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WUE HC Chairman's Update - December 2017

WUE HC Chairman's Update - December 2017

Stuart Emms20 Dec 2017 - 09:13
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Dear Members,

A mid-season round up from me, ahead of the Christmas break, which I hope you find useful - including news of some very high profile events at the club in the coming months.
There have been lots of senior match postponements due to the weather in the last couple of weeks so keep your eyes peeled for updates from captains re availability requests for rearranged matches…
Finally, good luck to the u12 boys who, in another first for the club, are travelling to London’s Copperbox Arena to represent us at an indoor tournament on 30th December. What a great opportunity and good luck to these lads who I know have been training hard in the last few months.

From all of us at WUE HC, a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Stuart Emms, Chairman

CHRISTMAS ACTIVITIES
Thank you to all of you who helped and supported the hockey club’s stall at Wotton’s ‘Under the Edge’ shopping event, we raised c£200 for club funds. Thank you to Jane Pascoe for leading this event and well done to Bethany (age 9) who won our Christmas decoration competition.
Despite the best efforts of the organisers, our annual Xmas Jumper social was poorly attended by senior XIs. We pitch ourselves as a sociable club who all mix in together but judging by attendance by senior XIs at recent events this is hard to justify. If anybody has any ideas about how we can improve this or what events players would like to see put on, the committee is all ears.

ENGLAND HOCKEY CHAMPIONSHIPS UPDATE & HOME TIE vs READING HC (SUNDAY 11TH FEBRUARY)
M2’s away tie to City of Bath was postponed due to the snow and our u16s boys and girls play further round robin matches in their competitions in the New Year. The recent big news is that our Mens 1sts have been drawn at home against Reading HC in the last 16 of the Tier 1 England Hockey Championships on Sunday 11th February. The Tier 1 Championships are akin to the FA Cup and Reading HC are 6 times National Champs as well as previous winners of several European trophies; they’ve long been regarded as one of the country’s BIG clubs and still boast a lot of Internationals in their line up (whether they all travel remains to be seen!) So this really is the hockey equivalent of being drawn at home to Man Utd or Chelsea in the Cup, and potentially a massive day for us and Sport Wotton.

CRISTA CULLEN JUNIOR COACHING DAY – SUNDAY 28TH JANUARY
We are delighted to announce an opportunity for our U10-U16 players to attend a coaching session with former GB International and Olympic gold medallist, Crista Cullen MBE.
We are really pleased that we have been able to realise this opportunity and welcome a world class athlete, who we hope will inspire and motivate our next generation of budding hockey players.
Themes on the day will include: carrying the ball, shooting, aerials and, as you might expect if you’ve ever seen Christa play…a drag flicking masterclass!
A more detailed email targeted at those given the opportunity to attend will follow very soon.

LOCAL GREENWAY SURVEY - Wotton Charfield & Kingswood Greenway Group
Hopefully you may have seen some information about this in The Wotton Directory, November edition, The Gazette, on posters or from locals who may be talking about it! Moira Buist has recently been appointed one of the trustees of the group. You can find more information here: http://www.wckgreenwaygroup.org/ and on their facebook. If you can find a few moments to fill in their survey it would be very helpful

SENIOR LEAGUE UPDATE
Senior League season is now on the halfway break with M2 & M3 still 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, with M4 securing 3 points in the last match before the break to climb off the bottom of the table 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. As a further demonstration of our commitment to junior development, we are also hosted and funded an ‘engaging games for children’ course for our volunteer coaches on 27th November which went very well. Further Cheltenham tournaments will follow in the New Year, building up to the finals in March with places in the regionals up for grabs. Our next home tournament will be on Sunday 25th March.

DATES FOR THE DIARY

Sun 28th January: Christa Cullen coaching sessions
Sun 11th February: M1 v Reading HC (EH Championships – last 16)
Sat 21st April 2018: Annual Dinner Dance & Awards - Venue TBC but again please save the date.

LEADING SCORER UPDATE:
The race for the ‘Top Gun’ trophy continues – who will be presented with the silverware at the Annual Dinner on April 21st?
Scores on the doors at the halfway point as follows:
Marcus Smith 15
Dave Chevin 12
Jasmin George 10
Harry Willcox 10
Archie Cropper 9
James Cox 5
Ryan Howarth 5
Mille Mayer 5
Corinne Gibson 4
Adam Hanney 4
Lauren Leyland 4

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