It has been another incredible year of hockey with the challenging winter weather of 2017/2018 making the season go on and on with rescheduled matches and then the glorious summer where we saw outstanding hockey at the Women’s World Cup.

I have continued the close collaboration with Oxford University Hockey Club Outreach and Oxford Brookes Track mentoring scheme which sees us deliver hockey to local Primary Schools.Its inspiring to have these young students taking time whilst working hard for their degrees to coach.

The summer of 2018 saw our second summer camp which had 45 children attend each day an increase of nearly double from last year. We offered 2 camps one in July and the other in August the coaching was led by myself and fellow coaches Beks and Helen from the Oxford Hockey Club Schools link Programme.

Already now in October we are seeing our Junior membership increasing , some have come from our summer camp and others from new primary schools to our club.

We started back coaching in club at the beginning of September and then the schools gradually as we go into autumn. This is always the loveliest part of the season for me getting to meet lots of new hockey players and start them on their road to being lifelong hockey players.

Lorna McCulloch

Oxford Hockey Club Schools Development Officer

We are grateful to Oxford Sports Council for funding Kate Gills’ training as a jogging leader.

Silver Joggers is a group organised entirely by volunteers and operating under the Go Active programme. It was started in 2014 by Keith Frayn, who was soon joined by Jeff McIlhinney, both having qualified as jog leaders. Since that time, more than 80 individuals have joined us, and typically 20+ meet to jog and socialise each Thursday morning. All the joggers express enjoyment of their increasing physical fitness and the social aspect of the group. One other member had previously trained as a leader but is now no longer available on Thursdays, so the operation of the group was becoming a little uncertain. With Kate as an additional, enthusiastic, trained leader, the group’s future becomes much more certain, and we are already discussing with the Go Active team the idea of launching a new programme for beginner joggers in the new year.

Kate Gills adds that “I enjoyed the Leadership in Running Fitness training at Magdalen College School. The two leaders worked really well as a double-act, giving us lots of information, adapting it to suit the particular needs of the group and inspiring us in our new role as run-leaders. We packed a great deal into the day, learnt some new strategies for effective leadership of our running groups, shared good practice and how to overcome common challenges, and had the opportunity to develop confidence in leading small-group activities. ”

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