February 2009

Minnesota Freeze Newsletter

February 2009 D

Next Event

Freeze 5K Charity Run/walk

10:00am Sat April 11th 2009, at Lake Nokomis.

Join the Minnesota Freeze Australian Rules Football Club and Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (www.jdrf.org/mnnd)

in the fight against diabetes by running or walking around Lake Nokomis 5K course.

A portion of your race entrance fee will help JDRF to find the cure.

Runners will start at 10 am. Those walking, with strollers, or with young children will begin at 10:10 am.

Entry Fee is $25 pre-registered / $30 race day.

All entrants will receive a Freeze & JDRF commemorative shirt.

Follow the links below for more information.

Race Details

Sponsorship information

Online Registration

Manual Entry Form

Coaches Corner

In an effort to make the Freeze more inviting to new players, alumni, and those not so serious, and to accommodate those who want to play at the utmost highest level and intensity, we have restructured the coaching format.

This year Head Coach Jason Becker (with assistance from Diesel), will be responsible for guiding and adding experience to the Reserves team, and ensuring that players of all skill levels get the most out of the club.

This will free up Charlie Quirk to focus on getting the most out of our senior team at both training and on game day.

Add to that the appointment of Lucian Bondar as a conditioning coach, and with an increased emphasis on fitness this year hope to take the Freeze to a new level for everyone.

Dear Freeze members, friends, & alumni.

Welcome to the Freeze Newsletter.

To help communication, and to keep everyone up-to-date on the latest happenings around the club, we will be putting out a newsletter on a regular basis. Look for some recurring segments, guest writers, and details of our next function or Freeze games.

This newsletter is intended for the whole Aussie Rules community. Feel free to forward it to your family, friends, and anyone who might be interested so they can subscribe also.

If you too have an article of interest and would like to contribute to this newsletter; please send them to us at: info@mnfooty.com and we will be in touch.

If you wish to be removed from the newsletter mailing, you may do so by using the 'unsubscribe' feature at the bottom of the page.

Cheers.

Ed.

2009 AGM Summary

In case you missed it, here's a wrap up of the Annual General Meeting, held on Jan 17th.

As outgoing President, Diesel was pleased to present the new President Chris Secrest.
The Freeze board welcomed new member Kurt Mehlhoff, who replaces E.P.
A major fund raising and awareness event has been undertaken with the Freeze partnering up with The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) in hosting a 5K run/walk. While we will need some Freeze volunteers for the day of the event; we really need everyone to not only promote the event by getting as many runners there as we can, but to also find sponsors to help offset some of the costs. The announcement, sponsorship and manual entry forms are available in the "next event" section of this newsletter, or online on our website.
To cover escalating costs a new fee structure was announced as; $50 for returning players & $40 for rookies.
As a recruiting incentive, if a member brings in a new player that actually pays their membership dues, that member will receive 50% ($20) of the new players dues. There is no limit applied.
Also we now have some fantastic looking Freeze business cards. These are available to everyone, and should be useful as a recruiting tool. Next time you see a likely looking prospect you can make sure they leave with all our information. Contact Chris Secrest to get your share.
Some on-field coaching changes have been made too. See the "Coaches corner" section for more details.

And now, a word from the new Prez.

2009 will see the five year anniversary of the Minnesota Freeze at the US Footy Nationals. In 2005 The Freeze showed up in Milwaukee and ended up bringing home the Division III title! That year we had tremendous growth that helped us to obtain the pennant. But it has been our retention that has allowed us to continue upon that success. This year, like every year, our primary goal will be to recruit new players, supporters, and sponsors.

This year will also see two new changes. They are the coaching structure and our fund raising/community outreach. The coaching structure changes will help us create specialized training sessions for our senior, reserves, and eventually, our own womens teams. The coaches will discuss this in more detail in later newsletters. For our fund-raising/outreach the Freeze is organizing a 5K Run/Walk event at Lake Nokomis. We are pairing with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) Minnesota/North Dakota Chapter for this event. Stay tuned for further details about the event, but for now mark your calendars for April 11th!

These changes are designed to see us grow as a club this year, into the next five years and beyond.

Seek.

Other News

Please join The Freeze in congratulating Andrew Werner and Brent Mergen on being recruited to play in the Western Australia Country Football League (WACFL) in Australia.

Read more......

Kurt Mehlhoff and his wife Marie are proud to announce another addition to their family with the arrival of baby Thomas Roderick Mehlhoff, born on January 7th. At a healthy 8lb 4oz The Freeze are pleased to claim future player rights to him under the "father/son rule". When asked for comment; Kurt's reply was simply "KURT'S BOY".

The Freeze would especially like to thank our great sponsors: