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    Boardroom Banter - Feb 2004

      Teaser Paragraph:

    Welcome to the February issue of Boardroom Banter.

    Injury Update

    As we are now approaching an extremely critical few weeks for the Club it is pleasing to note that most of our long term injury problems are making rapid progress towards fitness.

    Richie Hart, David Proctor, Charlie Christie, Barry Wilson and Stuart McCaffrey all had a run out against Clach in the reserve match on Monday evening. Steven Hislop could be back in light training later this week depending on the recommendations of his Specialist.

    The tail end of February and March fixtures will prove critical to our chances of topping the 1st Division and making further progress in the Scottish Cup, ( with the added financial bonuses that are critical to any club) so it will be extremely beneficial to have some, if not all our players, back challenging for positions during this crucial period.

    Transfer Window

    We were delighted that the transfer window came and went and for once our squad remained intact. Discussions are still ongoing with a few of our key players regarding new Contracts and both John and Graeme are close to delivering on this front.

    Commercial

    It is pleasing to note the positive reaction to the appointment of Les and that the throughput of information to you the fans is being so well received.

    This is an area we are trying to develop further and when Les steps down at the end of the season we are certain the rest of the Commercial Team will pick up where he has left off and continue to carry on the good work with regards to both the business side and communication with you the fans.

    We have been monitoring various aspects of the business over the past few weeks with a view to upgrading the standards all round to mirror the extremely high standards we set on the playing field, changes made are out of necessity and not just made for the sake of change.

    Discussions continue regarding a town centre outlet for our merchandising for next season.

    Hospitality packages are now sold out for the rest of the season apart from the Brechin game on 10th April.

    The final stock of football tops will be arriving this week and will be on sale at the Stadium or the Club Shop on match days.

    Car Park

    We are encouraged that the Home Car Park is now clearing reasonably well post match and we ask that drivers show patience and assist us on this front. Over the last few Home Games, the Car Parks have been cleared at the latest 15 minutes after the final whistle and barring the odd incident of queue jumping relatively incident free. We do hope this continues when the larger crowds arrive/depart for the up and coming games.

    Sportsman's Dinner

    As mentioned last month, there is a Sportsman's Dinner with star attraction Mr Tam Cowan, this function now has the added spice of our Cup Draw against Motherwell as we all know where Tams affiliations lie.

    There has been a change to the proposed date of 2nd April due to Tams commitments and the dinner will now take place on Friday 23rd April at the Ramada Jarvis, Inverness. Tickets/tables for this excellent evening have been going fast so if anybody wishes to book seats or a table please contact the Stadium as a matter of urgency as we would not like our regular fans to miss out on the exceptional opportunity.

    Stadium Entry

    Where Health and Safety permits (not for high profile games) we will continue to allow Homes Supporters to utilise turnstile No's 7 and 8 as an entry point to the Home Terracing. Any changes to this system will be well published prior to the games in question and we ask that on these occasions the fans do come along that bit earlier to avoid the disappointment of lengthy queues at 2.45pm.

    SPL Criteria

    As you will know from the local press, the Trust have submitted a Planning Application to upgrade the existing seating arrangements at the Stadium to 10,000 to meet SPL criteria.

    It is hoped that the Board will meet with the SPL prior to 31st March deadline to inform them of our intentions, should we be in the fortunate position of finishing at the top of the League come the 15th May.

    Youth and Community - by Danny MacDonald

    The success of the Youth and Community Department has far outweighed our expectations and we certainly look for this to continue.

    This weekend sees the start of the development league.

    Sundays fixtures as follows:

    Under 13 v QoS at Perth Under 14 v QoS at Perth Under 15 v Ross County at Inverness (Bught) Under 17 v St Johnstone at Inverness (Bught)

    It will be very interesting to see how we perform in what we are sure will be very exciting and competitive games.

    To give a brief insight into other areas we are developing, we also have squads of circa 20 participants at Primary 4, 5, 6, 7 plus an under 13 Development Squad to enable the children coming straight from Soccer 7's to gain experience moving up from 7 a-side through 9 a-side and towards 11 a-side by the time they reach 1st year level at High School.

    We also run training sessions for our Squads six nights per week as follows:

    Tuesday - Highland Academy under 13, 14 and 15's.

    Inverness - Primary 7, under 13 Development Squad and under 17's.

    Wednesday - Sports Centre Primary 4 and at Charleston our under 17s have fitness and conditioning sessions.

    Thursday - Inverness Royal Academy Primary 5, under 14's and 15's.

    Friday - Highland Academy specialist Goal Keeping sessions plus under 13, 15 and 17s training sessions.

    Saturday - All squads undergo tactical awareness sessions in preparation for Sundays games at various locations around Inverness.

    Sunday - Where possible our squads play competitive matches all over Scotland due to the league set ups. This level of investment and commitment, we trust, will ensure the players of the future get the correct grounding for their futures.

    Over all we have 200 youngsters affiliated to ICTFC all at varying skill and age levels.

    Through generous sponsorship we have managed to kit out all our squads with a uniformed training and playing kit thus lifting the profile of the Club and to our sponsors we remain eternally grateful.

    The quality product now being produced by the Club at Youth Level has been officially recognised with the presentation of the SFA's Gold Award for Youth Development, one of only a handful of awards put out by the SFA this year under this banner.

    Although we still have a long way to go in the pursuit of our goals, we are delighted at how far we have progressed in such a short timescale and many thanks go to Danny and his Team which includes both fulltime staff and many part time unpaid volunteers.

    Finally can we ask that you all come out and support our youngsters competing in the Inverness Fun Run on Sunday 14th March where we hope to have 150 + from our various Squads, Coaches, Management and perhaps even a Director or two (to be confirmed) all decked out in Club Colours.

    Next month we will update you on our School Programmes which are more Community based and we will provide an insight as to how we work closely with the Schools to ensure that the children's development in football is provided so as not to be detrimental to their Education but as an added benefit.

     

    We trust the above report from Danny MacDonald illustrates how far the Club have progressed in a short period of time and our undoubted commitment to the Youth in our area.

    We look forward to seeing you all down at the Stadium during the league run in and our very important Cup Game against Motherwell, a repetition of the excellent support at the St Mirren, game which was greatly appreciated would be very welcome and encouraging for both the Team and Management.




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