Happy start of season eve!
We hope you’re as excited as we are to kick off a new season. Good luck to everyone on their first fixtures, and a big congratulations to the Women 1s who play their first game in the National League. We can’t wait to see everyone at the Moretown Belle in the evening to toast our first wins. As the season begins,we appreciate that there’s still a lot of moving parts, and we’re grateful for your patience, but this edition should help to smooth some of these areas out.
Reminders:
Make sure you’re registered on GMS
Please pay your membership as soon as possible - soon you won’t be able to play if you’re not a member
We’re still looking for a Newsletter secretary, please reach out if you can help
Fixtures
Having only received news from the council last week about our JO pitch slots, there has been a delay in confirming these fixtures. They will all be in the trackers by the end of the week, thank you for your patience.
Dates for your diary
Sep 21st - Start of Season Social, MTB @ 6pm
Oct 12th - Women’s Day, LV all day and social after
Nov 2nd - Halloween Social
Nov 9th - W1s vs East London derby and social, 6pm @ LV
Men’s Squads and selection
With much regret, due to small squad sizes and low availability we have taken the decision to fold the Men’s 9s team for the upcoming season.
It’s never good to lose a team but trying to sort teams with low availability is difficult for all involved so we’ve taken the executive decision to boost numbers for the other teams rather than scrape a bare eleven each week.
Regretfully we’ve had to make this decision last minute so can I please request that everyone keeps on top of their own club admin going forward. The exec and committee volunteer many hours a week to run the club but without basic updates from members we are managing the operations on guess work. Unknown/low membership numbers significantly impact our financial position and ability to plan for the season ahead so it would be hugely appreciated if everyone can maintain at least 4 weeks of their availability in the spreadsheets and double check it’s correct the Sunday before the following game. A club the size of Wapping has many moving parts and being able to work with correct and complete information makes a huge difference to the team organising and the ability for things to run smoothly.
In order to facilitate this, the Men’s Club Captains and Coaches have worked together to propose new teams based on the players we have confirmed and feedback from captains has been requested. Please bear with us as there is a significant amount of work happening to make these changes but should you have any questions please reach out the Men’s Club Captains, Chris and Craig.
Wapping Kidds
New junior team members
As you start your pre-season games this week, you may notice a few younger faces joining in. We have some new junior players graduating from the Kidds' set up into adult hockey, many for the first time. Do please make them welcome, they have looked up to you all for years and will be excellent additions to your teams and training squads. Please also remember that senior hockey is very new to them so please do encourage and include them on and off pitch.
Wapping Kidds need you!
Do you think you can coach? Would you like to learn? Can you bring enthusiasm and your love hockey to the next generation of hockey players? Wapping Kidds, the junior section of the club, is a volunteer run, fun set up, dependent on the support of adult members of the club. Sessions run on a Friday evening, 6-7.30pm, and a Saturday, 9.30-11am at John Orwell Sports Centre in Wapping.
Each age group, from age 5 upwards, is headed by an experienced lead coach who prepares and directs the session. We need helping hands, assistant coaches, to help deliver those sessions in a fun and friendly way.
If you are keen to give back to the club, and if you think you can give some time, please drop us a line at wappingkidds@gmail.com. No coaching experience is necessary and we recognise that coaching will occasionally clash with your playing commitments, but the bigger the pool of volunteers we have, the better.
Lee Valley Teas
Following feedback from players, and after reviewing the club’s budget, we have decided to move away from having teas at Lee Valley. They’ll stay as they are this week but next Saturday 5th October we are going to be heading down to The Northcote in Leyton (110 Grove Green Road, E11 4EL) for teas. We are really hoping to find another local that will feel like home and where teams want to stay for the afternoon. We’ll give this a shot for a couple of weeks and then are keen to hear teams’ feedback before we lock anything in.
The Moretown Belle
We are really pleased that the Moretown Belle is returning as our Clubhouse this season. They have provided us an immense amount of support over the last couple of years and are only looking to further support us. We are very lucky as a club based in Central London to have a site that serves as our Clubhouse, and it’s important that we show them the same love they show us. This is both in terms of respect towards the staff and continuing to give us their custom.
For those who don’t know, Wapping members, opposition teams and family and friends are eligible for a 5% discount at all times throughout the week. The club also receives 5% kick back for every purchase made by us so please remember to let the bar staff know you’re with Wapping when purchasing. We’ll be handing out membership cards at the social on Saturday which you can show when buying your drinks.
Meet the coaches
First up is Tara Feeney (above) who this season is running training for W5 and M5-7
"As many American college players do, I started coaching summer camps and coached for the USFHA futures programme. I realised that I really enjoyed helping teams develop and watching hard work in training turn to results in competition.
My aim for this season is to provide consistent and challenging training for both the Men’s and Women’s teams to improve overall team play and to allow players to build confidence in & skills for their individual game with of course some fun mixed in!
As a coach at Wapping, I receive tons of support from our Committee, the development team, the other coaches, captains and players to make sure I have what I need to make the sessions are productive, effective and fun."
Club Day snaps
Club Day photos can be found here in a new password protected area of the website (pw: Wapping1989) - thanks to James Budgen for taking some cracking shots as always!
This week’s fixtures
Member discounts:
Check out our Members' area (Password: whc1989) which has all of our available offers, including:
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
