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Club Veteran Becomes a Life Member

It was a surprise to him, but not to any one else in the room last Friday when Ian Millar was rewarded with Life Member status of the BFC.

Ian is a long serving volunteer and committee man and this was just reward for his amazing contribution to the club over many years, starting as a junior parent 17 years ago up to and including this current season.

President Terry Lucas took time to go through all the facets of Ian's immense contribution to the club. To read the full transcript log on to the Club's website.
Congratulations Ian.

The full transcript of the induction presentation by the Club President is as follows:

Ian Millar is one of the great “Quiet Achievers” of the Beaumaris Football Club.

It all started back in 2001 in the Under 10s.  Danny Kelly was coaching and asked the question about who hadn’t touched the ball. Ian then responded ‘Do you want some stats?’. So he and the late John Ahern started to record some basic stats during the game so that Danny could work out who hadn’t touched the ball and try and manufacture something to get them a few touches. In 2002 in the Under 12s Ian started to video the games and he and Dee would compile the stats from the video on a Sunday night so that the coach had them for the video review on the Monday night. As the season went on they started to think about producing highlights of the different games. Ian would then go back through the video and find vision of the players and started to produce what was called ‘The Rollcall’ . In addition there was a highlights package of each of the rounds which was given to the players at the end of the season.

Ian kept videoing all the way through from 2002 to the Under 19s in 2010. There were different coaches but he was always there providing footage for the coaches to review and use if they wanted. Some did, some didn’t.  As time went on it became more than just videoing the games. There would be edits used to show players areas they could improve on, edits to show the team and edits to show at tribunals.  

For the juniors it started in 2001 and finished in 2008 when Mick Millar played in the Under 17s. Danny Kelly said that as a coach it was a valuable tool to have available and not something a lot of people would be prepared to do, especially unpaid. Ian was always trying something different when he produced a lot of the videos. Not just using plain footage. He often had to troll through a lot of footage to get what he needed. His best work included the motivational video he put together for Danny Kelly’s Under 15 team in 2006, which was given to them on the last training session before the Grand Final. They won.

Ian joined the senior Committee in 2011 and other than one year off, he remains a valuable Committee member to this day.

He posts videos of games each week on the players Facebook page and had preparared separate footage for coaches as well as tribunal hearings.

When Ian took over the website in 2011 he revolutionised it in the sense that he kept it current and interesting. He was also Club secretary for a year.

Furthermore, the filming work he has done in recent years has saved us considerable money, He has filmed seniors, reserves, womens and thirds matches including finals. A sensational effort.

Ian also filmed U19s games for a number of years.

Together with John Murton, Ian produced a video history of the club for the 50th year anniversary. They spent long hours interviewing past officials and players to preserve club history.

Ian has also done the slides for the last 5 Best and Fairest nights.  He has prepared numerous small videos for guest speakers at Match Day lunches and sportsman’s nights.

Ian and Danny also scanned photos of all club memorabilia to ensure history was not lost. Ian is now on the Club Memorabilia sub-committee responsible for bringing BFC’s rich history to the walls of the BSC.

Ian continues to film games to this day. He is also working on “BFC TV” which will be a video section on the website that will have many years of games and history of the BFC.

I have worked closely with Ian as a Committee member for the last three years. He provided great support in my under 19s year, particularly with the Best and Fairest nights. My image of him this year is when we played Parkdale in 50km hour winds and freezing cold. There he was, on top of his van, videoing for 5 straight hours.

Ian’s contribution is not known by all but it is extremely significant. Firstly as a great volunteer and assistant to the juniors for ten years, and then as a committee man and tireless worker in the senior program for the last nine years.

A very worthy recepient of BFC Life Membership.

Terry Lucas

President