Welcome to all returning and new members for the 2019 winter hockey season.

2018 was a great season for Bosco, delivering a joint premiership for our Under 11’s, a Grand Final appearance for the Under 13’s and an all-time best finish for a Bosco Hockey Club Premier League team, finishing 5^th. 

In 2019, we have the opportunity to enter teams into competitions run by the local Sydney South Hockey Association in juniors, the social competition at Moorebank and the SEHA regional completion.

This communication has a lot of information.  The Club will repeat and update elements of this information over the next few weeks in additiuonal communications.

Registration

Registration for the 2019 season will open on Monday 4^th February.  All details in relation to registration are available on the Bosco Hockey Website – https://www.boscohockey.com.au/registration/

Season Start

Juniors – 23^rd March

Seniors

SEHA – 6/7 April

Moorebank - TBA

Uniforms

This season, uniforms may be ordered via the website.  The ‘Shop’ tab will become active shortly and you will be able to place orders for shirts and socks from that tab.

Training

In early 2019, we ran a survey of existing members seeking feedback on participation, training venues and days and fund raising.  The results of that survey are summarised below.

Juniors

Preferred training day – Monday.

Preferred training venue – Sutherland.

Preferred start time – 4:30pm, 5pm and 5:30pm all scored equal votes.

Note: The Association may propose a different approach to training in 2019, with all players from each age group and Club training at Marang Hockey Complex together and at the same time each week.  Tuesday appears to be the day of the week at this stage. When more details about this proposal are available, we will share them with you.

Seniors

Preferred training day – Monday (Wednesday was second).

Preferred training venue – Sutherland (9 votes), Greenhills (8 votes).

Preferred start time – 7pm.

We will settle the venue, time and starting date in the next few weeks.  The SSHA is also proposing a series of pre-season trial matches on the 4^th and 11^th March for all teams from affiliated Clubs, regardless of the competition they play in.  We will communicate this via your team managers as this gets closer.

Fundraising

The proposal that a levy per family be charged for participation in the two major fundraising raffles was supported by 75% of respondents.  We will therefore implement this in 2019, invoicing the oldest player from each family in April.

The Club also has an application current with Bunnings Kirrawee for a BBQ.  The support and result from that activity in 2017 was amazing and hopefully we will get the same opportunity this year.  When information about that is confirmed, we will call for volunteers to assist.

Website

If you have visited the website recently, you will have noticed that we have migrated to the Revolutionise platform as our main website.  We will progressively build up content on the site, including the gallery of photos, as the season progresses.

Marang Parklands Hockey Complex Management Committee

We were certainly very happy to finally commence full time competition at the outstanding Marang Parklands Hockey Complex last season. 

In 2019, there has been no nomination for Facilities Director for the SSHA Board and, at the time of writing this message, last year’s Director Carol Harris OAM is ‘holding the fort’ ahead of an extended overseas trip later in the season.

To ensure the smooth running of this facility in 2019, all Clubs have been asked to jump in and take up ownership of a sub-committee to maintain the facility.

The various sub-committees are responsible for:

• Canteen
• Field bookings
• Building maintenance (cleaning and maintenance of the fixed building at the site)
• Turf maintenance (maintenance of the playing surface, watering systems, lighting and scoreboards)
• Complex maintenance (cleanliness of pathways, grass, bins and security cameras)

Now obviously it is not expected that the people on these committees are able to actually perform maintenance on items, but they will have the responsibility of booking maintenance contractors to come and do the work.

If you have any specific expertise in any of these areas or have the time available to assist, please either contact the Club or the Association (via https://www.sydneysouthhockey.com.au/contact/) to volunteer your assistance.

The alternate may be that as a Club, we are allocated a role, which may prove to be difficult proposition, particularly if we don’t have any experience in the particular area we get.

Representative Hockey

The SSHA runs a very successful representative program for both junior and senior players.  In 2018, Sydney South won 6 State Championship titles in field and indoor hockey.
Consequently, we will field teams in division 1 of most of the junior State Championships in 2019.

Details about the 2019 program can be found at https://www.sydneysouthhockey.com.au/reps/