I want to start by wishing a big Happy New Year to all our members, supporters and friends of the club. I hope you have had an excellent Christmas and are now looking forward to getting back on the pitch, on the sideline or in the stand.

The festive period marks the half way point of the season so now is a good time to reflect on the season to date, update you on some things happening across the club and give you some key dates for your diary.

Senior Teams
It has been a tough start to the season for our first teams, with the newly promoted Ladies 1s sat bottom of their league and the Mens 1s second bottom of theirs. The Ladies, missing captain Kelly Robinson through a serious, season long injury suffered in the third game of the season haven't looked far off the new league standard in most games despite this but need to convert their chances and reduce the some sloppy goals conceded to turn things around. Meanwhile, the men with a squad significantly bolstered through the signings of Eddie Fisher, Ran Foster and Nathan McDowell have shown glimpses of quality superior of their opposition, if they can find a level of consistency they we're hopeful they will turn their season around.

The second teams are the teams to watch at the moment with the Ladies 2s nine points clear at the top of their league and the Mens 2s third in their league but only five points away from first place. Finally the newly formed Ladies 3s have started well and are in fourth place having won five of their games and the Mens 3s have had a tough first half of the season with some heavy defeats but are sat in ninth place having secured three wins.

This season we entered a second development team for the first time and whilst a lack of senior players stepping up to play has made this challenging they have played seventeen games so far, wining seven and drawing six. Thank you to Richard Wall who has worked tirelessly to ensure fixtures are fulfilled, often playing home and away on the same day. We need more people to step up though, so expect to be asked by your captain soon.

Youth Teams
Our under 10 Boys (combined with Chapeltown)and Girls have made a good start to more structured hockey and are showing great signs for the future. The under 12 Boys with a squad of 10 are improving in each tournament and our under 12 Girls who have a large squad of 24 have formed two teams and so far they've played a whopping 17 games and are playing some excellent hockey. The under 14 Boys have been promoted to Tier 1B after winning 3 games and the under 14 Girls who were a relatively new team have found their stride and have also secured promotion. Then, the under 16 Boys who are a young team, with some stepping up from younger age groups have gelled well and have looked good against some strong oppositions, and the under 16 Girls have had a great first half of the season, finishing unbeaten and top of their Tier 2 Upper league.

As always RHC has great representation with South Yorkshire Academy Centre this season which is testament to the dedication and quality of our coaching team, well done to all who have secured selection.

Community Coaching
This season has seen our most successful community coaching success since returning to Aurora in 2017. Following the success of the summer activity at the Rotherham Show the hard work by James Swinscoe has paid off with coaching programmes now completed at both Brinsworth Manor and Thrybergh Fullerton. We were able to donate a number of sticks to Thrybergh to allow them to continue to offer hockey within the school and have received excellent feedback on the success of the programme we delivered.

We have also hosted and supported another Rotherham School games event at Aurora with U11 students from thirty schools across the Borough competing in an Under 7s tournament. Thank you to James for being pivotal to this success but he cannot do this alone, if you are able to help in any capacity please let us know.

Playing kit
As previously confirmed we will be refreshing our kit for the 2025-26 season although the intention is to minimise changes to the home shirt to allow those that have recently purchased one to continue wearing it if they wish, and the away shirt will become a training shirt. We will soon be posting some options to vote on through the website and we would encourage all members to partake. The voting will include shirt style and away shirt colour.

Officiating
I'd like to start by saying a big thank you to Diane Hucknall who stepped into Umpire Co-Ordinator after the role was vacated and has done a good job so far in allocating officials to all our fixtures.

This can be a difficult and thankless task at times. We have a limited number of officials and even fewer than are assessed to do our first teams. As such we cannot afford to cause any of our officials to stop officiating through ill discipline. Therefore, there will be clamp down on any dissent to officials in the second half of the season, it won't be tolerated. Please support our officials, thank them after the game and consider stepping in to help out yourself.

Facilities
We made a bold decision at the start of the season to explore other options for after game hospitality and I'd like to thank Rob Watson for his support in undertaking this. In November we made the switch to Phoenix Sports and Social Club and so far this has been a positive move with our first club social there been highly successful and after match teas benefitting from a better atmosphere.

Our partnership with the University remains key for us though and I'm pleased to see recent improvements to the pitch side dug outs, fencing and the boot brush being replaced, and importantly the introduction of line hatching to prevent cars blocking the gate entrance for emergency vehicles. The University have also invested in equipment to allow them to undertake more regular maintenance to the pitch surface to prevent moss build up and damage to the pile depth. We also expect to see repairs made to the flood lights in the coming weeks which will improve LUX levels for evening use.

Sponsorship
We have been extremely fortunate to extend the sponsorship deals we have with Harworth Group and Yorkshire Windows, both of which directly support the development activity of the club. We have also seen Team sponsorship for the Ladies 1st Team following their promotion to Yorkshire North East Division 1.

Club Socials
I'm very pleased that for the first time in my tenure as Club Chair we have held two club socials before Christmas; the first a quiz night at Phoenix and the second bowling for Christmas. We had over 50 people attend both events and all seemed to have a great evening. Keep a look out on the website for our next Social, hopefully in February.

We can also confirm two key dates for your diary at the end of the season:

• Saturday 12th April - Senior end of Season Dinner/Awards
• Friday 25th April -Youth Presentation night

Both events will be held at Phoenix, further information will be provided in the coming months.

Conclusion
As always, I want to take this opportunity to thank the many people that have supported the club in the first half of the season of which there are too many to mention.

I feel there is an excellent atmosphere within the club at the moment and hope that continues and grows in 2025. However, I recognise and appreciate it is not always possible to please everyone and we don't get everything right. Whilst all on the Management Committee are invested in doing the best we can to do so, we can't always and I want to encourage anyone to speak to us or one of the Player/Parent Reps if you don't think we've got something right or if you have any concerns. Your Parent Reps are Richard Wall and Rob Ashton and your Playing Representative is Emily Burgin.

I look forward to seeing you all back on the pitch soon, a reminder below are the dates we return:

• Youth Fun Day - Sunday 5th Jan - 10:00-12:00
• Senior coaching - Thursday 9th Jan to 20th March - 18:30-21:30
• Youth coaching - Sun 12th Jan - 10:00-11:30
• Youth squad coaching - Tuesday 14th Jan to 25th March
• Active hockey - Tuesday 7th Jan to 18th March
• Back To Hockey - Tuesday 14th Jan to 18th March

Kind Regards,

James Thomas
Chairman
james.thomas@rotherhamhc.org.uk