Agm 12.05.16 Saffron Lane

AGM 12.05.16 @ SAFFRON LANE

Present :- Deirdre Sanders (LRHAS&Y), Jenny Summers (LRHAS&Y), Jane Jelley (LRHAS&Y), Mandy Mercer (LRHAS&Y), Nikki Laybourne (Leicester Grammar School), Nicky Collet (LRHAS&Y), James Bateman (Oakham School), Jeanne Freeman ( LRHAS&Y), Dinesh Chudasama (LRHAS&Y), Michael Condon (LRHAS&Y), Helen Jelley (LRHAS&Y & Welbeck Defence College), Catherine Upton (Dixie Grammar), James Baker (Uppingham School)

Apologies :- Stoneygate School

Adoption of 2015 minutes adopted by Jane Jelley and Dinesh Chudasama. minutes Reports Presidents Report DS Report for LRHA AGM. This year has been more difficult to organise due to the England Hockey dates, school demands and holiday dates , plus the success of our junior club sides However we had around 200 players in training. There were 73 who went through to JRPC of which 20 attended HiPac. Rohan Bhui is into the national u16's team. Olivia Back,Maeve McDonald,Sophie Skitton are involved with the national training programme. Unfortunately we were only able to run 1 senior age group, an u16 boys and a joint girls u17/16 team. This is mainly due to our success at HiPac, (20 player involved ) as the players do not have to return to JAC and to exam pressure. We tried reorganising training to make it less often but for a longer period, but that was unsuccessful . There has been good success at school and club levels , Boys u16 Beauchamp and Uppingham into regional finals in March Boys u 14 Oakham regional finals Boys u 18 Oakham and Loughborough Grammar School into round 4 ( last 16) of KO cup, where they played each other. Oakham continued and were runners up in the national finals. Ratcliffe U13 boys were third in the finals. Leicester men and Leicester ladies u16 squads made the National indoor Finals. Leicester Men’s u14's were in the tier 2 outdoor finals. Leicester Men’s U16 reached the outdoor tier 2 finals and continued to the finals at Lee Valley where they won bronze. Leicester Ladies U 16's were joint 5th. at the Lee Valley finals. We have had a hockey activator in place since Christmas, Helen Jelley, who has delivered and engaged with schools in a variety of coaching and leadership skills. She has been involved with delivering the team Leicester hockey district competitions and the various finals.(May 2016) We think that this activator role has been successful , as more state schools have taken part at the local level. It will be important to build on this in the next season. My thanks to Helen and to Nicky Collett and Jenny Summers, as her line managers, for all that they have achieved. Finally my very grateful thanks to all the parents, coaches and the committee for their continued support.

Administration Officers Report JJ This year has been a frustrating one in many ways. The database used by all players has been experiencing numerous problems, not least communication email disappearing into people’s junk, or just not arriving at all. That said we had over 500 young people attending our JDCs in September; we took a new approach to our older players and offered them the opportunity to attend ‘refresher’ session. Which proved popular with them as it meant they didn’t have to sign up for the whole 10 sessions. We will be reviewing our centres for the forthcoming cycle as some this year some have not been viable. Moving onto the JAC centres was another frustrating time. Conscious of the pressures put onto out older players we reduced the number of sessions they had to attend, but increased the length of each session. Having asked players to confirm their attendance and commit to the sessions things looked promising, and we hoped to run teams at U16 and U17 level for both boys and girls – unfortunately this was not to be as players dropped out regularly meaning we were only able to field an U16 boys team, although 3 or our outfield players moved to Northants. In the girls we played a combined U16/U17 team. The younger age groups, as always were more committed and have just completed the cycle with the regional tournaments last Sunday – we now wait to hear how many or our young people have progressed to JRPC, which will be announced by May22nd. Our involvement with Team Leicestershire has also not been without its teething problems as we knew it would be. However, it has been encouraging to see a number of schools taking up our offer of free coaching from our Hockey Activator (the only one of the 8 NGBs to offer this). The majority of them have taken part in their district competitions, where they were held, and for this year all schools who participated were offered the opportunity to play in the finals next week. Initially this looked like it was going to be a good event, with 8 teams in most competitions. However, numbers have fallen off and sadly neither of the year 9 competitions will take place.

Competitions Report NC This year has seen many changes in terms of schools hockey. National competitions have followed a similar pathway to previous years however we embarked in being part of Team Leicestershire and this has had mixed outcomes. We must remember this is a new concept and we need to give this programme time before we make decisions about hockey being part of it. A continuing problem is the lack of hockey being played in our state schools and we have tried to address this with the appointment of a Hockey Activator. No easy task, however there have been some positives from this role but the sustainability of this post is our challenge. One area that we are trying to develop with the support of the Activator is providing opportunities for the children involved in Quicksticks, this continues to be part of the School Games programme and will be one of the sports taking place in the Primary Summer Games at Welbeck College on the 30th June 2016. Our thoughts are to provide coaching for children involved in the School Games competition during the summer thus encouraging them to join clubs and possibly take part in our single system. We would also like to track the secondary schools that these ‘school games’ hockey players might be attending and where numbers allow offer some coaching to the secondary schools. Below are the winners from all the schools competitions held this year. We have continued to use Leicester Grammar School for the majority of the competitions supported by St Margaret’s Pastures when the one pitch is able to provide a suitable space for the competition. We do need though to look at venues that can host our events. Having had some feedback about the calendar and timetabling of our county events a few questions? Would schools be able to access county competitions in the morning? Remember zone and regional tournaments are held then. What days are favourable? Girls and boys tournaments at the same venue for In2Hockey?? The calendar is an ongoing problem, holidays span so many weeks of the year it continues to be a nightmare to calendar competitions and this is reflected by the regional and national calendars. England Hockey have surveyed schools about the competition structure but as yet we have not been made aware of any changes. I am determined to have dates confirmed by the end of this meeting to help you move forwards in the planning of all your fixtures. Again many thanks to the committee, school staff and others, too many to mention individually, for their support of our competitions both indoor and outdoor.

Results for 2015-16 as follows Competition – GIRLS BOYS age group U18 - national OAKHAM OAKHAM reached the LOUGHBOROUGH final of the knockout competition U16 - national UPPINGHAM BEAUCHAMP COLLEGE OAKHAM UPPINGHAM U14 - national LEICESTER G.S. OAKHAM UPPINGHAM LOUGHBOROUGH GS U13 In2Hockey LOUGHBOROUGH HS RATCLIFFE COLLEGE losing semi finalists at runners up at regionals, regionals qualified for National LEICESTER GRAMMAR final OAKHAM U11 In2Hockey FAIRFIELD PREP FAIRFIELD PREP LEICESTER GS JUNIOR OAKHAM third at regional U12 In2Hockey LOUGHBOROUGH HS LOUGHBOROUGH GS losing semi finalists at losing semi finalists at regionals regionals OAKHAM RATCLIFFE COLLEGE INDOOR U16 OAKHAM OAKHAM BEAUCHAMP COLLEGE INDOOR U18 OAKHAM losing semi OAKHAM finalists at regionals LEICESTER GS losing semi finalists at regionals

I have put together a programme of dates similar to previous years for the schools competitions. At this stage we are waiting for confirmation of calendar dates from Team Leicestershire but it would seem that hockey will have slots in the first two terms. Hockey finals for Team Leicestershire are next week which, understandably, has caused problems. The dates below include national and regional competitions.

Competition – GIRLS BOYS age group MC U18 - national Tuesday 4th October at Entries through Leicester GS England Hockey U16 - national Tuesday 27th September Wednesday 25th at Leicester GS January at St Margarets, alternative venue U14 - national Friday 7th October at Tuesday 17th January Leicester GS at St Margarets, alternative venue U13 In2Hockey Tuesday 28th February St Margarets and/or Leicester GS as with all In2Hockey may need more space U11 In2Hockey Tuesday 14th March St Margarets and/or Leicester GS U12 In2Hockey Tuesday 7th March St Margarets and/or Leicester GS INDOOR U16 Thursday 17th November at Leicester GS

INDOOR U18 Thursday 17th November at Leicester GS

This report covers schools hockey. There have been some notable club successes which I’m sure will be covered elsewhere.

Finance Report Total income for the year came to £20,451.00 while total expenditure came to £24,552.49. This is down to the fact that more money has been spent on coaching and also the funds for the Hockey Activator role to try and get more playing hockey. As a result of this there is a loss this year. There are surplus funds in place to cover losses, and these amount to £73094.88. The finances of the organisation for 2014-15 have been audited by our scrutineer for this year, Michael Holley.

Adoption of reports unanimous.

Election of  Proposed that the officers of last year be re-elected again, but Officers Mike and Deirdre will then stand down. President – Deirdre Sanders Adminstration Officer – Jane Jelley Finance – Mike Condon Girls Representative – Jenny Summers Boys Representative – Graham Wolloff Schools Competitions – Nicky Collett  Officers elected unanimously. Team Leics  8 NGB sports involved. Athletics won’t come on board.  2 strands. Schools pay an affiliation fee to Team Leics who then pay national affiliations. Geoff Maltby sees it as giving more opportunities for playing more sports. LRHAS&Y runs the national competitions outside of Team Leics.  Team Leics hockey competitions replaced our friendly leagues. Play to In2Hockey rules 6 aside with no goalkeepers.  This year there was very little choice over when the Finals could be which did affect participation at them. Next year they won’t be in the summer term.  The hope is that all hockey will eventually come through Team Leics.  10 districts. Each district will run their own competition. The district winner will go to the Finals.  Geoff wants to bring back representative sport, hence the kit. Our representative level will be at JAC level. Hockey  Started January. Activator  Trying to get into schools to start hockey. Schools visited so far :-  Shepshed High  De Lisle  Kibworth  Soar Valley  Rushey Mead  English Martyrs  Dixie  Hinckley Academy  Linked to Leicester City Premier League 4 Sport. This supports 3 sports at present  Hockey  Badminton  Tennis The hope is that eventually there will be 6 sports.  There are satellite groups at English Martyrs, Rushey Mead and Soar Valley. The Hub is at Soar Valley.  Smashed to projected numbers with 150 children taking part. These are boys and girls, but mainly boys. Only 5 of the 150 are in the single system at present. The next stage here is to find them clubs and JDC’s to attend.  How to sustain? A lot of clubs are struggling for players. Try to get more schools into national competitions and also players into clubs.  Try to create a database. 2 strands here 1. List every child – ethnicity etc. 2. Where they play and when to look at the point at which they drop off. This could help moneywise.  Also leaders programme, another aspect of hockey rather than just players.  Leics & Rutland have an Elite Leaders Programme. Hopefully we can get more hockey people into it as it results in an actual qualification.  Look at the delivery of hockey, so with support of England Hockey looking to put on courses to upskill teachers and also coaches in clubs.  Also looking for funding sources. There is satellite funding from England Hockey but this is only for clubs. The money from Premier Sport is only for the city. Helen has done a terrific job. Hopefully she will continue next year. AOB None.

Meeting closed at 7.30pm.