Organising club events for the whole family and offering personalised and free registration kits for Under 6 players are two of the ways the Pennant Hills-Cherrybrook Stags have seen their numbers soar in recent years.
Coming up with novel prizes on presentation day – as opposed to your standard trophies or pennants – and inviting former players back on special game days are another two reasons for the club’s success.
That kind of innovation has won the Pennant Hills-Cherrybrook Stags the NSWRL 2024 Community Rugby League Club of the Year.
President for the past four years, Lee Cherry, has broken down some barriers of her own.
“I’m the first female president at the Stags,” she said. “They actually had to change the constitution wording when I was elected because it only referred to the President as a male.
“So we got that changed and our committee is now 50-50 female and male.”
The Stags have grown from 120 registrations 10 years ago to 400 players and 80 volunteers currently across 24 teams.
“Every year we’ve focused on keeping each age group together as they go up,” Cherry said.
“In our boys competitions we go from Under 6s right through to Under 17s and then to A Grade. We’ve got girls League Tag and tackle teams.”
Cherry said it was a simple philosophy behind ensuring the Stags continued success.
“At our club we just have a big focus on the kids and the families and creating memories for them.
“We do that by organising things like our trip up to the Gold Coast, which we did last year.
“It was a like a little tour up there. We opened it up to the whole club and had about 200 people sign up from all ages.”
A dinner, a picnic, tickets to a Gold Coast Titans NRL home game and a ‘friendly’ League Tag game between the Stags the Billambil Jets in Tweed Heads all added up to a fun weekend.
Then there is the annual State of Origin trip each year to the NSW Blues home game in Sydney for the Under 13s.
“They get on a bus together with their coach, their trainers and their manager. We’ve done that for the last few years just to give our players another type of experience,” Cherry said.
“We also love to do things differently on presentation day too. For example, last year a couple of the boys and girls teams didn’t get trophies. We gave them all swimming costumes instead.
“We also host Old Boys Days where we get as many of the original founders of the club to come along and see what we’re up to now.”
The female focus has also been strong in recent years.
“This year we had a 14s, 16s and Open women’s tackle teams – it’s the first time we’ve had female tackle teams,” Cherry said.
“Our girls tag teams have been quite successful over the past five years or so. But when girls got old enough to want to do tackle, they used to go off to other clubs to keep playing. So hopefully we’ll have an Under 12s girls tackle soon too.”
Plaudits for the club are coming thick and fast in 2024.
“Our club registrar, Michelle Loader, has just been announced as the NSWRL Volunteer of the Year for the Broken Bay region. She one hundred per cent deserves it as she does so much for our club. She’s amazing.”
