And we back
Welcome back, Wappers! We hope everyone had a restful Christmas, and that you’ve all enjoyed getting back to fitness as training returns. Our first Back Post back contains some meaty pieces, including an important update on the club’s finances, so please have a thorough read.
Club finance update
Following a mid season finance review, scheduled at the beginning of the season due to issues we had booking pitches, I’m afraid to say we are in need of increasing match fees by £3 per person, per game, for the remainder of this season.
What? Why now?
Each year, around Feb/March, the treasurer puts together a budget based on forecasted costs for the following season. This is based on income/expenditure for the current season, requested costs from suppliers for the following year, and any other intel they have. At the AGM in April, the exec shares the previous season’s finance report and advises whether there will be membership/match fee increases based on this. Each year the actual costs vary from the budget somewhat but this year we are facing a significant deficit.
As you may remember, we had an incredibly rocky start to the season where we were unable to book any fixtures, or have confirmation we would have any slots at John Orwell (or indeed know the price of them), until the 13th of September, one week before the season began. For reference, the London Hockey league releases fixtures in early July and all game information has to be uploaded on GMS by the end of August and our fixtures secretaries normally spend many summer weeks administrating.
OK, so what were all the unexpected costs?
At the point that all league fixtures needed to be on GMS, clubs in Tower Hamlets were not even able to request bookings at JO, despite us having chased multiple times during the summer. For those unaware, in Tower Hamlets there are significantly more teams needing pitches than there are pitch slots, with multiple clubs having to play out of borough at places like Redbridge Sports Centre.
Unsure if we would receive any pitches at JO this season, and due to the limited availability of pitches, we were advised by the league to book pitches elsewhere to ensure games for our 17 teams could go ahead. This had to happen at the same time Tower Hamlets council were reviewing our request for ur regular slots at JO and meant that once our bookings were confirmed on the 13th September, for a significant portion of the season we had multiple pitch bookings.
You may also remember that just before the season started, we had to drop our men’s 9th XI due to low numbers which left us with even more pitches than required.
In case that wasn’t bad enough, at the end of last season, we were also asked by the council to run junior summer camps again, advised we would receive funding from the council to run them, and their support with promoting them. Despite this, and much chasing, neither the funding nor the support materialised so we ended up financing the pitches ourselves.
It’s normal at the start of the season to have a number of extra pitch slots that our fixtures secretaries work with other clubs and organisations to offload once our fixtures have been assigned, holding onto a few in case of frozen pitches etc. But since this year all clubs were facing the same issues, at the point where we knew how many extra pitches we had, all other clubs had already secured bookings elsewhere.
Eleanor has done an absolutely incredible job of working with other clubs, the sports centres, universities etc to repurpose as many pitch slots as possible, and use as many as we can for friendly games, additional training sessions etc, but unfortunately we could not offload all of them, and pitches are very expensive.
Without wanting to bore you with even more details… as well as an excess number of pitch slots, the cost of pitches has increased and we were also notified that our long standing free of charge storage room at JO will now cost us £1,300 per year, and despite a massive amount of work by our sponsorship secs, we have continued to see an even more challenging landscape in terms of competition for grants and - decline in CSR funding available from companies.
What does this mean going forward?
At the end of the season we will review our finances again but are confident that costs for next season are unlikely to vary drastically from this season. I have had a face to face meeting with the manager at JO who’s promised to provide us with a full cost schedule based on our fixtures for the entire season.
We’ve also planned a sign up system which will run from the end of this season for players keen to play the next. This will enable us to have a clearer idea of membership numbers on both sides of the club and the number of teams to enter.
As well as the above, we are currently in the midst of some exciting conversations and projects, including kicking off the Kidds CIO registration, which we’re hoping will have a positive impact on our finances and help plug the remaining shortfall not covered by the increase in match fees.
This sounds like a total nightmare. Is there anything I can do to help?
Yes!
Make sure you’ve joined Wapping on Easyfundraising and added the browser extension to your devices so you never fail to make a (totally free) donation to the club when shopping online.
If you know anyone with a business or organisation that might want to support the club/a team/Kidds/CAWHL/our school outreach programmes/Back2Hockey/an event please let us know. Additionally, if you’re well versed in applying for grants or are good at getting money out of people interested in a good cause, please shout.
And if all the above sounds like the meaty kinda challenge you want to get your teeth into, reach out to someone on the exec or committee about how to get involved. The committee is a super welcoming place full of wonderful people and we’re always incredibly keen to bring new people on board, regardless of experience or hockey knowledge. We will be sharing info on roles shortly as are hoping to start the onboarding process earlier this year to make pre-season smoother.
TOUR is BACK baby!! 🏴☠️
Following last year’s success, we’re going to be returning to Sonning again this Summer 2025 for more shenanigans, questionable fancy dress and mixed hockey fun!
Sign up using this form but BE QUICK as spaces are limited and we’re expecting an awesome turnout!
FOMO ain’t fun 😎
🎨 Poster design by the very talented Emiel Occidental
📸 Photography by the equally as talented James Budgen
England Hockey’s new Trans and Non-binary Participation policy
Wapping Hockey Club were disheartened to read England Hockey’s new Trans and Non-binary Participation policy which bans transgender women from participating in women’s hockey at all levels, including as women in mixed hockey, from September 2025. We have been in conversation with our D&I team and our friends, London Royals, to put out a statement which can be read here. We truly believe that sport should be an inclusive and welcoming space for all and we stand with all transgender and non-binary people, whether or not they are members of our club or play hockey.
If you would like to reach out to our club about anything regarding this matter please email our welfare team (wappinghcwelfare@gmail.com) who will be able to direct you appropriately.
City and Wharf Hockey League
Everyone’s favourite summer league is just around the corner but it cannot go ahead without a small group of people to lend a helping hand. Especially if you’re not a current committee member, summer league is a great way to give something back over a shorter duration and gives our exec/committee regulars a break from pulling the organisational strings year-round. CAWHL is a well-oiled machine at this point and would benefit from a few people helping with small logistical elements (e.g. replying to emails, tracking scores, managing ringers etc). Email cityandwharfhockeyleague@gmail.com or text our secretary directly on +447546354481 if you can help.
Also, if you think your company might be interested in signing up, feel free to email us for more info.
That was definitely snow, right?
The great return to training and playing was hampered last week as the cold weather took over. While some teams braved the cold, others were unable to play due to the ice. As always, our fabulous fixtures sec is on the case and will let captains know as soon as possible if training or games are not going ahead. Please don’t bombard her with messages!
On the topic of freezing…
It’s fabulous to see all teams bursting with players. We appreciate that sometimes this means that people are sitting out, it’s immensely difficult as a club to always anticipate how many players we’ll have each season and to plan accordingly. We are currently freezing new playing joiners on the women’s side (but are hoping to engage them with summer league/friendlies/mixed games etc and will review requests on a case-by-case basis). If everyone can make sure that they’ve filled in their availability as far into the future as possible, it would greatly help to manage the flow of individuals until the end of the season.
This week’s fixtures
Dates for your diary
Jan 18th - Games restart
Feb 8th - Women’s Day
12th or 19th April - End of Season Dinner
Member discounts:
Check out our Members' area (Password: whc1989) which has all of our available offers, including:
5% discount and 5% club kick back at the Moretown Belle
20% off NuSmile dentists
A free Psycle session
Grubby: 50% off + free delivery on 1st box, plus 30% off for the rest of the month
10% off all beers at Tap East
Balling: All members = 15% off, W1 and M1 = 25% off. We also get 25% off OTE sports (sports nutrition bars, etc)
