Wednesday, 27 August 2025

 Cindy McLEISH (Eildon) (09:50): A big shout-out to the Healesville Junior Football Club under-15 girls and the under-14 mixed team, who both won their grand finals against Mount Evelyn last Sunday. It was a good season for the Bloods.

Congratulations also to the Wesburn Junior Football Club under-17 girls for winning their premiership against Belgrave. There was a great turnout on the day with hundreds of players, families and supporters across the day flocking to Yarra Junction, where the local club did a great job as hosts.

The Mansfield community are always on the front foot, and the launch of the first solar and battery installation at the Mansfield Football Netball Club was no exception. Mansfield are the first AFL club to have solar panels – sixty-six 440-watt panels with battery storage of 40 kilowatt hours – installed as part of Power Forward, a Footy for Climate initiative. This initiative will save the club an impressive $8000 each year on their power bills and is cutting 740 tonnes of emissions over the project life cycle. Footy for Climate was founded by AFL players Tom Campbell and Jasper Pittard. Tom visited Mansfield in November last year with the Melbourne Football Club for a community event and got the ball rolling very speedily with club president Bo Christopher and Michael Bretherton, the junior footy club president. It was great to see everyone from the footy and netball club get around the launch and be supported by other community and AFL leaders: Ben Brown, Matt Genever, Greg Madigan and Andy Randall from Easy Being Green, as well as Lex Lynch and Lisa Kyle. It was a great event and well supported.