Latest Newsletter

2025 - February Newsletter

Dear Members and Families,

Our 2025 season is upon us, and we have completed our club event calendar, and our member registration system is now open accepting new members and member renewal. We hope to see all of our 2024 members back again this year for another exciting and fun year of athletics.

Firstly, the committee would like to say thank you to the members who provided feedback to the committee following our recent request for feedback. You input into helping the club continue to improve and meet the needs of our members is valued.

We are pleased to share that, in response to this feedback, we have restructured the club day event program to combine the junior group timeslot and senior group timeslot together, so all members will be participating at the same time.  We hope that this change will:

• Enable families with athletes in both junior and senior age groups to be able to participate at the same time (and therefore taking less time out of your days);
• Provide our juniors with the opportunity for inspiration and motivation by seeing our senior athletes competing in club days, and;
• Generally allow more mixing of our senior and junior athletes and families to boost club camaraderie and sportsmanship.

The new club day competition format will now be a four-event program, and we will still have multiple event choices available for our senior athletes (aged 13yrs and above) where they can choose to participate in a max of 4 events.  The change from 5 events to 4 was necessary to bring the age groups to the same start time and still offer our senior athletes event choice.  The program is now available on this link.

During March our club day events will start at 2pm sharp.  All athletes and families will need to be at the track by 1:30pm for a 1:45pm warm up before events commence at 2pm sharp.  In previous years our start time during the Winter months has shifted to 12:30pm; however, with the combined senior and junior timetable, we are considering whether we keep the start time at 2pm for the rest of the season.  Our first 4 weeks will be a trial, and we will confirm the start time for the remainder of the season after these first 4 weeks.  We are hoping to have a later start time than we have previously had to help our athletes and families fit in morning sports and other activities prior to coming to club days.

We also received some feedback and requests for members about whether our club day could be shifted from a Saturday afternoon to a Friday night. The committee has looked carefully at this option, but unfortunately quite a few factors prohibited us from being able to action this suggestion. These factors included the lighting available is not up to competition standards which would impact on the safety of both field and track events and the accuracy of the finish line recording at the track, the increased cost of facility hire as the sessions would run longer than the ARC usual opening hours, and limited committee volunteer availability to assist in setting up for a Friday night event. We will certainly reconsider this option if some of these factors can be addressed in the future.

Membership

We have slightly restructured our membership fees to be in line with how ANQ charges based on athlete age groups. 

2025 Mackay Athletics Club Full Member fees.  Full 2025 year.

·      $205.00 per athlete aged 9yrs and under (age as at 31 Dec 2025).

·      $230.00per athlete aged 10yrs and over (age as at 31 Dec 2025).

We still have available the trial days ($30 for 2 club days) for new members only, and the associate and day visitor options are also available.  To view our membership options, click here.

Club Event Calendar

Our event calendar is now available to view and download from our website.  It also includes our local interclub meets, regional carnivals, state and national championships, and Mackay and Capricornia School Events.  Click here to view the event calendar page on our website and click on the calendar image to view in full size.

Sign-On Day

As usual we will hold an official Sign-On Day on Saturday 22^nd February anytime between 9am to 1pm. If you have some spare time, please consider being a volunteer and a representative of our club as not all committee members can be present that day. 

The sign on day is much like the Sports Expo where we are there to answer questions and assist with the membership options, including trial days.

First Club Day

Our first club day will be held on Saturday 1^st March. As mentioned above, the events will commence at 2:00pm sharp. Please arrive by 1.30pm to meet the new committee and athletes, collect your 2025 results booklet as well as track and field booklets, hear about changes to age groups and house rules and other information. If you arrive later, you might miss out on important information.  Warmups will commence at 1:45pm, and events will commence at 2pm.

Volunteering on Club Days

Our club is an entirely voluntarily run club, and rely on the assistance of parents, members, and any other family members to help our club days run smoothly.

Each week we need volunteers to assist with the following:

• Set up: Arriving approximately 1 hour prior to the Club day start time to assist with setting up the equipment for the day
• Warm-up leader: Lead the warm up of athletes prior to club day (this is a great role for a senior athlete!)
• Starter: Starting all timed track events
• Finish line operator: Coordinate, record, and print all track event results
• Finish line marshalls: Identify the athlete finish order of track events. Primarily required for sprint events.
• Age group coordinators: Coordinate group of athletes to attend all scheduled events. Record results at each event. Return results to clubhouse at end of Club Day.

This year we will be introducing a volunteer roster to help us to ensure we have enough volunteers to help at each club day to help the days run smoothly.  We would like to encourage everyone to put their name down to assist with volunteering throughout the season.

You do not need to have any experience to volunteer – some roles do not require any specific knowledge or experience, and others we can teach you what you need to know. Over the first several weeks of the season, we will be providing all parents and other volunteers with training at the beginning of each club day while the athletes are warming up. So please don’t be shy, and come and give us a hand 😊

Volunteer to operate Finish Camera and Set up

One of our clubs’ great features is the accurate recording of our track events with our Finish Camera. To continue to provide this feature we need several camera operators and people who know how to set the system up in case someone is unavailable.  So, if you are interested or know someone who would be, please get in touch with us through mail@mackayathletics.com.au, FB messenger or approach us on club days in person.

We look forward to a great season with you all.

Your Mackay Athletics Club Committee