of other things that just help clubs kicking over that would be really well appreciated. How do you... So you've mentioned a census. So you've gathered this data from local sporting clubs and you mentioned like the 20 to 40% drop in volunteers. Do you get any information around why that might be? Do we put it back down to the burnout or not enough interest or the way that the clubs are recruiting volunteers? I think, yeah, so we did a survey, you know, across the region and we had almost 300 clubs respond to the survey. So that's where we got this data from. That's our own local data set. As I sort of said, in regards to why people are not doing it and why there's fewer, you know, we didn't ask that specific question because the people that answered the survey are volunteers and not the people that are not volunteering. But certainly what we think is the case is that, you know, life is just busy for people. You know, when you're working, supporting a family, dropping the kids off at sport, all of that type of stuff, there's just a time pressure that's there that when people get their spare time, they'd like to use it for themselves. I think the compliance and some of the operational hurdles that's come into our sector has, you know, made this perception that it's really difficult to be a volunteer. And then it was interesting reading Volunteering Victoria, which is the state volunteering peak, so not just sport, like all volunteering sectors, service clubs, you know, everything else as well. They did their state of volunteering report and released that about a month or two ago and they said the number one reason that people don't volunteer just generally is because they're not asked. Oh. And so, you know, I've certainly been thinking about that post and wondering, like, if you just had somebody designated just to walk around the ground on a Saturday and say, hey, do you mind just doing this? Yeah. Highly unlikely somebody's going to look that person in the face and say no. Yeah. So, you know. You've got to find a very brave person to be walking around doing that though. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, I think it's something that clubs, you know, can continue to do because I know that most clubs do do this, is look at the full scope of volunteer roles and tasks that need to happen within the club, break them down into bite-sized pieces. A five, 10, 15 minute commitment once a week by somebody just really lightens the load for somebody else. What would you say about, I guess, people moving into an area and, you know, I see posts, you know, anything to do or would a local sporting club be a good way to sort of get yourself involved in the community, meeting people even if you don't have children involved in the club? Yeah. Is that still a thing? You can go down there and say, I'll time keep or? Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I think it would be hard pressed to find a club that would say no to an extra volunteer or a pair of hands to help out. Yeah. Yeah. No, I get that. I'm on timekeeping duty and I've never kept time in my life at my daughter's AFL game and, you know, I was actually scared. So I would be thinking, I would have thought maybe the reason why people aren't volunteering, yes, they're not being asked, but B, for me it's a bit more, I don't know what I'm doing. Yeah. I think most sports and clubs are pretty good at doing, you know, base level onboarding and some training and giving some information. So, yeah, my kids are involved in sport as well and, you know, my daughter was doing swimming. Yeah, I remember the first time that I did timekeeping at swimming, you've got two stop watches, you've got a clipboard, you've got all these lists of names, you've got to make sure that the kid that turns up at the starting box is the kid that's on your list and, you know, so it's quite a bit. You know, if you get this stopwatch wrong, you've got your backup stopwatch and all that type of stuff. Yeah. But, you know, once you do it once and, you know, they tend to match you as a new timekeeper with somebody that's pretty experienced, you know, you've got the extra support that there's another person there that if you completely stuff it up, they're going to get the time right. Yeah. So I think most sports are pretty good with that. Yeah, good. Public health as well. Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. So, Dan, we're going to take a quick break. We've got to stop for the news at 12, but for our listeners, we will be back with Dan Poynton, the CEO of Gipps Sport, right after this. And we're back. Thank you. Welcome to the Business Huddle. I'm your host, Melanie Kahane. You're listening to Gippsland FM 104.7. And today, I am joined by Dan Poynton, the CEO of Gipps Sport in Gippsland. This morning, well, earlier in the morning, we were talking all things Gipps Sport, what they do in the community, a great new program that they've started through government funding around helping volunteers in the sports administration side for local clubs, which is absolutely fascinating and needed. We've spoken about, I guess, the structure of Gipps Sport and how they operate. Again, I didn't realise there's different arms of the business and the massive amount of area that this organisation covers off, which is, I think, Dan, who's back with me this morning. Did you say 30% of regional Victoria or Victoria? Yeah. 30% of Victoria almost, geographically. Yeah. So you've definitely won that award. Yes. It's a competition I have with my colleagues often. Perfect. So I think we'll start off again now for our business community and for our listeners there. I want to look at the commercial side of things, of this. What do you see as the benefits for businesses that sponsors of local sporting clubs feel beyond that sort of feel-good factor? I've got clients who sponsor their local sporting clubs and it's really hard because they're obviously very passionate about their local sporting club, which is why they want to sponsor it. But I feel like a lot of the times, it's hard for them to understand what that return on investment is other than they feel good about sponsoring their local club. And maybe we can touch on also what should clubs do to target more business sponsorships to put money in their coffers? And what else should businesses know about the impact of financially supporting their local teams? Yeah. So I think here in Gippsland and certainly right across Australia, sport contributes millions of dollars to local economies across the country. We've been really fortunate in our region. There's been some really amazing sport infrastructure investment over the past five to ten years, particularly through the La Trobe Valley. And in regards to the community sport economy, often people think about when the AFLW comes to town or there's the big bash games in Maui and stuff like that. But really the biggest drivers from an events type of perspective in Gippsland sport are community sport events like the VJBL basketball tournaments that come around. Just hundreds and hundreds of players and families that come for overnight stays and other bits and pieces as well. We had the Table Tennis National Championships here just a couple of months ago. Yep. All those country champs events and junior events are just really massive contributors to the local economy. Yep. And they're certainly ones that the economic development teams at council through Events Gippsland and Destination Gippsland are looking at to try and bring more and more. So when it comes to sponsorship then, it means that local sport here in Gippsland can be one of the most visible and trusted partners for local businesses out there. And there's absolutely a feel-good part of it, like you say. But I think really being associated with sport can position a business as a genuine community contributor. That will build trust and loyalty with a customer base. Clubs have an embedded customer base that's there. Clubs are full of young families and parents and volunteers and their own tradies and service providers and other bits and pieces as well. So that core demographic that sits there within a club is often the core customer base that the local business is looking to attract and regain – not regain, because that's why they're already working with them – but keep promoting and working with. Yeah. Try and bring on more customers and that feeling of trust. That's right. If you're sponsoring – if you're a construction business or a plumber, you could be sitting at a barbecue and, oh, Mick's plumbing down the road there. You should give him a go. That's right. Yeah. And so from a club perspective – and there are some clubs that do this really well, but often it's definitely a development area for some clubs – is making sure that they present themselves as a community asset and not just a team that needs cash. And this is certainly something that our team can work with committees on and help them to do, but developing up sponsorship packages with different tiers of levels and services that local businesses can engage with whilst having a sign around the footy or cricket ground is really important. Certainly things like networking events being embedded in your club newsletter, having family days, community events, co-branded promotions and activations, other bits and pieces like that are really valuable for the local business so that they can start to see some sort of return on investment. Definitely. And I think the clubs – the more that you can embed the sponsor into your club life, the greater the return you can articulate when you're going out to seek more sponsors. I think from a social point of view as well, like social media is obviously huge. And from what I can see, sporting clubs have big social media followings of parents and there's that sort of digital connection that they get there. So maybe building that digital community and leveraging your sponsors through that. I know in Tras, the bank there sponsors the local footy clubs and then once a week they have the Little Legends of Bendigo Bank Award and that's broadcast all over their socials and the likes and the engagement from that is a real asset I guess to that particular sponsor because they can see that there's eyes across this and it's something that's connected to them as a sponsor of that club. So I think – and I have seen some proposals from clubs and some are really good and some are really – could use some work. So it would be good to think that they had some resources there. Not everybody is a sponsorship professional. No, definitely not. Again, just volunteering, just trying to help and might not know how to sort of tier out some different levels or what seems like a fair price and pricing structures and what that's actually going to go towards and applying for grants and things like that. That level of knowledge might not be there for clubs. GIVESport, I know you're saying like you can work with clubs on that. Is there any sort of resources that they might have for that or is it just go and ask TAPGPT to do you up a sponsorship proposal which I think is probably a bad idea? You won't get a personalised response from TAPGPT, that's for sure. But in regards to providing a basic framework, it absolutely will get people in the right direction. Yeah, we absolutely have a whole range of different sponsorship frameworks that our team will work with that can sit with a club. Our team are embedded in the community as well. We're all Gippsland people that work and are involved in our own clubs as well so tend to have knowledge of some good networks and connections to local government for grants and other bits and pieces as well. So we can provide that tailored one-to-one support for a club or a league as it's sort of approaching developing more sponsorship packages and other bits and pieces as well and certainly helping to build capacity within a club to help them understand that they should be trading sponsorship as a two-way long-term partnership and not just a once-off. Give us some cash and chuck a logo on the footy jumpers or whatever it is. Yeah, and only during the footy season. I think there is that time. Sporting happens within a certain timeframe. It should be, like you say, that longer-term thing. Yes, you sponsored us during the 20 weeks or whatever of our season. So what are we going to do for the other 32 weeks? How can we still leverage our community to help you as a business out there, that longer-term planning when things aren't happening? At clubs, do you think sort of thinking about this more or what are you sort of seeing in the sporting community? Obviously sponsorship is really important to clubs to sort of keep them going. Do you feel like there's more of a focus on it or is it just rinse and repeat from last year? Same sponsors, don't want to change the signs over on the field. Yeah, often it's rinse and repeat and there are some clubs and certainly bigger clubs tend to do this more proactively than some of the smaller clubs like your golf clubs and bowls clubs and cricket, footy, etc. And certainly a footy club, they're $100,000 businesses now. When you look at the salary caps and other player payments and coach payments and other bits and pieces and what they turn over at the bar, it's big business. Community sport at the moment. They're pretty well-oiled machines but can often just sort of go to sort of same old and just rinse and repeat as well. Is it okay for a business to sort of say, okay, yes, I want to sponsor. I like your package but I feel like I want to sort of add something. I want to buy 2,000 pots of beer glasses for the bar and have my logo poured in. I want beer poured in my business logo or something like that. Yep. Would you think that clubs would be open to something like that? Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And I think probably more and more that cash sponsorships are great but I think often a contra sponsorship and provision of product or something like that would in some instances provide better value for the club. Like a local butcher providing just a weekly allocation of sausages and hamburgers and stuff like that for the kiosk and the barbie that over time the club might get better value from having a deal like that than just a straight $2,000 to $5,000 cash donation at the start of the season or something like that. Definitely. So yeah, clubs should absolutely be thinking about that type of stuff. Yeah. So I guess clubs should be targeting more businesses but businesses do you think they I think maybe they have the right to maybe they want to sponsor their club then they can work with the club. Hopefully nobody's burnt out to design a package that's really going to suit them. If you're selling office furniture and you're sponsoring a footy team, how do you make that connection? What's going to really sit with that audience and make you want to sponsor this footy team? How are they going to help you sell more office furniture? So they could start buying their supplies from you, their stationary supplies or something like that. Entering into those sort of agreements might actually be more beneficial for business than just, here's your $1,000. Thank you. I'll have my sign up. That's right. Yeah. And taking that example, there's lots of people that have got home offices now. I'm talking to you today from my home office. That looks lovely. That's right. So in terms of an office supplier, you've potentially got thousands of people involved in your clubs of which a big percent might need a new chair or a printer or whatever it is at home. So yeah, the benefit doesn't necessarily have to go directly to the club, but the partnership can think about everybody involved in the club. Yeah. And I think that's also something that clubs traditionally are not great at with their sponsors is about sharing their data back to the sponsor as well. So their participation numbers, their family reach, the volunteer networks, the people involved in the club just to help try and create that value proposition for the sponsor. Definitely. Yeah. Amazing. I think if you could give I guess a piece of forward looking advice to a club leader or a committee sort of currently facing an uphill battle, whether that be lack of funding through sponsorship or deteriorating grounds or non-volunteer participation and not enough members, what sort of essential message do you think these guys might like to hear from an organisation like yours? Yeah. I think when I get the opportunity to speak to club leaders and normally it's the team, I get stuck in government conversations. It's like an episode of Utopia. I really try and reinforce the message that it doesn't need to be a heroic effort at Clubland. Just continual, small, sustainable system change and progress really does make a difference to keeping your club ticking over. You don't need to do everything and certainly not at once. Let's just sort of break things down, share tasks, look at micro-volunteering, tap people on the shoulder like we sort of said before. Is that called micro-volunteering? Yeah. Breaking it down into really bite-sized pieces as well and it's okay for clubs to say no to some things that don't align with their purpose as well. So that's all okay to do. If you do need help, ask for help early. Certainly come to us. As I said, we've got 18 people across the region, six working in the rec club support space. There's your local government. They've all got rec teams. Primarily they're around facilities and keeping the facilities well kept and maintained and we do a lot of work with them in regards to the club support piece as well. There's your state sporting association. We're really fortunate here in Gippsland that most of the big sports have got a Gippsland Development Officer. So there's netball staff, AFL staff, golf staff, tennis staff, cricket staff, all from the sports that do as well as facilitate entry level participation opportunities like your Auskicks and hotshot tennis and other bits and pieces like that. So they do have a portion of club support work in their work plans as well and our team work really collaboratively with the state sporting association people as well. So ask for help early. You don't need to be perfect. Just be consistent, be connected with your members, be connected with us and connected with your state sporting association and you will be leading a really great well-run club. Yeah. Do you think like a long-term strategy, I've never sat on a committee or a board in a sporting club, do they tend to look at long-term strategy like trying to keep the same president or is there like a high turnover of committee and volunteers? Is a better strategy to try and keep people on for the longer term so you've got that continuity, that passing of knowledge? Yeah. I'd say a good mix of that is probably right. It's really important to have some churn on your committee because new people bring fresh ideas and new thinking and new energy. But certainly we think in this sport there's really great passion, there's amazing legacy and history. So it's really important for clubs not to lose sight of that, of who they are and when they've come from. So when we're working with clubs on their governance structures we try to encourage them to think about having rolling terms for their committee positions so that you don't have your whole committee up for nomination each year, you've potentially got half and then the following year is the next half. Within that have your president and your vice president on one cycle, your treasurer and secretary on the other cycle so you're not getting a changeover of your full exec straight away so you can maintain some IP and some consistency in regards to some of those key leadership roles within your club as well. So yeah, it's really important to get some new people in for that fresh ideas and new thinking but also having the knowledge and I guess the balance between the history and the longstanding volunteers is really important as well. Yeah. I think that governance piece is critical isn't it? And I think it applies to many organisations, not just sporting organisations. We do. Within our constitution and rules so we have a rotation of terms for our directors. We appoint our directors on the two year term and then within our rules we have a rotation that directors are eligible for three two year terms successively and they're required to have a break and then they can come back if they want but again it just helps that churn. And so over that cycle that's a six year potential commitment by a volunteer to be a director for us which is an amazing contribution but again it gives us the opportunity for renewal and refreshment whenever we need it but also some good continuity with the organisational IP that sits there as well. Yeah. Perfect. I guess finally Dan, how can listeners as individuals and families best support their local clubs right now to ensure that they not only survive but thrive I guess in the years to come? Yeah. So I've touched on some of this now already but certainly small commitments matter and you don't need to join the committee, certainly not straight away. A 30 minute stint in the canteen, helping the coach or the under 10s at training. If you are a bookkeeper or you enjoy using social media, helping out with that type of stuff, just taking some photos and getting it up so that the club can show the community that are involved with your club. All of that stuff is critically important and will be really well appreciated by offering it. Put your hand up. Yeah. That's right. Get out of the car. Turn up to games, support your kids, support your friends, be really positive on the sidelines. I think remembering that the sector is volunteer driven. Yes, some of the umpires are paid but often they are doing it because they love the game and without the umpires, without the officials, without the volunteers, our sector doesn't work. So it's really critical for people to be positive on the sidelines and certainly I think just bring it back to I guess one of the core things of our conversation here today is support the sponsors. Shop local, thank your sponsors, be involved and keep that local economy ticking over as well. Yeah, definitely. I am echoing that message. Dan, thank you so much for joining us today on the Business Huddle. I have learnt a lot. Like I said, I'm not really big into that sort of sport. I do know people are very passionate about sports and maybe that's why you were saying that message around remaining positive. We know we're getting very passionate about our sports but let's just try and stay positive to the under 10 umpire who may have made a call that you don't agree with. It's not AFL. Exactly right. Passion is absolutely fine. Let's just be kind. Yeah, let's be kind. Exactly. There's a line we don't want to step on to address for community sports. So let's just acknowledge and respect where the line is and have a great time. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. So where can people go if they want some more information? You mentioned so many different organisations that I didn't even know existed but maybe they can start with GIPSPORT. How do they contact you guys? Yeah, so our website's a great place to start. So GIPSPORT, G-I-P-P-S-P-O-R-T.com.au. Jump on there, look us up. We have offices in Inverloch, in the Community Hub, in Traralgon or in the Basketball Stadium at the Gippsland Regional Indoor Sports Stadium. In Sale, we're at Gippsland Regional Sports Complex in Cobain's Road and in Bairnsdale we've got our own little cottage just around the corner from Council offices there. So feel free to look us up. People can flick us an email, info at gipsport.com.au and we will certainly direct people to the best person to help them. Love it. Thank you and thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. No worries. Great to have been along. Thanks. That was Dan Poynton from GIPPSPORT giving us incredibly practical insights into keeping our local sporting clubs resilient and thriving. My marketing pro tip for this week would be for any organisation seeking sponsorship from local clubs to regional festivals to community organisations, stop asking for a donation and start selling an audience. Dan highlighted the powerful economic impact and community reach that local sport actually has. Your club is not just a place for games. It's an audience aggregator for local families. It's that strategic shift that can be quite simple. Simply replace the bronze, silver, gold, sign packages with tiered community connection packages that provide measurable value, social media mentions, email list access, on-site activations where you can share data and demonstrate a return on investment for the sponsor's business. That way you can build sustainable long-term partnerships and not just one-off handouts. That is our pro tip for this week on the business huddle. I'm going to leave you today with George Michael with Fast Love. I'll see you next week.