Academy of Sport celebrates success

The Celebrating Success function gave the Academy the opportunity to bring together its sponsors and a number of local business people, and to highlight the array of talent that exists among its athletes.

The evening also saw the launch of the Academy’s ASF Donor Program. The ASF, or Australian Sports Foundation, is a government initiative which was developed to assist sporting organisations to raise funds by offering tax deductibility on donations. The Academy uses funds raised through the ASF Donor Program to run its high performance training programs, which include specific events such as sending athletes to the Academy Games.

Over 170 athletes graduated from eleven different sporting programs on the evening. The programs include athletics, basketball, football, future stars, golf, netball, rugby union, short track speed skating, surf life saving, surfing and tennis.

The Male Athlete of the Year award went to David Graham, a freestyle mogul skier and member of the Academy’s Future Stars squad. Female Athlete of the Year was awarded to Lauren Stone from the Surf Life Saving program.

The Chairman’s Award went to Luke Cullen who is a member of the Academy’s newest squad, short track speed skating.
All of the major award winners, as well as the eleven squad athletes of the year received scholarships from the University of Newcastle, which were presented by Professor Stephen Crump, Pro Vice-Chancellor and Director of the Central Coast Campuses.

Don Magin, General Manager of the Greater Building Society addressed the audience on behalf of all business partners and sponsors, and his words further reinforced the community aspect of the Academy’s work. “Sponsors actually care. We are not faceless, we all have a local presence and we are part of your community. We share in your achievements, and we take an enormous amount of pride in the fact that we may have contributed in some small way to your success. We want to you, the athletes, to recognise that we are, and want to be, part of your success. The recent winners of the Mars Inspirational Athletes Awards in August are a great example,” he said.

“I was blown away by the emails and correspondence sent to me by the winners of the Mars Inspirational Athletes Awards thanking the Greater for our contribution to their success. This simple action makes it very easy for me, in the middle of a financial tsunami, to respond to the question ‘Why do you continue to support the Academy?’.”

The Academy would like to thank its business partners and sponsors for their continued support. In particular, the Academy would like to recognise business partner Mars Food Australia, whose ongoing support was announced at the Awards Presentation evening by People and Organisation Director Chris Disley.

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