November 2007 Newsletter

Dear all,

Firstly we must advise you all of a major issue currently within the Club - as a committee we had been assured that our playing at Roils Head was a “short term fix”. To continue with this message we held a meeting with a representative from the council, following a few concerns; there are no toileting facilities for females and there is no drinking water. Two essential requirements we feel. These are not the only reported problems. We were advised that unfortunately the moor will not be available to us as we had hoped! Roils Head is all there is available on hire from the Council. It has also effectively been cut out of the council’s budget – what we and the footballers using the facilities pay, maintains what we have. This was and is a major concern to the committee who have being looking for other suitable playing accommodation. This has been agreed as a priority by the majority of the committee and coaches to ensure we are doing what is best for our players. You are all welcome to ask any committee member of what is happening, your opinions are welcomed. However we must as a committee, be able to carry on with this role, aiming to have better facilities for next season if not sooner. We are paying close to £2000.00 for what we as a Committee feel is a very poor set up at Roils Head.  We also aren’t getting full teams back to the Irish Centre, and have had some difficulties getting into the large room on several occasions. This isn’t helping promote the Club atmosphere we have always had. We have approached Illingworth Sports Club, as our first point of contact and have “tried out” their facilities with their help. All points of contact made with Illingworth have been most positive. We MUST advise no definite decision has been made by our committee as yet, other than Roils Head is causing many concerns and we must find better facilities. We MUST also advise any possible move to any other Club would NOT be a merger. We are Halifax Irish Junior Rugby League and will remain so. Obviously meetings are still ongoing; we will as now, keep you informed. 

We have now started selling on the kits purchased last season for those of you that want to buy them. For a few pounds the players will be keeping a quality wear kit for their own use. It also helps the Club with a small fundraiser!

A great BIG THANK YOU must go to Andrew & Adam, U11 coaches – and everyone else who assisted, in making their bonfire spectacular a fantastic evening for all who attended! The evening was also held to raise funds to kit out the Under 11’s team in warm tops and tracksuit tops. A great way of fundraising guys! Are you planning next years’ event?? We hope so! Thanks also to everyone who attended the evening – you have helped to raise funds for the team. Deborah Bruce of Griffin Sports, one of our proud sponsors, also very kindly donated £100.00 to the fund!

Griffin Sports have also sponsored and provided new tracksuit tops to the U10’s team – and their coaches, and again this year kindly provided equipment the clubs needs – from water bottles to kicking tees – at cost to us as another part of their sponsorship. Many thanks for your continued support Deborah!

Many more of our teams are now wearing new tracksuit tops and more of you currently have sponsors on board – the tops are in the process of being ordered. Thanks to all sponsors for their involvement.

A piece of news now about one of our weekly supporters -Megan Varley – has been successful in gaining an audition for the Britain’s Got Talent Show. Good Luck Megan – we’ll be looking out for you and offering our support!

We need willing volunteers to partake in next years “Run for Jane”. As a Committee we recently agreed that we could offer help to a good cause. We have chosen to help “one of our own”. Hannah Cockroft, U12 coach’s daughter and an U12 players’ sister, has several sporting attributes. Ask her mum and dad if they ever have a spare hour! Hannah is hopefully going to be competing in the 2012 Olympics! How fantastic an achievement is that? Well done Hannah. We have discussed how we can help with the vast expenses the family will be incurring, a new wheelchair for Hannah is going to cost approximately £3500.00! Obviously from now until 2012 we can help with regular fundraisers, hence the run for Jane. So, do we now have some volunteers for the run? Please let a committee member know. You could walk instead of running!

You should all by now have received a letter about the Christmas parties. Please ensure you have returned your reply slip. We have set up a mini events committee who are organising the parties. Please support them. “Thanks guys for committing to organising the parties.” There seem to be games arranged already. Should be a good couple of afternoons.

Did you see our U12’s in their new kits (and orange wigs) at the 1^st GB v NZ test match on 27^th Oct? They went with the mission of a former player, now living in NZ, being able to spot them. It certainly worked! It wasn’t only Jon who saw them! Vicky MacDonald, parent to 2 of the players, was receiving text messages and phone calls throughout the game! It also gave our new kit sponsors great publicity – Paul Emmett from Yorkshire Timber Merchants actually rang his brother Pete – open age secretary – really excited about seeing his logo on a major TV programme! We can’t guarantee this amount of coverage all the time but what a start!

We are again setting up a boot box. Do you have any old boots that are still in good condition? Please pass them on to a committee member (in a clean state please). We can then recycle them. This also goes for old shoulder pads/shin pads etc. We can help other players through this scheme. It has worked successfully for us previously.