Junior Section – Plans for 2014-15 Season
Training Dates:
We have sorted all the training dates, click here for the calendar (juniors 2014_15) and put it on the fridge door for safety! We will remind you about
half term breaks as we progress through the year but these are the final
dates.
Training Venues:
We have moved to Moulton College and all junior (primary school children)
sessions will be on the sand based artificial pitch at Gate 3, we hope to
have a club house there shortly but this is not confirmed. We would like to remind you of the canteen offering on the same site behind the John Ashby Sports Hall. We are building our relationship with the college and spending more money on their services obviously helps!
We are stopping the Tuesday sessions, this was a difficult decision but we
couldn’t continue to have Sunday and Tuesday, we opted for Sunday as we
felt we could attract more younger members due to the earlier time slot
rather than 6 to 7.30 which was too late, (and too cold ).
Annual Fees:
The fees for Juniors is the same, £100 for September to April, the Saturday
sessions after this date are free. We have changed the direct debit
payments slightly, its 7 payments of £14.29 to cover the £100 a little
quicker as our cash flow requires the money comes in a little quicker.
Administrating cash payments has been a bit of a nuisance this year so we
need everyone to pay by direct debit, or £100 up front if you prefer.
Some of you have continued to pay the £2 per session as your children have
moved from chris’ toddler group to the older age groups.This is our fault
as we haven’t been clear about why we charged in a “pay as you go “style
for that age group.
We have debated this long and hard and acknowledge that some of you aren’t
regular attendees and ,may be put off by asking you to commit to a monthly
payment, we hope that by asking you to commit to monthly payments it may
encourage some of you to attend more frequently.
For those of you that come after April as you play other sports in the
Winter you can still bring a cheque for April, May , June £42 payable to
NHC.
Your membership entitles you to come on Saturday or Sunday or both if you
kids are really keen or who are planning to 2024 Olympics! there is no
extra charge.
Year 7 children moving to the academy
For those children who are moving into year 7 next September they will be
enrolled in the academy which runs on Sundays 10-11.30 at the water based
pitch at gate 4. There are some differences which you need to be aware of.
Training is single sex only, the emphasis is still about fun but starts to
get more serious and competitive, where squad sizes are large, teams are
selected, you should all get plenty of game time but not all children will
get picked for every game.The emphasis will be on training to compete in
games and this will change the way coaches will communicate with your
children to equip them to appraise their own performance, unlike juniors,
coaches may on occasion give quite direct feedback, sometimes on
performance, or potentially effort or fitness.
This will happen at the same time your children are becoming ill equipped
to deal with such feedback (i.e. they will be teenagers will all the joy
that brings). Please keep in contact with the coaches so we can deal with
any lumps and bumps on the way.
England hockey permits children to play in adult leagues at age 13, we will
discuss this with you when your children reach that age, not all will
benefit from adult hockey, some need a little longer.
We have a badgers team that is for development purposes to assit with kids
development, its non confrontational and good fun, it covers Northants and
Warwickshire.
JDC – JAC England Hockey Single system.
We run one of the county’s JDC (Junior Development Centres), the dates are
on the calender, the first ten weeks are delivering England Hockey’s
syllabus, we cover the £45 cost for academy members, your child will
receive specific training be assessed and if successful, progress to play
for Northamptonshire and beyond. Its important to note that you must attend
80% of those sessions to qualify to progress further. If you cant make
Sundays you can attend other centres in the county and we will cover the
cost of you have paid your membership.
here is the link to explain it, please ring if you don’t understand the
system, it is a bit confusing.
Tournament Dates:
We haven’t agreed these yet with the other clubs, we will keep you posted.
Recruitment Activities:
We are running some quicksticks tournaments for local primary schools to
recruit more children, if you can spare the time on The Tuesdays on the
Quicksticks attachment then that would be great (they will run between 4
and 6 pm at the college)
We hope this explains everything, if not just ask and i will try to answer
questions, i will be at both Saturday and Sundays
Andrew Dale
Club President
Northampton Hockey Club
07852 267797