An update from our Chairman Marcel van Eldik
Well that was a much busier summer than we had imagined it would be! Hope you are all ready for another hockey season at London Wayfarers.
Strategy
In July we presented our Club Strategy for 2018 – 2022 with many positive responses from our own London Wayfarers but also the wider hockey community including a little note from Sally Munday – CEO England Hockey: “I really wanted to congratulate you and your colleagues at London Wayfarers, this is really fantastic and really inspirational. I know the team here at England Hockey really enjoy working with you all and I just wanted to say thank you for the fabulous job you are all doing.”
Now is the time for action. We have some great plans but to make this all a reality we are looking for small contributions off the pitch from everyone. Please respond to our survey and let us know how you could help us make this a success!
Click here for the survey – it only takes 2 minutes
New Coaches
Earlier in the summer we announced that Tim Davenport would be joining us as Director of Junior Hockey. Read his full story here. Since then we have appointed Kaye Goulding as our Ladies & Girls Head Coach and Phil Ball (former Wimbledon 1s) as our Men’s 1 Head Coach. And it didn’t stop there… We are very pleased with the returning coaches Anthony, Joe, Jared, Barbara, Fran, Niels, Matt, Chris and Mark, the vast number of parent coaches and volunteers and newly appointed to the Junior section Becci Pratt (hockey coach at Woldingham School) and Sam Spencer (Surbiton 1s player). All around we have fantastic coaching talent looking after our players and with the Coach Development Programme being launched this season we will rapidly get closer to our target of every team having a skilled coach.
New Partners
We have partnered up with Woldingham School who will be supporting our Girls section and Junior Goalkeeper Academy with hosting festivals, hockey goals and much more. Up and coming Y1 Hockey will be joining us from October as first team kit sponsor, providing a brand new range off the pitch for all players and supporters, plus new social activities are being lined up with our events team! We are proud to be the founding partner club of the new Hockey Futures charity. Together we will provide opportunities for more youngsters to play hockey via our Schools Outreach Programme.
We are looking for more partners to get involved in the ever growing London Wayfarers community. There are plenty of opportunities, big and small, please contact us via [email protected]
New Players
So far we have had a really good intake of new senior players with numbers across the board looking very healthy which would be incredible progress after last season. We are looking forward to teams and coaches working on performances and delivering a great hockey experience.
Please do continue to spread the word and invite friends, family and colleagues to join London Wayfarers. Any players interested or even recruited into teams please make sure they register via the website. It will make life for our membership administrator Paul and others much much easier.
The Junior section is growing! You will have picked up on 150+ Wanderers Juniors joining us and we have worked hard to reduce our waiting lists offering more youngsters the opportunity to play hockey and join the London Wayfarers family. More teams, training sessions, coaches and the introduction of a development programme will result in an even better experience!
Hockey Hockey Hockey
In 2018 we introduced Summer Performance 7s to help with our recruitment drive, Back to Hockey continued to build momentum with a growing interest and our Goalkeeper Academy is as successful as it has ever been. In the new season we will continue to build on this offering adding more summer hockey to the roster in 2019 and introducing Junior Skills Groups which deliver tailored hockey pathways for players new to the game. London Wayfarers will continue to offer the best mix of competitive and social hockey, and players have the choice. At the top end we have a great opportunity to push for National League and we are making some changes to help us achieve that. But we also understand how important it is to have a great time with mates. Now it is time for all of our teams to get back on the hockey pitch – work hard, play hard and have fun!
Key Dates (check events page for details)
Sunday 2 September – Junior Club Day at Battersea Park
Saturday 8 September – Senior Club Day at Battersea Park
Monday 10 & 17 September – Level 1 Umpiring Course (free for members)
Thursday 13 & Monday 24 September – First Aid Courses at the Draft House
Saturday 13 October – Senior Start of Season Party
Until the next update!