I do hope this email finds you all well and ok, and you’re all keeping fit and healthy at least on these Saturdays when we’d otherwise be at hockey. It’s great to see a lot of people out and about exercising whatever the weather !

We thought we’d send out this email including some positive news. The Club and our teams have had a great start to the season with lots of adults and juniors out playing which is great especially considering we had 5 teams promoted last season. Over our 11 adult league teams, we’ve scored 142 goals and 30 wins in league games. There’ve also been some friendly games for our Ladies 6th XI. It’s very impressive that the Ladies 3rd XI and Mens 4th XI are both undefeated, the Mens 4s are top of their league, we have three teams in 2nd place and overall our teams are mostly well placed in the leagues. A massive well done to everyone involved.

We couldn’t have started the season so well without all our fantastic volunteers, players and supporters so big thanks. In particular, it’s really important that we acknowledge the huge amount of time and effort which Corinne Daniel has input to her new additional role of Club Covid Officer, to make sure that we can get out and keep playing in a safe environment. Big thanks Corinne.

As we couldn’t have the fireworks social, there was some fundraising over the weekend of the 1st November and we were delighted that we raised at least £765 for our nominated charity, “Sportin MS”. This was actually more than we raised last year at the fireworks so some fantastic news of the Club supporting a local charity. Also, it’s been great that we’ve been able to open up the Clubhouse bar so thanks to Calvin and Millie for making that happen, and hopefully we can get things open again soon after restrictions are lifted. We’re planning a virtual quiz evening of Saturday 28th November so hopefully you can join us then. More details to follow. Don’t worry…it won’t be too mentally taxing and a bit of fun, and good excuse to try and get people together virtually.

As you probably know, our governing body, England Hockey, have confirmed that training and matches won’t restart until at least after December 4th. As soon as England Hockey have announced changes in restrictions, we’ll let you know what we can do as we’ll be eager to get players out playing. Please bear with us on that as you’ll appreciate, we’ll need to understand the impact of any changed restrictions and there may need to be some organising around pitch bookings, training and fixtures.

In the meantime, it’s been a great start to the season so keep safe, well, healthy and fit, so that when possible, we can continue our strong start to the season for Reigate Priory Hockey Club.