Narrabri and District Junior Rugby League held its annual general meeting at the Narrabri RSL Club on Saturday.
It was attended by six people, two of whom were club life members who were present to help advise the committee. Only four attended with the intent of joining the new committee and helping the club move forward out of a COVID-affected 2020 and into a brighter 2021 campaign.
Ben Manchee was re-elected as president, with Mel Manchee filling the secretary position and Christy Browning taking on both publicity officer and registrar.
That trio and the fourth attendee, Luke Browning, have been the backbone of junior league in Narrabri in recent years, filling multiple positions on the committee.
But now enough is enough.
Mel and Ben Manchee told The Courier that NDJRL could not run a season with four committee members, and that the 2021 season being cancelled was a real possibility unless more committee positions were filled.
The poor turnout to Saturday’s annual general meeting has left the club still searching for a vice-president, junior vice-president, treasurer, canteen co-ordinator and general committee members.
Manchee (Ben) said that ideally the vice-president would have children playing in the 9-12-year-old region and the junior vice-president would have children playing in the 5-8-year-old region.
“If you want to become a member of the committee please get in touch with me or message the junior league Facebook page,” he said.
“We have committee meetings as often as possible and our job really is to make sure the club is going in the right direction for the kids.
“We want a broad spectrum of people in the committee, not just the internationals parents, we want people from across all age groups.”
The 2020 NDJRL season suffered significantly as a result of the restrictions put in place for community sport in NSW amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Only the internationals teams (under-13s, under-15s and under-16s) played this year, with children aged 5-12-years old missing out.
“We did the best we could last season and we were very disappointed not to have the little kids play,” Manchee said.
“But it came back to there just wasn’t enough people putting their hand up to help.
“If we don’t get that again, the kids won’t be able to play football.”
As the state continues to leave COVID-19 behind, the 2021 season in Narrabri is expected to welcome back the younger age groups and all junior rugby league is expected to be played at Cooma Oval in 2021 including the internationals.
However, committee positions must be filled for that to become a reality.
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