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Upcoming
Socials
Following
the huge success of the Quiz Night, the Christmas Party and the
200 Club draw, please put the following dates in the diary and
hassle your Team Captains or Kev Moxham for tickets (remember,
socials are not restricted to Club members so feel free to bring
your other halves and friends too):
NEW
DATE: Saturday 21 February - Karaoke Party
from 7pm at The Brache; £5 each (£3 for juniors)
Watched
"Fame Academy" and thought "I could do better than
that"? Now you can prove it without making a fool of yourself
(after all, you're amongst friends). Do it by yourself, do it
with someone else or do it as a team!
Saturday
13 March - Auction of Promises at
the Cricket Club; start time to be confirmed; free event
People across the Club have begged, borrowed and stolen to provide
you with fantastic gifts to bidf or. Some will even ask you to
bid for certain personal services they're known to offer. Last
year's event raised well over £1000 and lucky bidders walked
away with theatre tickets, an hour's massage, a weekend break
in aN orfolk cottage, a car valet and an introductory rock-climbing
lesson, amongst many other great promises and gifts. As well as
bidding, what can YOU offer up as a lot in the Auction of Promises?
Sunday
4 April - President's Day from 12pm
at The Brache; free event
Watch
the Thrashing 3s take on the Terrific 2s before the main feature
- the Pride of Harpenden challenging Alan Sander's President's
XI (a motley crew of has-beens and superstars (that's the President's
XI, not the 1s)).
Saturday
8 May - Annual Dinner at The Brache;
start time to be confirmed; £25 per ticket
Have
as much fun as we did at last year's end of season bash, but this
time with some great food as well.
Astroturfs
in Harpenden
Not
one, but two astroturf pitches may be laid in Harpenden ready
for the start of the 05-06s eason. Harpenden Rugby Club have already
submitted their proposal for a sports complex on Redbourn Lane
that would include an astroturf. Roundwood School are soon to
submit their proposal for an astroturf at the other end of town,
though floodlighting may be more of an issue there. Through Alan
Sanders, our President, we are keeping close to the discussions
around bothp roposals and Harpenden Hockey Club should be in a
strong position to be the main playing club at one or other ground
from September 2005. When we have firm news about these developments
in Harpenden, we'll let you know.
Merger
with Harpenden Ladies Hockey Club
A
quick flick through the minutes of previous years' Committee meetings
shows that a merger between HHC and HLHC has been on the agenda
for over two decades! Building on them omentum of last season's
discussions - led by Brian Smith and Paul Wise - we are now close
to finalising our proposal to merge Clubs this summer (the new
Club would continue to be called Harpenden Hockey Club). Our proposals
hould not affect the playing side of the Club and ideally we would
hope that at that level the merger would be transparent to you.
By
merging, we will create one Club with nearly 150 members which
will have a great influence in local and regional sporting discussions.
This influence will get its first outing when we approach Harpenden
Rugby Club and Roundwood School regardinga stroturf block bookings
from 05-06. And it's not much of a step beyond that to thinking
about whether HHC might have a long-term clubhouse.
One
Club will make it much easier for prospective members - especially
Juniors and newcomers to the Harpenden area - to find out about
and join us. We will be able to publicise the Club, our activities
and our results in a way that could give some neighbouring towns
with larger hockey club memberships (such as St Albans and Welwyn
Garden City) cause to think of us as real competition for players
at all levels.
The
social side of HHC has been going from strength-to-strength over
the last few years through its increasingly close links with HLHC.
The socials can only get bigger and better if the joint efforts
to organise and fund events are formalised.
This
season's round of AGMs for both HHC and HLHC will be the critical
milestones in this whole merger process. We know that we must
publicise and discuss with you our proposals for the merger well
before the AGMs if we are going to gain your support for what
finally gets approved. When we have finalised dates for the AGMs
we will let you know, and I am keen to see if we can allow for
postal votes toe nsure we have as representative a view as possible.
Whether
you do or don't like the sound of a merger with the Ladies Club,
please don't hesitate to let me know what you think about it.
All input, no matter how general or detailed, will help as we
round off our proposals.
Some
Admin
Training
until the end of the season will be from 7.15pm-8.45pm on Thursdays
at Clarence Park, St Albans. Last week we had about 20 people
there from across the Club. If you want to come along but can't
be there from 7.15pm, please feel free to join in when you can.
Remember,
you can check up on results, match reports, events, photos, player
profiles and generallyw hat's going on around the Club at www.harpendenhockeyclub.co.uk.
Officers'
contact details are in the Fixtures Card and, if you don't have
one, our email addresses are on the website.
If
you don't have a Fixtures Card, it's probably because you haven't
paid your subscriptions yet. There are a few outstanding and if
you're one of them, please contact your Team Captain or Paul Nash
soon or you may find yourself dropped to the5 th team.
During
your spring cleaning, you may discover at the bottom of your drawers
that you are the proud owner of a Harpenden Hockey Club team shirt
from one of the squad kits. If you are, I or your Team Captain
will be delighted to arrange for an anonymous return of the item
to the appropriate team's kit bag. The more missing shirts returned,
the more we can put behind the bar at the Annual Dinner.
Finally,
Mixed games have been organised for Sunday 29 February and Sunday
21 March. If you are interested in playing in either of those
games, please contact Nick Crane at ncrane@hbgc.co.uk.
Thanks
for reading... and enjoy the rest of the season
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