Another busy month and plenty of hockey played. As we get bigger, the challenge is to keep us all together as ‘one club’, so regardless of whether you are playing in the Premiership or the parent of an 8 year old playing junior hockey - I hope these monthly clubwide round up emails assist in that regard and we all continue to support each other at all levels.
I look forward to seeing you pitch side or at one of our upcoming events in the weeks ahead.

Finally, congratulations to M4 skipper Steve Hardman and Ladies Club Captain Corina Whitear who recently announced their engagement. Great news!

All the best,
Stuart Emms - Chairman

DATES FOR THE DIARY

Sat 11th November: Music Quiz at Wotton Town Hall. 7.30pm onwards. Teams of 6 (max) £5 per person. All the details on recent email or via the FB event page. Team social reps should have been in touch. Look forward to seeing you there.
Sun 26th November: (1) Junior Home Tournament and (2) WCSF Tree Planting (see below)
Sat 2nd December: Xmas Under the Edge – WUEHC will have a stall at this Christmas shopping event in Wotton, so do look out for us. Facepainting, lucky dip et al
Sat 9th December: Our Annual Xmas Jumper Pub Social (& Disco TBC) Swan Hotel. More details on this to follow but do please save the date
Sat 21st April 2018: Annual Dinner Dance & Awards - Venue TBC but again please save the date.

SENIOR LEAGUE UPDATE
Senior League season is in full flow with L1, M2 & M3 all in the promotion mix in their respective divisions. M1 are playing well in the rarefied atmosphere of the Premiership, gaining a win and several draws. L2, L3 and M4 have all registered some good wins and are looking to climb their tables. Availability has been much better of late, and all squads have been able to play with a good number of subs. You can track our league progress through the season here:
GoCrea8 Men’s League: https://www.wswhl.co.uk/
West Club Women’s Hockey League: https://www.wcwhl.co.uk/

YOUTH UPDATE
Boys & Girls u16s have all played a good number of games both in the Gloucestershire Circle and (for the girls, given the lower number of Glos teams) additional games in the Avon Junior League. In order to provide a full programme of fixtures, additional games will be played in the England Hockey Championships (see below). For similar reasons, the U14 Girls have played games in the Firebrands Academy League and Avon Junior League – this approach seems to be working very well, giving all the kids plenty of opportunities to play.

JUNIOR UPDATE
The mini-hockey (4-7 year olds) on Saturday mornings is going very well, so thanks to those new volunteers making that happen. U8s and U10s (boys and girls) have already been in Glos HA tournament action this month and it’s the U12s turn this weekend. The main surprise being that we had sunshine (yes, sunshine!) at our last home tournament on 15th Oct. This was a great day with over 250 kids from 7 different clubs in action at our home pitch – and the cake stall as ever was amazing. I understand we are close to being over-subscribed for entries for our next home tournament on 26th Nov – well done Cathy York and team. If that wasn’t enough, our U12 Boys are currently ‘in training’ for an indoor tournament in London near Xmas!
As a further demonstration of our commitment to junior development, we are also hosting and funding an ‘engaging games for children’ course for our volunteer coaches on 27th November.

ENGLAND HOCKEY CHAMPIONSHIPS UPDATE
Its been a busy month for our teams in the EH Championships (AKA the revamped national KO comps played on Sundays)
There was a brilliant home crowd and atmosphere for the Ladies Rd 1 match v UWE Redland on 29 Oct; a hard fought 0-0 which went to flicks sadly lost on sudden death – so we get to concentrate on the league as the cliché goes! Both Mens 1s and Mens 2s got byes in the first round of their tiered competitions; M2 play City of Bath away on December 10th, while we await the draw for M1 (tie to be played 3rd Dec)
The u16s boys and girls competitions run on a round robin style basis; the Girls u16s had a tough loss 4-0 away to OBs while the Boys u16s gave a good account of themselves in an epic 6-4 loss to City of Bath. We have pulled out of the u14 competitions due to the lack of other regional teams entering which would have meant some very long away games!
Look out for details of future home ties so we can get a great Sunday atmosphere going at Sport Wotton.

GLOUCESTERSHIRE ACADEMY SQUADS (BOYS)
Please join me in congratulating the following boys who have been selected to attend Academy sessions in their age groups. As with the girls (below), commiserations to those who didn’t make it, there will be lots of opportunities for everyone to develop at club level.

U14 Boys Jamie Hirst, Ellis Brewer
U15 Boys James Bell, George Topham
U16 Boys Rufus Wells (GK)

Yet to be assessed: Joe McCoubrie, Hugh Benson, Kieran Latimer.
Well done to all of these players and their coaches.

GOCREA8 CHRISTMAS COURSES
Men’s Player-Coach Matt Fairburn is the founder of GoCrea8 Hockey. They are running one of their junior skills camps at KLB/Sport Wotton on 20 & 21 December; these have proved very popular with our younger players (7-14) in the past – and with parents looking to keep the kids occupied during the holidays! For more details and to make a booking, click here http://www.gocrea8.co.uk/classes

GLOUCESTERSHIRE ACADEMY SQUADS (GIRLS)
In last month’s update I informed members of some of the girls selections; as it turned out I jumped the gun a little and more selections were published after we went to press! So for completeness sake, the full list of WUE HC representatives therefore is as follows:

U15 Girls Holly Morton (GK), Eliza Boyd and Millie Mayer.
U16 Girls Naomi Culpepper
U17 Girls Olivia Green

Congratulations to all these players and commiserations to those that didn’t make it; the standard was very high this year I’m told. All of the above players are, or have, played 1st XI hockey this season which (a) validates some of the ‘hunch picks’ by the ladies captains earlier in the year and (b) shows our commitment to developing young talent. Well done all and in particular James Bull and his team (and the GK coaches) who have been responsible for coaching and developing the u14/16 group of girls for the last 2/3 years.

UPCOMING UMPIRES COURSES
There are several L1 umpires courses being run in the next month throughout the region.
Given the poor uptake from members when the club ran its own course last year, I’d be grateful if members would consider attending one of the courses listed below.
This will ease the burden on those L1 or part qual umpires in the club currently, and reduce the likelihood of games being cancelled due to lack of officials; if you are looking for an opportunity to put something back into the club, this could be your chance. Normally the courses last 0930-1630.
You will need to go on , register and pay yourselves. Provided you commit to umpiring a reasonable amount of games per year, the club will refund the course fee. Indeed the course at St Peters is part subsidised by Glos HA.
Please let me, Steve Dexter or Myra know when you have registered

12/11/17 Bradley Stoke Community School
19/11/17 Bath Uni
19/11/17 St Peters School, Gloucester

http://www.englandhockey.co.uk/courses.asp?section=2031&sectionTitle=Find+a+Course%2FWorkshop&coursetype=0001300000050007

WCSF– TREE PLANTING 26/11
Wotton Community Sports Foundation (WCSF), the umbrella organisation of which the hockey club was a found member is holding another tree planting event on Sunday 26th November, see the below from Sarah Watt:
“We have our next tree planting planned for 10 am Sunday 26th November and we would be really pleased if you could join us. We are planting more saplings alongside the new path, and we have a few larger specimen trees to plant elsewhere across the PARC. We would also like to plant wild flowers all along the other side of the path, interspersed with herbs and lavender bushes to create a Wild Flower Walk to welcome people to the PARC. I have this theory that many people have a packet of wild flower seeds somewhere in the house which they bought intending to use them in the garden - and like me never quite got around to it! Could you bring them down and scatter them amongst the grass to help us make the path bloom next spring - or maybe buy a packet to sow? Do you have lavender, rosemary or sage cuttings you could bring? “

‘TOP GUN’ TROPHY UPDATE
After the first few rounds of senior league matches, the race for the Leading Scorer trophy (awarded at the end of season dinner) continues. Current leaders as follows:

Marcus Smith (M2) 11
Dave Chevin (M3) 7
Archie Cropper (M3) 6
Jasmin George (L1) 6
Ryan Howarth (M1) 5
Millie Mayer (L1) 5