The final issue of the Retired Australian Cricketers Bi-Annual Newsletter is released today, the 30 November which once again illustrates the value of Respite for the cricket family. Cricketer respite has become a cricket policy with a fresh appreciation and approach toward future cricketer generations.
There has been considerable experimentation in recent years as to how best to handle such an on-field situation. Cricketers do get worn out, they can become prone to injury detrimental to their careers, along with cricketer families having dad away so much, and at the same time, cricketers do want to play cricket.
Cricket is the primary focus taking into account career, future employment prospects (coaching, umpiring, management, media, business, cricket tourism), and therefore every endeavour is to ensure these avenues remain open to them.
The kind of Respite that we provide through Well-Being Australia is based on how we provided it for elite athletes from the Australian Institute of Sport since 1992, and that is a break away from the concrete edifices of modern sport. For 14 years we served these athletes at Basil Sellers House in Moruya (NSW south coast) and since 2006 at Basil Sellers Tweed (Tweed Heads).
A fall and a blackout
Dr Mark Tronson had a serious fall down a steep drive-way on Saturday 17 November and next day suffered a fainting (blackout). The medical advice was to slow down, passing on his ‘portfolio’ ministries while maintaining the young writer’s ministry and the Laguna Quays Respite ministry.
Having served for 17 years as the Australian cricket team chaplain and then 18 years in Life After Cricket, this closure of the bi-annual newsletter represents ‘an end of an era’.
David Goodwin the former editor of the WarCry (Salvation Army), a sport writer for Christian Today and a cricket tragic is willing in the short term, as the designated contact person for Life After Cricket (Cricket Family Respite) ‘respite facilities’.
Published twice a year
The Retired Australian Cricketers Bi-Annual Newsletter has been published 30 November and 30 March for 18 years. It was initiated in November 2000 after my 17 years as the Australian cricket team chaplain. I moved sideways to establish Life After Cricket.
The editorial team continued all these years as Allan Border, Greg Chappell, David Boon, Kim Hughes, NSW and VIC Cricket representatives, with me as the cricket chaplain as publisher. Each State posts out the newsletter to their own retired Australian cricketers and current Australian cricketers and an e-vision is sent for those with email.
Eight issues ago the format changed. It was initiated as a page of cricket news, and the reverse side, my Chaplain's Chat, with an occasional guest writer such as the then Victorian cricket chaplain Barrie Sutton and the AIS chaplain Peter Nelson.
with the Blind Cricketers
It is part of Well-Being Australia's “Cricket Family Respite” which is part of the Life After Cricket program. In 2007 I consulted cricket stalwart Allan Border to widen the Respite ministry from the AIS athletes and coaches to include the cricket fraternity. Together we came up with the phrase “Cricket Family Respite”. We kicked around a few “name ideas” until this one gelled.
There was so much cricket news available across the breadth of media it seemed that this newsletter needed a fresh approach and therefore refocused itself to the respite ministry and the three available respite facilities.
Well-Being Australia provides Respite in Moruya, Timeout in the Tweed and at Laguna Quays (Whitsundays).
This edition issue is a colourful newsletter featuring the Laguna Quays Respite major sponsor Mr Basil Sellers AM.
Dr Mark Tronson is a Baptist minister (retired) who served as the Australian cricket team chaplain for 17 years (2000 ret) and established Life After Cricket in 2001. He was recognised by the Olympic Ministry Medal in 2009 presented by Carl Lewis Olympian of the Century. He mentors young writers and has written 24 books, and enjoys writing. He is married to Delma, with four adult children and grand-children. Dr Tronson writes a daily article for Christian Today Australia (since 2008) and in November 2016 established Christian Today New Zealand.
Mark Tronson's archive of articles can be viewed at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/mark-tronson.html