Here are details of e-mails and information sent out by the Association's Chairman. This also includes miscellaneous musings and information.
March 6th,2013
I am still relatively new to the social Media side of promotion but have set up Facebook pages for both the village as a whole and the sports association. Please have a look at these if you get a chance and let me know of any problems.
I have also started to put Hethersett events on Twitter and learnt the wonders of the # key. So if you go into Twitter and search for #Hethersett it should bring the tweets up.
Just to update you on the May 22nd come and try sports evening on the Memorial Playing Field from 6 until 9 p.m. We have had an excellent response from various sports and those featured will be
Cycle speedway
Football
Cricket
Rounders
Archery
Athletics
Petanque
So there should be something for everyone. If anybody has any other sports they would like to feature I'm sure we can accommodate. Many thanks to Active Norfolk for all their help with the evening. It should be a good one and we will have posters available nearer the date.
You will probably know that a number of groups including the sports association are combining to help with major plans to improve and extend the pavilion on the memorial field. We are currently having plans drawn up and will take things from there. Hethersett Parish Council has generously donated £1,000 to the planning process and this will be topped up by the Memorial Playing Field Trust and Hethersett Athletic Football Club.
I will be contacting people shortly about the Active Norfolk South Norfolk Games at Framingham Earl on June 9th.
Finally a reminder of relatively new clubs and groups. The Table Tennis Club meets at Hethersett Methodist Church on Fridays from 7 p.m until 9 p.m. All are welcome irrespective of age or standard. Families particularly welcome. We charge £1 for individuals and £2 for families to cover the hire of the hall and heating and lighting. This amount includes refreshments.
The running groups are preparing to start up again. The Monday morning group will meet on the Memorial Playing Field at 9.15 a.m from March 11th. The Thursday evening group will start up again on May 2nd from 7 p.m at Hethersett Junior School. Both groups are free and we have excellent coaching from Paul Evans and Ron Marsh. Again all welcome irrespective of age or standard.
There is a large article in today's EDP newspaper about sport and fitness where Hethersett is quoted. Please see the cutting at the top of the page.
February 11th, 2013
Ahead of tonight's meeting I wanted to share with you a piece written by Hethersett Methodist Minister the Rev Derek Grimshaw in his monthly newsletter for February. Hopefully it is self explanatory but does underline the important work of the sports association in the local community. Apologies for the rather embarrassing references to myself!!! The first evening attracted seven people but the second last Friday saw over 40 people turn up. Thanks to all the hard work put in by Derek, Sarah and Peter Hoult in promoting the event.
"One of the big advantages of being a Methodist Minister is that I cover a number of Anglican Parishes and manage to collect six parish magazines each month, meaning that I have the benfit of reading numerous "reflections." The key theme not surprisingly for January has focussed on looking back at the amazing year that was 2012 and picking up events like the Jubilee, Olympics and Paralympics.
I recall reading something on Peter Steward's Facebook page shortly after the end of the Paralympics questioning what should happen in Hethersett to maintain the sports interest that has been generated in the lead up to the Olympics. I e-mailed him reminding him that when I arrived here in 2005 the Methodist Church had a quite successful Table Tennis club and although it had ceased to meet we still have three decent tables, so I suggested that these could be put to use. Since that original conversation Sarah Aitchison has joined the Sports Planning group and things have progressed.
On Friday 11th January there was an open evening for folk from the village to come and give it a go. Seven of us turned up including five who had come to support with little intention of actually playing. I think I was in my teens when I last played, Karen of course has arthritis in her knees so is not very mobile, Amy is now eight months pregnant and Sarah hasn't really played before. In addition we had one lad from the Norwich City Academy with a broken foot!
It became fairly obvious that we were all going to have to play and Peter, who was organising the evening, possibly took things a bit more seriously than some of the rest of us and suggested that we have a tournament. Amy was let off for obvious reasons, but the rest of us played and we had a great evening. The tournament was a bit of a joke and not surprisingly the more competitive and more importantly those who could actually play ended in the final.
As I sit and write this, I wonder how many more things I miss out on life, simply because I believe they are not my sort of thing and therefore I wouldn't enjoy them. I also wonder how many people feel that the whole faith thing is not for them. I think I learned a valuable lesson as I faltered through a game of table tennis. How can you know if something is for you or not unless you put doubts and the whole issue of "I can't do that" to one side and GIVE IT A GO."
February 6th, 2013
Dear All
It has been a busy time in the sports association world so thought it important to update you on all the various developments ahead of Monday's meeting. So here we go.
1/ A reminder that the next meeting of Hethersett and the Meltons Sports Association is on Monday, 7.30 p.m at Park Farm.
2/ I have had a meeting with Paul Evans and Coach Ron and social running sessions will start up again in the near future. The Monday morning club will start a seven week run (pardon the pun) on March 11th and continue until April 22nd. This will then merge into the new Thursday evening group which will start up on May 2nd and run through until July 4th with the Open Weekend fun run on Sunday July 7th. Sessions will once again be led by Paul, Ron and Maria.They are open to all ages and abilities and we will stress that people who wish to walk will be welcome. We are expecting flyers to come out to advertise these sessions in the next few days and hopefully they will be available for distribution on Monday night. Please pass the word round to anybody you feel might be interested. The ultimate aim is to start up a fully constituted Hethersett Running Club later in the year. The Monday morning group will meet at Hethersett Memorial Playing Field and a venue for the Thursday Evening group will be announced shortly. Meanwhile Coach Ron's youth running academy is continuing on Hethersett Memorial Playing Field on Saturday mornings. Full details on all the running dates and development are available on the dedicated web site at www.hethersettsocialrunninggroup.weebly.com. Also a reminder that Maria's monthly Sunday morning group will meet by the bowls green on the Memorial Field this Sunday at 10.30 a.m. There will also be a session on March 17th. Paul has also come up with another excellent idea to provide fitness training sessions for individual clubs irrespective of their sport. He will speak about this at Monday's meeting.
3/ We are working on a number of come and try events. These start with table tennis at Hethersett Methodist Church this Friday (February 8th) from 7 until 9 p.m. Again all ages and abilities welcome. A further session will be held on March 1st. If there is sufficient interest we may well increase these events to fortnightly or even weekly. Plans are well advanced for the come and try sports evening on the Memorial Field on May 22nd from 6 to 9 p.m. Sports already lined up include archery, athletics, football, cricket, rounders and cycle speedway. We are hoping to add a couple more shortly. Sport in the Park takes place on July 6th and will feature over 20 sports to try free of charge. This event is being organised by the village Olympic Legacy Committee and may well incorporate a village fete. The Open Weekend will run from July 5th to 7th. In the summer we are looking to set-up come and try tennis and rounders events with the aim of setting up clubs. The onus will once again be to provide sport for all irrespective of ability or age. One important criteria will be to attract people prepared to help with the organisation and running of these clubs.
4/ I have received details of the South Norfolk Village Games which will take place at Framingham Earl Sports Centre on June 9th. This is the competition we have won the last two years and so we are keen to make it a hat-trick. Slight change in sports this year. Once again we will be entering teams in all events and I will be contacting everyone with a view to putting teams together in the near future. Sports involved are as follows (Seniors are classed as over 16 and juniors as between eight and 16):
Archery - Senior and Junior competition (two in each) Athletics - Combined senior and junior competition with teams of four - one male, one female and two under-16s. All competing in long jump, javelin, shot putt, hurdles and 100 metres.
Badminton - One mixed doubles pair 11 years and over
Climbing Wall - Open to all with the fastest time from each village counting.
Darts - One team of up to three 11 years and over Fitness Triathlon - Team of three - one male, one female, one under-16 - rower, bike and treadmill with total distance of all three counting together.
Five-a-side Football - Senior and Junior competition. Senior for males over 16, Junior for 9 to 11 years mixed. Squads of up to seven.
Rounders - Mixed team of nine - squad of 12. Starting nine must include five under-16s and minimum of two under-12s. Maximum of four starting adults at any one time.
Short Mat Bowls - One team of three - squad of four Table Tennis - senior and junior singles competition. Maximum of two people per competition per village
Tennis - One mixed doubles pair 11 years plus.
5/ You will have noticed from the above that there is no netball competition this year. A special tournament is being held at Dereham on April 28th and our Netball Club is entering a team in that.
6/ Paul Rogers has kindly finished designing the Sports Association logo and I will e-mail examples of this separately. Many thanks to Paul for all his hard work on this (particularly as it came in the midst of a computer crash).
7/ Update on the Pavilion - as you may know a number of groups are working together to improve and extend the pavilion on the Memorial Playing Field. The original idea was to apply to the county council by February 14th for a grant from its community building fund. This has been scuppered by the necessity of having planning permission before an application is submitted. This means that we will now be looking at the third round of funding which I believe is in September. We are currently working with builders and architects to take this project forward and I will be speaking with Sport England over the next few days as I believe they also have grant money available and may or may not be a better option.
8/ On the subject of grants. I am still waiting to hear from South Norfolk about our Northern Rivers Board application. If successful we will be giving clubs the go ahead to buy equipment etc in line with our application. Hopefully there will be more news on this at Monday's meeting.
9/ Monday's meeting will also discuss support for campaigns which you will remember include encouraging more walking and cycling in Hethersett and the Meltons, improving cycle paths from Little Melton to Hethersett and Hethersett to Wymondham and encouraging more women and girls to take up sport/fitness. I feel we have already achieved a considerable amount in the latter of these with the running clubs and table tennis clubs attracting more females than males. Also grant money should allow the netball club to set up a junior section for younger girls. Apologies once again at the length of this e-mail but, as you can see, there is so many good things going on. Just a reminder of the sports association web site at www.handmsa.weebly.com where you can find all the relevant information and dates along with the agenda for Monday's meeting. Please pass this e-mail onto anyone you feel might be interested. Everyone is welcome at Monday's meeting. Finally a bid thank you to Active Norfolk and South Norfolk Council for all their support for sport in Hethersett and the Meltons.
Best Wishes Peter