Hawks Junior Festival 2016

Our run of good weather broke this year with rain of ‘biblical’ proportions just as the Festival started with the U8’s section at 0900.  But as the U8’s know this just improves the playing surface and they dashed around like mad things for 2 hours during which time the sun came out and we all dried out.  The kiosk and BBQ were in full flow with Jan and her team pouring copious quantities of tea, coffee and hot chocolate whilst ‘El Presidente’ was in residence at the BBQ expertly flipping burgers.  The U10’s and U12’s were both blessed with sunny weather and there were great displays of hockey in evidence all the way through to 1800 with all the players getting medals.

This year we saw a record number of 67 teams enter and over 600 juniors playing.  This is a great showcase for the sport of hockey and more importantly Hawks.  It is a real ‘Club Day’ with a huge number of helpers including our fantastic coaches and their assistants.  There were also numerous parent helpers throughout the day. Umpiring was provided by boys and girls from the u16 and u18 squads together with some of the ladies 1’s and other coaches. Some of the junior section deserve special mention for their enthusiastic help for large parts of the day….they are Annabelle Asher, Charlie Colebrooke, Oli Webb, Robbie Scragg, Charlie Taylor and Charlotte Venables. The other helpers were…….Oli Lovibond, Matt Saunders Davies, Tommy Dawes, John Black, Will Senior, Freddie Sunderland, Jake Taylor, April Bedford, Lawrie Cooke, Emily Taylor, Jessica Madden White, Rowenna Hearn, Rachel Potter,Becky Odlin, Bex Oakes, Hibby, Kathryn Poulter, Em and Abbie.  Finally a huge thank you to Richard Venables.  He is entirely responsible for running the festival and putting the whole thing together and it really is a fantastic day!

Thanks also to Kookaburra and Schools for Sport for their raffle prizes which raised £479 for Disabled Hockey.