Community sport is about more than just wins and losses. Community has been the strength of sport, and it has been highlighted once more with the ongoing flood situation across regional Victoria.

In total, 96% of regional based local government authorities were impacted in the late 2022 floods. The scale of damage to homes, and the demands that the flood has caused for individuals, has been another hill to climb after a challenging 3 years. In addition to the challenges they face, the same individuals have had the extra task of restarting community sport once again. To all the volunteers who continue to ‘get things done’ to enable sport to continue and bring joy, mateship, and a sense of community, I sincerely thank you for all that you do.

The floods have had a significant impact on community sport – from cleaning up flood riddled facilities, the need to travel additional distances to attend matches due to road closures and in some cases, being unable to play at all. Our focus has been to do our best to make the dissemination of information and support as easy as possible for volunteers, which led to the creation of the Community Sport Flood Recovery Project in partnership with our Members, the Regional Sports Assemblies. This project enables to continue to provide the high-level of club support service to clubs in their region, with added support and knowledge from regions across the state. Our motto on this project is that there is no point reinventing the wheel. Our intent is to share knowledge, information, and support across participating RSAs to assist the knowledgeable RSA staff to provide support clubs.

In 2022 we saw the launch of RSV’s first participation campaign, Stride into Sport. Stride into Sport is a campaign that encouraged junior registrations to organised sport and recreation clubs for the summer of 2022. After intermittent seasons across 2020 and 2021 our goal was to help families recall the benefits of being active through organised sport and the community connection that sport provides. I would like to thank the participating RSAs for their support and enthusiasm for the campaign and look forward to launching our winter 2023 campaign.

RSV exists to support its members, the Regional Sports Assemblies, to support grassroots sport in regional areas. Our focus is to provide a regional lens on sector-wide issues to develop localised solutions. I look forward to continuing to work positively with our membership to build on this work in 2023, with a central theme of making it easier to be a community sport volunteer and building participation in organised sport and recreation.

Best wishes for the festive season,

Meghan Mayman

General Manager