Congratulations are due to our Pitch In campaign patron Eilidh Child, who came back from disappointment in the 400m hurdles to win a bronze medal in the 400m relay at the World Athletics Championship in Beijing.
Minutes of Kinross HC's 4th management committee meeting are now available at the Governance page. Subjects discussed included:
- Acceptance of the principle of engaging and paying a coach
- Rejection of the principle of paying a player
- Rejection of the principle of playing men's 1sts games at Dollar, but acceptance that this might be necessary from time to time.
- Appointment of a kit/logo committee
- Decommissioning of old websites/Pitchero...
...as well as all the usual issues like fundraising and pitch replacement.
The weather gods were smiling on us on Saturday as we took to the pitch for Kinross Hockey Club's first ever club day. With four hours of hockey to play it was just as well.
The Kobras opened the day's events with a penalty shootout competition, first with running penalties and then penalty strokes. This gave our two goalies - Doug Lester and Kara Shields - a good work out to set them up for the games ahead, although it was touch and go as to whether heat exhaustion would set in by the end of the competition. You could almost sense the despair as the competition ended in a tie between Campbell Shields and Ollie Wilson and we headed for a tiebreak. Mercifully the end was then quick, with Ollie taking the honours.
This was followed by two closely fought matches between two Kobras teams, which had the coaches purring with delight at the skills on display. This was particularly true of the defensive skills, which proved to be well up to the task of keeping the fancy-dan players under control. The accolade of "top gun" for the day was shared between Ollie Wilson and David Leslie.
It was a tribute to the enthusiasm of club members that we managed to put out no fewer than four full teams for the adult competition - some youth leavened with experience, some experience leavened with youth and some hoping just to out-experience the others before the legs gave out. Not that this mattered a jot, because there was some awesome hockey on display and I think it's fair to say that everyone had a good time. For the record, the winners were Team White and the top gun for the day was David McIntyre, who seemed to enjoy being cut loose from his accustomed defensive duties.
While all this was going the fundraising was proceeding apace, with the backstage crew doing a roaring trade on the tombola, the raffle and the home baking.
By mid-afternoon, and just before it began to rain, we all headed into the clubhouse for food and beer and a little more fundraising - a coin-tossing competition for a bottle of vodka proved very popular, particularly among some of the younger members of the club who were egged on by their parents. Named persons have been informed.
Bob Getley makes one final bid to win his father the vodka
In total we made £680 pounds, and that's after taking off £115 for the pitch hire. Huge thanks must go to Vicki for organising the day's events and to everybody who helped out, whether umpiring, running the technical table, baking, cooking, supplying prizes, collecting money, selling raffle tickets and all of the thousand tasks, little and large, that went into making the day such a success.
Believe me, this is going to be a regular feature of the Kinross Hockey Club year.
Here are some pictures of the action...
A team from Kinross Hockey Club were at the Kinross Show yesterday, promoting the club and the pitch fund. There was a tombola, a bake sale and a keepy uppy competition and it looks as though we raised another £200 or so towards the pitch. Perhaps more importantly, some useful contacts were made.
Well done to everyone who took part, particularly to Libby Simpson for organising it all and to Richard Savage who pushed us all into doing it in the first place.
(And to whoever baked the hockey stick cakes (see below), you should know that they have gone viral on Twitter, having been retweeted by Scottish Ladies coach Gordon Shepherd, Scottish Hockey and...Bahrain Hockey. I kid you not.)
Summer mixed is drawing to a close and a new season beckons. To put everyone in the mood for the rigours of the winter Stirling Wanderers laid on a mixed tournament this weekend, with three of their own teams, one from Carnegie and a group of (mainly hoary old) warriors from Kinross. Unfortunately we were unable to rustle up any ladies and so we had been promised some help from Stirling, but on arrival they sized us up and decided we'd be better off with an all-male team.
How right they were.
Dan was already crook, having strained his back at mixed last week, so he sat on the sidelines for the first game. The rest of the team - Gordon, Andy and David Mac, Stuart and Sam Smith and Monty - started brightly enough and were two goals up in fairly short order, but Andy had started to feel the strain in his back too and with Andy Marsh playing goalie for the opposition, we were pulled back to 2-2. Then Andy Marsh had to pop into work and we were another player down.
Still, with Dan and Andy Mc playing through the pain we clocked up a win and two draws, losing only against Carnegie, who had turned up with a very strong team. Then, with eighty minutes of hockey clocked up, your correspondent was looking forward to a well-earned beer, at which point he was informed that the tournament involved playing everyone twice. Another eighty minutes of game time beckoned!
We started to understand why the organisers were so relaxed about our having an all-male team, as the legs of the old folk stopped doing what they were told and sticks were put into action as makeshift walking sticks. Teams we had beaten in the first set of games started to put goals past us with much more ease, and although we managed a good win against one of the Stirling teams it was all very hard going.
To round it off, the last game, against Carnegie, involved our conceding a hatful of goals in a torrential downpour. This was not a happy experience and hopefully was not an omen for the season ahead.
But despite the pasting at the end of the day, it was a good fun day, played in an excellent spirit and we were mightily pleased to end up placed third.
A bunch of KHC members (and one Kobras parent too I think) are taking part in the Total Warrior event in Edinburgh in September. This will involve a lot of mud, leaping over stuff, flames and general mayhem, and it's all in aid of the pitch fund.
I hope everyone can support the team by putting some money in the sponsorship pot here at Justgiving.com. Every little bit counts! And big bits are even better.
Representatives of the Ladies Circle were at the KGV last night to hand over the first tranche of their donation to the pitch fund. Gail Nelson accepted a cheque for £750 on behalf of the club and another £750 has been promised.
Thanks to everyone at Ladies Circle for their generosity.
On Sunday morning a doughty team of club members were up at the crack of dawn (well, before most teenagers anyway) and down at Sainsbury's Kinross for a stint at bagpacking. We had been worried that we weren't going to get enough people to have this go ahead, but in the event we almost had too many at times.
The total raised was £506.91.
Huge thanks to everyone who took part, and particularly to Morven Clark for organising it all.
![FixturesLive[1].jpg](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5538c714e4b045c237954643/1435524734666-X2AC9X7S3WWFEABE8TYY/FixturesLive%5B1%5D.jpg)
The fixtures for the 2015-16 men's season have now been released and can be seen at Fixtures Live. Dan gives us the lowdown:
For the 1st team, there are 12 teams in total. Stirling Wanderers 1sts and CALA Edinburgh Colts have replaced Dunfermline City and Carnegie. Unfortunately, the last game of the season is away at Fidra (02/04/16)! First 3 games are away! Starting at Stirling Wanderers (19/09/15). Another interesting point is Erskine Stewart Melville have ditched their 3rd team and have replaced it with their 2s team! They played the likes of Stirling Uni 1s and Perthshire 1s last year so will be very tough indeed!
For the 2s team, the league only consists of 8 teams. This does not mean you will play 14 games (once home and away). There are an additional 7 games (yes this does include an additional trip to Fidra!) that seem to have been chosen at random. First game is away to Peebles on 12/09/15 and the final game is at home against Peebles on the 02/04/16. Again some tough teams like Eskvale 1s but overall seems to be not too bad.
Some more good news on the pitch fund front. Kinross Ladies Circle have offered a £1500 donation, taking the fund to over £4000.
“Ladies Circle is open to anyone aged 18-45 who like to mix fundraising and socialising. We have fun outings including comedy nights, dances, craft making, theatre trips, lots of meals and drinks out.”
For those that haven't come across the Ladies Circle before, it acts as a way for women to combine two useful activities, namely socialising and fundraising.
On the fundraising front they are involved in the catering arrangements for the annual St Andrews to Edinburgh cycle ride and they organise an annual comedy night.
As far a social activities go, recent activities include necklace making, fly fishing, ceroc dancing, pottery painting, theatre trips, girly shopping weekends and so on. Their website also mentions champagne and chocolate. They also have a Facebook page here. If you are interested in getting involved, I'm sure they'd be pleased to hear from you.
Huge thanks from everyone at the club to everyone at the Ladies Circle.