On Thursday 17th May the club will decide on some radical changes which will affect you. This includes how much, when and how you pay; how and if players are selected, and how many teams will be entered in leagues.

As a member of the club, this is the only chance for everyone to have a say in these decisions. To keep you all refreshed, for all attendees your first drink will be on the club!

We are arranging a much larger venue for the 17th on the assumption that most players will wish to be there, or at least be well represented. The club has grown significantly of late and has had terrific success in some areas, and probably now needs to change to cope with this better.

The new Clubbuzz system in particular has been a tremendous boon as we catered for growth beyond 300 players, but a number of areas also need new volunteers to share out the work to make the club run well, or even at all.

The proposals - in brief:

1. To decide upon raising adult subscription costs by up to £60 per annum in order to create a fund for a clubhouse facility as a social club hub, and a teas location for Saturday games, Sunday Academy, Ladies Back to Hockey. This would also open up catering for more tournaments, summer fun evening sessions and running summer camps etc, meaning more social opportunities and keeping Saints teams and supporters together pitchside as a single community.
2. To decide upon only accepting automatic (DD) payments for match fees and subs from September 2018. With a new Treasurer volunteer now needing to be recruited they should be given an achievable remit ahead of the new season, where the focus will be on finding ways to support players having valid economic challenges with the chance to play hockey, including sponsorship and fundraising, rather than the admin of running both old and new payment systems ongoing.
3. To discuss possible rebalancing of player costs between subscriptions, payable in advance, and match fees (home and away), to help incentivise players who help the club in fulfilling all its game committments, and a number of other selection policy changes. These will be aimed at reducing the number of cancelled/under strength fixtures, and reducing last minute calls on players to change team, venue and timing of their games. This could for example mean the club switching to a much larger single annual subscription.
4. To decide on a proposal to rebalance fees paid by Goalkeepers (downwards) to support their personal ongoing kit purchase and maintenance costs, offset by Outfield players (upwards) to maintain an overall income-neutral change. So for example every extra £1 contributed by outfielders, could mean the Keeper playing cost could be reduced by c£10.

A number of roles will also be open to members at the AGM - and indeed if you might be interested then please find out more via any committee member (see website) before the AGM.

Candidates welcomed for the roles below:

• Club Chair. (Chairs committee. Liaises with England Hockey, Leagues and other club chairs)
• Club Treasurer. (Manages Financial aspects of club, including player statements and paying bills)
• Club Secretary. (Minutes of meetings, Liaison role)
• Mens Club Captain. (Overview of mens teams, plus recruiting/welcoming new players)
• Mens 5th Team Captain. (Selecting and organising our youth development team)

If any member has a proposal or question for the AGM, this should be sent to the current Chairman (Iain Moor) or the Treasurer (Tim Sutton) at latest by 30 March 2018 to be considered at the AGM.

Best regards,

your Committee 2017/18