Rob's Thoughts

How AFANA Was Hatched - Conclusion

Picking up the story from where I left off in Part II...

Once the footy was back on TV again, everyone wondered just what we should do with the "campaign".  One thing I continued to do was issue notices of the TV schedules, any changes, etc.  These e-mail bulletins became AFANA's TV & Media newsletter, now in volume 8.  I estimate that AFANA and my predecessor e-mails have resulted in over 250 announcements since late 1995.

By early August, Wade and I had recruited a group of about 8 people who met by conference call in late August, 1996.  In that meeting it was agreed to form a permanent organization which Wade and I would lead, and it would be called the "Australian Football Association of North America".   The name was chosen for several reasons:  the initials AFANA had "fan" in the middle and we were a fan organization, it did not connote a league which we weren't and didn't want to be, and lastly it included Canada since from the earliest days of the campaign we had assisted Canadians in trying to get coverage restored in Canada.  

Wade and I then set about getting the organization established.  One of the first decisions we made was how to fund the launch and first couple of years of AFANA.  We soon realized that it would take even more money that we had envisioned.  While myself, Wade, and the other founders did poney up what was needed, the only way that happened was that AFANA became a privately owned stock corporation and was not non-profit as some had originally hoped.   We also recruited Ann Solomon as our media and public relations manager.  She eventually became my primarily advisor and continues to be that to this day.  

A few days before the Grand Final in September, 1996, AFANA was officially registered as a corporation in the state of Delaware and came into existence.  This was fortuitous as AFANA had already launched it's first venture in the TV arena as the co-organizer of the 1996 Grand Final telecast in North America.  But that's a story for another time.

-Rob (who wonders why he is still doing it after all these years!)