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Valley Fort Newsletter – January 2010 Bob Taylor – Club Chairman Amazingly we are already at the halfway point of the season which seems like a good moment to update you on recent club news. I hope you all had a great Christmas break and may 2010 bring further success and enjoyment for Valley Fort’s playing members, club officials and parents!! Calender for Second Half of Season – our bookings for Stanley Fort for the second half of the season are now confirmed so please check the calendar elsewhere on the website. Minis resume training on 10th January with the Tai Po festival at Kings Park the following Sunday. Thanks as usual to the PLA for their ongoing support and to Dot Cod for the catering, it is much appreciated. Don’t forget the end of season dinner which will be on Saturday 13th March followed by prize giving at the Fort on 21st. Singapore Tour – a 200 strong group from the club attended the Centaurs tournament at Singapore Polo Club on 5/6 December, a remarkable achievement for the club considering the current economic climate. We came away with two winners’ trophies in the under 8’s and under 11’s age groups and many other creditable performances from the other teams. But most importantly everyone enjoyed the weekend once again and the Centaurs guys did a superb job with the organisation. Special thanks to Bill Cotter for his hard work as tour organiser, to Oliver from Oliver’s Travel for taking care of the travel arrangements and to Laurent Tison for his sponsorship of the shirts through his employer, Societe Generale. Thanks also to Carl Redman for setting up the deal with the tourist board which meant we did the dinner and night safari at Singapore Zoo free!! We are still waiting for some of the $400 payments for the ground transportation so if you have not paid, please could you do so as soon as possible. Next year we are considering the Bintang tournament in Kuala Lumpur although this is normally in the second half of the season. Following the Singapore visit, the Tanglin club (which is probably the strongest minis club in Singapore) requested further ‘tough’ games against us and will travel to Hong Kong in March to play Valley Fort in several age groups as the first year of an annual bilateral competition. Further news on this will be published in due course. Laurent Suspene is taking care of this, thanks a lot Laurent. Playing Space – our membership this season has increased once again with around 640 paid up members, a club record. Our numbers each Sunday at the Fort are limited by the PLA so we have been looking for additional playing space for some time. Discussions are ongoing with the HKRFU and St Stephens school, some good news will hopefully follow in due course. Valley Fort Festival – we will host a festival for the first time for several years at Kings Park on 28th February – this will entail a huge effort from a lot of people so please respond positively to any request for assistance and give Jason Brueske (Festival Director) your full support – all age groups will be asked to help in some way. Please contact Bob Taylor if your company is interested in sponsorship. Minis News – our ‘coach the coaches’ sessions on a Monday evening at Happy Valley led by Ally Maclay have been well received, as was our refereeing refresher session for the non-contact age groups which was attended by coaches from several other clubs (more than 40 people in total). Thanks to Laurent Suspene and Ally Maclay for making these sessions a success. We will plan more of these later in the season. Watch this space!! Colts News – in general the new coaching arrangements under Director of Rugby David Peters and Coaching Co-ordinator Ally Maclay have met the key expectations of our plans drawn up last summer and this is becoming evident in the results. We have a consistent management team in each age group with additional and consistent coaching expertise sourced from Valley seniors. At under 18’s level, 3 of the 7 players selected this season for the HKRFU Academy were from Valley Fort so congratulations to Alban Altier, Josh Clewes and Josh Peters. Along with Josh Owens and Carl Rojens (who were selected last season) we now have 5 players in the Academy. The under 18’s can now boast 10 players in the HK National Squad, seven of whom played against the overseas XV in the New Years Day festival. This squad is managed by former England international Joe Shaw. This season the number of players registered at under 18 has reached 38 which is a huge increase on previous years and an indication of our progress compared with our competition. In addition, progress is being made not only at under 18 level but also in the under 16 and under 14 squads. Under 12’s News – the annual new year’s day festival at HKFC saw a select under 12’s Hong Kong Island team (the Lions) competing with a similar team from the Mainland (the Dragons). It is a full 15- a- side format game with the Lions team coached and managed by our very own Hugh Garway and Nick Pasha together with Ian Seow from Football Club. In addition several VF under 12’s featured in the team and put in huge performances. The match itself was very tight with the Lions emerging as eventual and deserved winners of the Waterford Cup. Well done to all VF participants for flying the Valley Fort flag so well. At the halfway point in the season the Valley Fort U12 team is leading the Richard Hawkes Trophy competition which will soon move to the knockout stages. We need to maintain the same level of performance and commitment in the 3 festivals in the second half of the season in order to bring the silverware back to the club. Good luck guys, the club is fully supporting you!! Girls Colts – this new section of the club has now successfully got off the ground with the help of Adma Andrade and Sam Scott from Valley Seniors Ladies’ team. The club is now competing regularly in the ‘Super Sundays’ competition programme and we now have a firm foundation in place for future growth. Thanks especially to Sam and Adma for getting this going. We are struggling to get a girls’ minis section off the ground but we are maintaining our efforts in this area – the development of the girls’ colts will inevitably help. Kit and equipment – well done to Terry Weir and his helpers for distributing the kit quickly and efficiently once again in the early weeks of the season. This is a massive task and this season we have been able to collect much more information than before on what has been distributed which will optimise our future orders. The ‘sale’ in the club shop has gone well with benefit to both parents (who have picked up some real bargains) and club (stock levels reduced and bank balance increased). We will try to make sure the shop is open most Sundays for the remainder of the season but this will depend on each minis age group providing volunteers on a rotation basis. Thanks to all volunteers who have helped this season. Club sponsorship – our 3 year shirt sponsorship deal with Linklaters runs out at the end of the season and we will be looking for a new sponsorship deal shortly. Please email Bob Taylor if you are interested, there are many ways your company can get involved with the club. Thanks again to Linklaters for their ongoing support at this difficult time for all businesses. Sevens Tickets – the task of reconciling what has been paid already for sevens tickets with what is actually owed to the club will begin shortly. This will be done in the light of the increase in ticket prices announced earlier in the season and the final allocation of tickets given to Valley Fort. Demand for tickets is huge and this year we received only 70% of what we applied for. The other large clubs are facing a similar reduction. Again we are grateful to our backroom team of David Hurren, Kim Murphy, Lucinda Ma and Henry Tsui for all of their hard work on the sevens tickets and in so many other areas. And last but not least our webmaster Elisabetta who does a superb job of updating the website almost instantaneously. Thanks again Elis. Valley Seniors – the huge success of last season has continued this season with the first team unbeaten in all competitions at the midpoint of the season. There will be opportunities for the minis kids to support the seniors in their key games in the second half of the season so please respond positively to these requests; the seniors really value having the kids along to support them. Once again, several of the senior players have given up their valuable (recovery!!) time on Sunday mornings to help with the coaching at the Fort this season. Thanks guys, it is appreciated, hopefully more later. In addition several members of the senior squad have been coaching the 3 colts squads – and the feedback for this season from our colts management team has been very positive. Thanks guys!!
Bob Taylor
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