Chairman's Departing Message

Fellow footy fans,

Today is my last day leading AFANA (see announcement here).  It's been a ride that at times has been frustrating, exhilarating, discouraging, hopeless, thrilling, fun, and just plain hard work.  Now, at the end, it is a relief and as one door closes, another is opening.  More on that later.

First, I need to publicly thank a few people.   First, to my two co-founders:  Wade Hinkle and the late Richard Lipp.   Without their encouragement, foresight, and motivation, I wouldn't be here and AFANA wouldn't exist.  Thank you for your belief in me and in the potential of this organization.   To our outgoing editor, my long time friend and colleague, Ann Solomon:  You've never failed me personally or professionally and I can never repay you. You have always listened when I needed someone to listen.  I may have been the face of the organization but you've been the solid foundation.  I could not have made it all these years without you along side.  To Ben Seacrist, our long time webmaster, a great singer, and a loyal supporter.  Thanks for being there for AFANA far longer than either of us ever expected.  To Paat Kelly and Kimber Smith, the newest members of the management team.  For too long, we lacked the public relations and promotional help we needed and you fixed that.  I can't tell you what a huge difference it has made the past few seasons.  To our writers, contributors, and journalists, especially Lisa Albergo and Johnson Leung:  It's hard to even begin to add up how much content we have because of the hours and hours you have put in for so many years.  Thanks for putting up with us and making this web site what it is.  To our members and supporters:  your long time financial support and commitment to contact the networks when we needed a voice and to help pay the bills when things looked grim, make you the silent heroes of footy in North America.  To our friends at the AFL, particularly Patrick Keane and Thea Salter:  thanks for working with us and listening to us.  I believe that together we have made the sport stronger.  To our colleagues at Setanta and the MHz Networks:  Thanks for letting fans have a voice and helping us to promote the sport, and thanks most of all for the fine coverage you have provided fans.  Finally, to all of you the regular visitors to afana.com:  a long time ago, when we first launched this site, it was a thrill just to be here.  So many of you made this a regular stop and over the years that we became a mainstay of the footy community on the net.  Numbers mean everything in the TV world.  You're the numbers.  Thanks for helping spread the word about our sport. 

For me, AFANA has always been a labor of love.  I love footy and genuinely believe in the sport.  To be part of the growth of the sport in North America has been immensely satisfying.  To have the chance to spend my day spreading the "word" about how much fun the sport is to watch has been the best job I could have had. I will miss it but if you believe in change, then you have to know when the time has come for it.  For me, that time is now.  My daughter needs more of my time and deserves it.  Now, I will make sure she gets it. 

I won't be going away as much as receding into the background.  I may still crop up here occasionally with a blog post and I will be doing some behind the scenes site maintenance when needed.   But mostly I'm going to do a lot of writing (both fiction and non-fiction) and perhaps you'll hear from me on other subjects and in other ways soon.  (You can read some of my writing on the future of communications here:  Popular Communications Magazine).  I am also developing other web sites and projects that may be announced later.  I've always been doing IT and communications consulting away from AFANA and will continue that (if you need a consultant with lots of experience in new media contact me!).  Best of all, I am looking forward to again following footy as just a fan. 

AFANA has yet to name my replacement and applications are still being accepted so perhaps one of you will be next to lead the footy fan movement.  Contact Kimber Smith per the linked announcement in the first paragraph.

The late Chuck Boehnke, a footy fan from Hawaii, used to remind me of the many meanings of that unique Hawaiian greeting of "Aloha".  It seems appropriate here, so I bid you all Aloha! 

-Rob de Santos
Chairman Emeritus, AFANA