It’s been a busy beginning of the season and it’s been lovely to welcome everyone back on to the pitches. We would like to remind everyone that we take coaching the children seriously and work hard to ensure that all our coaches are trained not just in hockey skills but in safeguarding practice and are DBS checked too. We continue to adopt England Hockey best practices demonstrated by being awarded the CLUBMARK accreditation. We have now held this accreditation for over 15 years and were re-awarded it in January this year.

Our website is complimented by the PITCHERO CLUB APP which we recommend that all parents download. This allows you to see messages, news items and manage yours and your child’s account, manage availability, see match selections and pay membership subscriptions easily.
• If you have an outstanding payment for Junior Membership subs and have not yet paid them, please can you asap.
• Please can you also ensure you have completed all the info fields for both you and your child.
• At the very minimum, please ensure that your email is verified with Pitchero to ensure you receive messages from us.
• As the weather turns, we need to be prepared in case we have to cancel sessions and we always try to leave it to the last moment to make a decision. Notification is via Pitchero.

We have a number of festivals and matches that we can take the children to but can only do this with volunteers, the existing coaches do as much as they can but we do need more help with both team management and Umpiring. If you have played in the past or have an interest and would be happy to go online to go through the rules and/or go on the online umpire course please can you speak to either myself or Karen Jones.

We are really pleased to have a Goalkeeping Coach joining us on Sunday 7th & 14th November and we will be running taster sessions for the juniors to have a try at Goalkeeping. We will initially be doing this without keeper kit focusing on body position and footwork using tennis balls. We will also be running sessions on those dates for our existing goalies in kit to hone their skills further. If your child would like to have a go at Goalkeeping, please let either your coach know or myself or Karen Jones. Remember Maddie Hinch is the coolest player on the pitch!!!

Can we please remind everyone to bring their REVERSIBLE BIB to training every week, there are a number of players who have “lost” their bib. Please can you find them and ensure that they are part of your child’s kit along with the required gum shield, shin pads, water bottle and stick.

Finally, we will not be running training sessions on the 24th or the 31st October so our coaches can have a half-term lie in!
Thank you to all our coaches and children for a great start to the season, have a wonderful half term break and we will see you back on the pitches on the 7th!!

Sarah