EAST REGION HOCKEY ASSOCIATION
Minutes of the eighth ANNUAL GENERAL
MEETING held on 5 July 2007
at the Quy Mill Hotel, Cambridge at 7.30 pm
Present:
Ros
Marsh (President), Bill Felton (Deputy President), Margaret McCall (Hon
Treasurer), Catherine Lymer (Hon Secretary), John Hendy (Youth Performance),
Russell Nutter (League Joint Committee & Letchworth HC), Mike Trett
(ERHUA), Charlie Farrow (England Hockey), Sapphire Cutting (England Hockey),
Hazel Medler (Norfolk HA & Norwich Union HC), Sheila George (Norfolk CUHA),
Sally Tippen (Cambs HA & Cambridge City HC), Chris Hatch IES HC, Liz
Pelling (Essex HA), Dan Heydon (HBUA), Jill Warrick (Lincs HA), Richard West
(Herts HA), Jill Woods (Herts HA), John Chaplin, Peter Wright (Norfolk HA).
1.
APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE
Lorraine
Bant (Youth Competitions), John Helliwell (Discipline), Avril Mallett
(Norfolk), Ken Green (Suffolk), John Adams (Suffolk), Barry Anderson (Hon VP),
David Burt (Cambs), Ken Lochhead, Harold Crystal (Hon VP)
Welcome
by Ros Marsh, and a short silence to remember Karen Nehammer and Alan Brooks
members of the East Region Hockey Umpiring Association, and Peter
Martinez. Special thanks were given to
Bill Felton and Margaret McCall for their unfailing and generous support over
the last 2 years.
2.
ITEMS TO BE COVERED
UNDER ANY OTHER BUSINESS
There
were none.
3.
APPOINTMENT OF TELLERS
It
was not felt necessary to appoint tellers.
4.
MINUTES OF THE SIXTH
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING HELD ON 6 JULY 2006
They
were agreed and signed as a correct record.
5.
PRESENTATION AND
ADOPTION OF UNAUDITED ACCOUNTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MAY 2007
Margaret McCall
presented her report (in appendices) on the unaudited accounts. Financial
policy same as previous years except extra money was given to youth and indoor
hockey because of the cost of competitions. Concern over the number of schools
affiliating, and the use of all the reserve money that was in place for the
Performance camps.
Thanks to David Hobbs
who stepped in at the last minute to audit the accounts. The Hon Treasurer
announced that 2007/08 was going to be her last year.
RW
raised the question that with a sum of £46,000 in the bank was there a policy
for spending it or will it always be a reserve, and if so it seemed a large sum
to be kept in the bank. MM suggested
getting county reps to bring ideas as to how to spend some of the money to the
Management Meetings, but also that a reasonable reserve must be kept back as a
safety net. Unaudited accounts adopted.
6.
TO APPROVE AFFILIATION
FEES FOR SEASON 2007/8
Management had proposed that the ERHA club
and school affiliation fees remain at £15 a team and £7 a school (same as the
previous 5 years) and this was agreed by the meeting.
7.
REPORTS
The following reports were circulated before or at
the meeting:
Youth
Competitions Committee (Loraine Bant) Report
in appendices
Youth
Performance Committee (John Hendy). Report in appendices
JH
expressed his thanks to Miche Bloch, Competitions, RM, MM, CF, David Faulkner,
Jane Powell, John Oakshatt, Ian Le Page, Steve Baker and the Performance
Committee. It had been a big year with the Region’s 6 centrally contracted
coaches appointed and the implementation of the single system. It is imperative that we engage with EH. Culford 06 was attended by 490 players, £7000
was spent mainly on a leadership course, which was all the reserves that has
accumulated over the years. There will be a coaching seminar at this year’s
camp to which every coach is welcome, it will be advertised as soon as
possible. Miche Bloch is taking over as
chairperson this year. RM thanked John
for all his work.
Umpiring Committee
(Mike Trett) Report in appendices
Congratulations to Sheila George on becoming President of the
ERHUA and retiring as its Secretary - she will be greatly missed. Thanks to all
for their hard work over the year. Mary Baker is taking over as secretary and
Jack Warner is replacing Barrie Pollard as the Chief Umpire Coach.
RM- How many new level 2 umpires are there? SG - 6. MT – Still not
a great situation but there are some good young umpires coming through.
CH – This time last year Suffolk were struggling badly from lack
of umpires, however this year with 5 or 6 new ones, less pressure had been
felt. RM thanked Mike and Sheila.
Leagues Committee
(Russell Nutter) Report in appendices
There was discussion over the single system implementation. The statement issued on the East Web page was
not put there by the ERHA Management Committee.
It was put on the website by the Officers of the Association, RM, BF and
MM, to confirm that it is the responsibility of the clubs to police the U13
guidance from EH not the League, or the ERHUA or the ERHA. Very few clubs in the East League would be
affected by this implementation, but if the age limit was raised a much bigger
impact would be felt by all clubs in the East.
EH have said they are not going to look at it again until 2009. In light of all this RM, BF and MM thought a
statement was needed so the clubs had some guidance as to what was expected. CH and ST in agreement with the U13 ruling by
EH, and other sports are falling into line.
JC - East League Men’s results do not appear in the national press
whilst Women’s do, any reason for this?
RN - will ask Richard Munns, but is sure that Richard gives all the
results to the national press.
CH - was hoping that clubs would provide umpire lists on the
website, so clubs could check. RN – this is what league managers do. MT - they
are listed on the East Website, some counties are listing their umpires on
their web pages. From this coming season league will be able to cross check
with the umpire association. RM thanked
Russell and Trevor for all their work
Development Committee (Bill Felton) Report in appendices
Appeals/Discipline Committee (John Helliwell) No report
submitted
Publicity and Sponsorship (John Helliwell) No report
submitted
Indoor Hockey (Ros Marsh)
Report in appendices
Entry forms are needed by the end of August for Indoor
Competitions. Indoor is now on the East
website. The Women’s qualifying tournament is at Bethnal Green, Men’s
qualifying tournament is at Kelsey Kerridge, Cambridge (both on 1-2 Dec 07).
Women’s and Men’s East Indoor Championships are at Kelsey Kerridge (both on 8-9
Dec 07).
The adoption of the reports was proposed by Hazel Medler, seconded
by Peter Wright and agreed by the meeting.
Ros Marsh thanked all involved for their hard work over the year.
8.
ENGLAND
HOCKEY REPORTS
Regional Development Manager (Charlie Farrow) Presentation in Powerpoint – available on request
Regions’ Consultative Committee (Ros Marsh) Report in
appendices
Following her report Ros Marsh commented on how useful the RCC was
as a forum to discuss any prominent matters, also said that if there is
anything that anyone wanted discussed to let BF know in the future.
9. ELECTION
OF OFFICERS
It was proposed and agreed to elect the officers ‘en bloc’
10. VICE
PRESIDENTS OF EAST REGION HOCKEY ASSOCIATION
Jenny
Cardwell proposed by Lorraine Bant and Ken Lochhead proposed by Margaret
McCall. All agreed.
11. APPOINTMENT
OF AUDITOR
MM
to ask David Hobbs if he will audit again next year.
Thursday, 3 July 2008 at Quy Mill Hotel,
Cambridge, 7.30 pm.
13. ANY
OTHER BUSINESS
There
was none
The
meeting closed at 9.50 pm with the President thanking all those present for
their continued support and commitment and saying her much she had enjoyed her
time in the East.
BF
– Thanked everyone for trusting him to be President and gave RM an engraved
crystal bowl as a gift of thanks.
President………………………………………………………………………. Date
…………………………………………………………
This year the accounts show the income and
expenditure on the Association’s general activities separately from that for
the hockey camps and performance activities. There is a slight deficit of
-£150.02 on the general activities and a deficit of -£7263.68 on the hockey
camps and performance activities.
Overall
Senior and Main administration
Deficit has increased this year by over
£3000. This is due mainly to the
following:
·
The East League entry
fee being reduced because in previous years the Leagues were showing an excess
income of over £1000.
·
The income from East
League fines decreasing. Fines income
has been used to support the young umpire development projects organised by
Counties.
·
The cost of producing
and distributing the Handbook increasing by almost £1400. £700 of the increased
costs being borne by the ERHA and £700 by the East Leagues.
Umpiring fees paid by the East League Premier A
and B men’s teams and the Premier women’s teams have not covered the umpires’
claims and the cost of assessing and coaching umpires at these league
matches.
It is pleasing that the administration costs have
remained similar to last year.
Insurance cost slightly less this year because the
Association no longer runs U21 Regional squads.
Overall
Coaching and Youth activities
Overall deficit on these activities has decreased
this year to -£3966.12 from -£13466.35.
This reduced net expenditure is due mainly to :
·
Reduced net expenditure
on Regional squads – no longer run U21 squads – and squads running at under
budget.
·
The majority of Inter
County and junior club and school competitions being self-funding. Last year’s accounts showed a large deficit
because Counties had been over-charged and were being refunded the excess.
·
Regional Development
Manager not requesting ERHA funding for
level 1 and level 2 coaching courses.
·
Reduced expenditure on
the Performance activities.
A considerable quantity of kit was bought for use
by the East squads and the cost of this was part off-set by commission from the
supplier amounting to £885.
Affiliated
schools and clubs
The number of schools affiliating decreased yet
again this year though there was again an increase in the number of adult teams
affiliating.
Summer
Hockey Camps and Youth Performance
Over the last few years a surplus of over £7000
had been accumulated from the camps and a separate account set up to part
finance the development of East coaches.
This year there was a total net expenditure of £7263.68 on the
performance activities, exceeding by £100 the £7179.86 in the camps account at
the start of 2006/7.
Activities financed from this money in 2006/7 were
:
The camps ran at a net deficit of £2395.16 whereas
the aim is to at least break even.
Relocation by the Camps Administrator to Guernsey part way through the
year contributed in some way to increased administration costs. Retrieving the
camp information also added to these costs.
·
A Leadership course was
run in conjunction with the camps and the cost of this and the cost of the
Regional Coach were paid out of the account.
An excess of Leadership training packs were purchased, the cost of which
was included in this financial year even though some are still available for
future trainings.
·
A small subsidy was given to East coaches
taking level 1 and Level 3 coaching courses.
2007/8
The umpiring fees paid by teams
in the men’s Premier A and B and
women’s Premier Divisions of the East Leagues will be increased to ensure that
they cover the umpiring costs.
The policy of subsidising the
adult and youth Indoor hockey competitions will continue.
This year’s hockey camps will be
self-funding.
The Association’s accounts are
healthy and on the assumption that there will be little change in the
Association’s activities in 2007/8, I see no reason to increase either the club
or school affiliation fees for 2007/8.
These will remain at £15/adult team and £7/school.
Thanks
My thanks to Mr David Hobbs for auditing the
accounts at short notice, to County Treasurers for collecting the affiliation
fees, to squad managers and budget officers of the East League and Youth
Competitions Committees for preparing budgets and collecting and paying in monies
and to East Management for their continued support. Their help is appreciated.
Margaret McCall
This
season we have to thank Fiona Wheeler for all her hard work in ensuring that
all our competitions were completed and that for all the finals, the pitches
were booked. I thank the umpires for all their assistance in officiating and
the volunteer TDs for all of their time and expertise. The committee members
have worked hard and faithfully ensuring that the links between the committee
and their county give opportunity for good communication and debate.
We
say goodbye to David Walsh from Suffolk who has been an enormous support to the
work of this committee without actually sitting as a rep. A big thank you too
to Barry Barr from Lincolnshire who has worked tirelessly for the East boys
competitions and Lincs boys.
We
continue to work hard to keep up to date with the initiative that England put
forward. We will be aiming to play the boys schools wholly mid-week in two
years time – the finals only are over a weekend this year.
Due
to the restrictions being put on U13s and the overload of England commitments
this year we have reduced the U13 fixtures giving them more time for county and
friendly competitions. We will review this next season.
The
fixture list for the coming season has proved a difficult task this year due to
the congestion of the England fixtures and has taken us since January to
complete. The competition results for
this season are also attached.
Loraine
Bant
Winners of
Competitions 2006-2007
Boys County Championship Girls Leagues
U14
Norfolk U13
Suffolk
U15
Cambs U14
Cambs
U16
Norfolk U15
Essex
U17
Norfolk U17
Essex
National Schools Championship East Round
Boys Girls
U14
Ipswich U14
Felsted
U16
Framlingham U16
King’s Canterbury
U18
Ipswich U18
Felsted
National Indoor Championships
Boys Girls
U16
The Perse School U16
Chelmsford HC
U18
Ipswich School U18
King’s Canterbury
National Mini Championship East Round
Boys Girls
U11
Old Loughtonians HC Felsted
Prep
U13
Woodbridge School Felsted
Prep
Boys
U11 Festival Norfolk
Boys
U12 Festival Suffolk
Boys
U13 Festival Essex
Staff
We lost Ian Le Page and
Steve Baker without notice at the Culford camp 2006. This caused an horrendous
vacuum in the management group. Miche and others have done extremely good job
in retrieving the situation, picking up the baton without notice, covering all
the bases quickly, filling squad places, setting up, organising and running the
up-front admin for a successful camp in August 2007. An heroic effort. Our new
CCC staff will be involved in the camp throughout the month of August.
Centrally
Contracted Coaches
Now appointed – 5 outfield
/ 1 GK.
2 further coaches on
‘Apprentice’ scheme.
Induction already underway
– Exeter and Manchester gatherings attended.
Meeting last week with NGB
(Jane) and CCCs and East Performance Group identified and defined best
Summer
Camps
Culford School August 2006
490 attended. Accumulated fund spent on Leaders course.
Culford School August
2007 £45K takings thus far. Indications
are a good. Budgeted player/staff ratio at the camp of 4.3-4.7: 1.
Squads
U13/U14/U15/U17 boys and
girls all running.
Coaching
Delighted that from June
this year the performance group will be working in close partnership with
Charlie’s office with responsibility for stimulating and driving forward the
East’s Coach education programme for Leader, L1 and L2 coaching, together with
L3 already within its brief.
A Coach briefing – 1 day seminar will be run by the East, with NGB participation and sessions by our CCC staff, including National Squad coaches – not to be missed – County, School, Club Coaches at Culford in Mid August. Minimal fee to cover lunch and admin.
AGM
- officers
New Chair – Miche from
July onwards. Existing committee remains in place. JH/ Miche swapping
places.
Thanks
When I think back to
August 2004, to a meeting with Ian and Steve at Haileybury, we dreamed of a
young, passionate and enthusiastic team to take over from us. They would have a
summer camp to be proud of, a common ethos that put the player first, genders
having equal opportunity and all squad staff qualified to at least level 2. We
lead and accomplished most of these objectives but also much much more, plus we
had some adventures and laughs along the way.
My most grateful thanks go
to everyone on East Management, Ros’ magnificent leadership and Margaret’s
infinite patience, our NGB/Development/Performance staff – David and Jane our
performance ‘Champions’,and in E Anglia especially Charlie - who daily
accomplishes the impossible, the other Regional Performance Chairmen, County
committees, County Squad Coaches & Managers, Schools, Teachers, Parents,
Club officers and grass roots coaches.
Miche, who is dynamite. The East Managers and Coaches and the
Performance Committee, all of whom are enthusiastic, dedicated, very hard
working and generous friends whose aspirations are purely for the success of
their budding players…..The young and now, ‘not-so-young’ Girls and Boys we
have had the privilege to work with…… my old chum John Oakshatt who started the
summer camps, and to Ian and Bakes (who got me back involved to share their dream
- when I thought I had retired)….for all the great fun, successes, good times,
future plans and dreams that I have had the pleasure of sharing with them as
Chairman over the last 3 years, and for the decade and a half of happy
adventures before that.
Until the next time, have
fun.
John Hendy
Umpiring Committee
The
purpose of the Association is to develop umpiring in the Region, by developing
regional level umpires, umpire coaches, umpire managers, umpire selectors and
assessors; to provide umpires to designated matches; and to provide support for
umpires throughout the East.
ERHUA has continued to fulfil the role described
above. ERHUA has continued to organise a
Premier League Umpires’ Meeting (PLUM) at the beginning of the season. This years
event , to be held on 8/9 September will provide our umpires with top-class
hockey at three venues, Chelmsford, Old Loughtonians and Redbridge and many EHL
teams will be participating.
Coaching and assessment of members has taken place
throughout the season. Training courses have been run in order to develop
umpire coaches and umpire managers. The development of young umpires will
continue to be a major focus for the Association in conjunction with the
Regional Development manager. This year has seen an unfortunate ‘hiccup’ in the
system but this has been addressed to ensure that such shortcomings do not
affect our young umpires in future years.
Last year I reported that the Umpiring Committee of
England Hockey had presented changes to the “level 2 award” so that more
umpires can reach that level and it was hoped that this would increase the
numbers of umpires available to umpire East League matches. There have been
some new L2 umpires join this year but we have yet to see any dramatic increase
in numbers so I have to draw your attention to chronic umpire shortages yet
again. It is for every club and county within our region to take this matter
seriously. We will be working with the League Management Committee next year to
identify, and take action against, clubs that are not playing their part.
Since the amalgamation in 1999, which saw the
formation of ERHUA, we have been extremely fortunate in having as our
Secretary, Sheila George. This year Sheila has stepped down from that role and
has become our new President. She succeeds Allan Holliwell, who retires at the
end of his three-year term of office. He has been a tremendous support and has
provided much wise counsel during his term. Our new secretary is Mary Baker.
Our Chief Umpire Coach, Barrie Pollard, has stepped down after three years of
sterling work, and his place is to be taken by Jack Warner.
The Umpiring Committee will continue to work hard to
encourage the development of umpires, umpire managers and coaches throughout
the Region so that the flow to the very highest levels can continue in the
future.
Mike Trett
League
Committee
Our League Managers do a tremendous amount
of work in the service of the clubs to keep the hockey leagues in good
order. Sadly, Mike Huckerby had another
stroke, and it is a testament to my committee that within 20 minutes of the
announcement of Mike’s illness, 3 members volunteered to administer his
leagues. Unfortunately Mike cannot carry
out his duties any longer and is retiring to Devon, and we all wish him well.
The League Managers have a lot of autonomy
in the running of the leagues, within the guidelines they are set, and they all
do a tremendous unselfish job. This year
we have welcomed in the East Vets League to our fold, and Bob King has run this
with no problems. The Women’s Leagues
have come up to the full 72 teams we envisaged and now look forward to a period
of stability, although we may have to tweak the
geography of our lower divisions a little, notwithstanding the changes
to the National League,
We have had another season of difficulties
on the discipline front; we even had to threaten a club with expulsion due to
its attitude and approach to umpiring.
Their 1st team managed to accumulate almost one third of ALL
the yellow cards in the Men’s Premier League.
The club concerned has since worked hard to put in place a set of rules
and procedures, which means that the threat has been withdrawn, but a close
check on their progress will be made.
There were over 1100 yellow cards last season; which is far too many so
we have had to put in place more stringent rules against repeat offenders. Our rules on yellow cards are the envy of all
the other regional leagues, and we will now have a 1-match ban after 3 yellows,
a two-match ban after a 4th, and a 3-match ban after any 5th. That should get any miscreant to well past
Christmas, and a club might begin to look at his worth, because of course, most
of the cards are in the higher divisions, so ALL teams will be affected by the
yellow cards changes as players are promoted to fill the gaps caused by
suspensions.
With the lack of any prospect of a sponsor
the need for fixture cards has diminished and physical paper cards are no
longer mandatory.
We have tried over many seasons to work
closely with the County Umpires Associations to ensure that umpiring is
improved in the lower leagues. As it
seems impossible for East Umpires to co-ordinate information from the various
County HUAs, it will now be a club requirement to send a complete list
of their umpires to the league before the season starts. This will allow the League Managers more
easily to monitor the validity of Level 1 umpires.
Due to changes in the National League, we
are likely to get a higher than usual number of relegations so our promotion
from Premier B is reduced for one season.
For a second season, we have spent a good
deal of time talking about the proposals by England Hockey for juniors in
leagues, and we took the decision that we will not have age limiting leagues in
the East, except for the Vets League. We
did a survey of all East clubs, which was responded to by over 90% of them
which showed that we are almost all against the EH proposals, as did similar
surveys in the South and West. We would
lose up to 100 teams from the East leagues alone, and many clubs would go out
of existence all together. Having put
all this information to EH, they finally agreed to do their own survey,
supposedly after consultations with the leagues. This consultation did not happen in any
meaningful way and when the EH did a survey; they got only a 23% response to a
very complicated document. A cynical
person could say that they made it so complicated so that they could extract
the information in the way they want!!
Since then, the ERHA committee, of which I thought I was a member,
issued a policy statement on this issue.
Only 3 members of that committee signed this statement, so 12 people
didn’t! It is TOTALLY against the wishes
of all the clubs we are supposed to represent in the East. I must seriously consider my attendance at
East Committee as I refuse just to grovel at the feet of Milton Keynes, have
been saying all along that this line would NOT be taken without, at least, some
discussion.
It seems that NO OTHER region has yet found
it necessary to issue such a statement.
The incredibly hard work put in by Trevor
Williams and his colleagues in the other regional leagues have at least helped
to persuade England Hockey to re-think the issue. Apart from any
other consideration, where would the Counties, the East and England Hockey get
their income if all those affiliated teams and clubs were to go to the wall?
To quote someone I know “We can all look
forward to the day when the unique nature of hockey as a truly family sport is
destroyed by misguided zealots”.
Russell Nutter
During the year it was decided by Management that I should
take over as Chairman, and during the year we had one full meeting attended by
Representatives for all the Counties together with Charlie. The meeting went
well and the Counties were able to discuss between themselves the various ways
they were approaching the question of development.
It was agreed that we would have a further meeting in
the Spring, but we should have one topic for discussion taking about 45 minutes
of the meeting. When I tried to get this together it was felt by some Counties
that it was not suitable to have a special development committee, but that it
should be merged into Performance. In view of this feeling I took to the last
Management meeting my thoughts on the subject and it was agreed that at the
first meeting after the AGM this should be on the Agenda.
Bill Felton
East
indoor hockey was reintroduced in the season 2005/06 when clubs in our region
were invited to an indoor tournament held in December 2005, one for men and one
for women. An Indoor Working Group met
in early 2005 where it was envisaged that these competitions would provide our
national league clubs with locally arranged preparation for the national league
and also find the East’s representatives for Division 2 (North or South) of the
national league. An additional benefit
would be to provide East umpires and officials with an opportunity to practise
their skills. It was also hoped that
this would encourage Counties (who weren’t already doing so) to run their own
leagues. The Working Group also agreed
that the winners of County Leagues would have an automatic right of entry to
the East tournament.
This
competition has now run for 2 years in the same format ie a mixture of East
national league sides and aspiring East clubs who want to join the national
league. The format this coming season is
somewhat different in that there will be two separate tournaments as under:
1-2 Dec 07 Women’s qualifying tournament for
national league
1-2 Dec 07 Men’s qualifying tournament for
national league
OPEN TO EAST LEAGUE TEAMS NOT ALREADY IN THE NATIONAL INDOOR LEAGUE [each Region has 1 place
by right in Div 2 of the National League]
8-9 Dec 07 Women’s East Indoor Championship
[Canterbury, Chelmsford, Harleston, Ipswich, Old
Loughts and Sevenoaks will be invited, plus the winner and runner-up of the
qualifying tournament]
8-9 Dec 07 Men’s East Indoor Championship
[Harleston, Old Loughts, St Albans and the winner
of the qualifying tournament will be invited to play]
The
National Indoor League programme is as follows:
15-16 Dec 07 National Premier
Indoor League (men & women)
05-06 Jan 08 National Division 1,
Division 2 South and Division 2 North (men & women)
12-13 Jan 08 National Premier,
Division 1, Division 2 play-offs (men & women)
18-20 Jan 08 EuroHockey Indoor
Nations Challenge in Sheffield (men & women)
25-27 Jan 08 National Indoor
Finals - U18s & U16s (boys & girls)
27 Jan 08 National Indoor
Finals, NIA, Birmingham (men & women)
These
are exciting times for the indoor game as England field men’s and women’s teams
again after a gap of several years and host the EuroHockey Indoor Nations
Challenge in Sheffield.
Members
of the East Indoor Working Group:
Charlie Farrow 07811
336895 charlie.farrow@btopenworld.com
Ros Marsh 020
8508 3395rosandken@btopenworld.com
Brian Perks 01473
211334 perkshocky@aol.com
Mike Trett 01268
462960 mike.trett@blueyonder.co.uk
Our
Youth Competitions Committee also run tournaments for Boys/Girls at U16 and U18
to find qualifiers for the national
indoor junior tournaments to be held between 25-27 January 08.
Ros
Marsh
England
Hockey – Regional Development Manager
– if you require a copy of the Powerpoint presentation please contact the Hon
Sec.
Since
our last AGM there have been 4 meetings, 4 September, 11 December, 5 March and
4 June. Meetings are attended by 6
Regional reps from the N, S, E, W, M and Combined Services, plus 2 EH VPs and
the EH President. The RCC Chairman, Andy
Tapley and Martin Gotheridge (EH President) attend the EH Board Meetings and
thus there is a direct link between the RCC and the Board.
There
is always much discussion at these meetings and opinions and views are aired
pretty thoroughly. Members of England
Hockey attend by invitation and usually Philip Kimberley (Executive Chairman),
Ian Wilson (Finance & Administration Director) and Sally Munday
(Development Director) come to each of our meetings, plus any other senior
staff we ask to attend. The committee
has also this season ensured that the first part of the meeting is only for RCC
members and only later in the agenda do England Hockey staff attend. There are so many things going on at HQ that
it is difficult to keep abreast of events but the RCC can ensure that the
regions, counties and clubs are very much part of the picture. I know HQ do not forget us but sometimes it
helps to remind them we are there!
As
from 1 September 2007 all adult teams must not use players under the age of 13
as of 1 January 2008 (in other words, born 1995 or after). This ruling from England Hockey was supported
by all the regions at the RCC meeting on 4 June and appeared on the East
website on 7 June 2007. Another interest
running through this season has been the EuroNations Hockey Championships on
18-26 August 07 to be held at Belle Vue, Manchester - a very large project that
has involved many EH staff. Hope that
East supporters will wend their way North in late August and shout themselves
hoarse.
Just
to give you a flavour of what is discussed, these are some of the items on our
last agenda - Implementation of U13 restriction, Men’s U21 CC, National Youth
Festival, Voting rights, Finance update, Review of EH Board meeting and other
committees, EH matters and European update.
If
there are any subjects our membership would like to have discussed by the RCC,
then do let our new President, Bill Felton know as he will be attending the RCC
at their meetings on 3 September and 3 December 07.
After
attending these meetings for 2 years I have no hesitation in saying that it is
a useful forum for all Regions to discuss amongst themselves what is happening
and to keep a watching brief on what is going on at the top.
Ros
Marsh