Dec 08 Newsletter

FLEET TOWN COLTS MANAGERS NEWSLETTER December 2008 Welcome to the December issue of the Colts newsletter in which I plan to give you an update on progress so far this season. The management committee (Jim, Rosi, and my-self) are pleased with the way that things have developed to date this season. Naturally there are areas that continue to require our attention, but with regular meetings and communication, we seem to have these in hand at present. Our numbers and teams continue to grow, we have finally provided some decent pitches to play on, and a number of our teams are challenging for top spot in their leagues. And we even managed to hold our first ever Colts social event – a full house for an evening of ‘Elvis’ Our Teams Congratulations to our U14 NEHYL (Mark Washington) and U11 SPL (Claudio Altini) who have both reached the latter stages of the Hampshire County Cup. This competition is open to all clubs within the Hampshire area bringing together all the best teams throughout the county. The next round is scheduled for Sunday December 14th so please support both of our teams. Our U15 Blues (Keith Botevyle) remain unbeaten and top Division 3 of the NEHYL. Sadly our U17 NEHYL team has disbanded in the past week following a number of managerial changes (this team has seen 4 managers this season) and a loss of players to other clubs. Pitches We continue to see improvements at Calthorpe with the investment made last summer paying dividends this season with many positive comments on the conditions of the pitches. Unfortunately while the pitches at All Saints School have given our younger 11 aside teams a great venue to play their football, others seem to take great enjoyment in trying to ruin all our good work. In the past few weeks we have seen the locks cut, attempts to vandalise our storage shed, and a desire to remove the goal-posts. We continue to build relationships with the school and have just provided them with a new football strip for the team, together with 2 new storage facilities. You will recall that we do not pay anything for use of All Saints. We have plans to create a 3rd football pitch as well as putting in place a maintenance programme to ensure that the pitches remain in good condition. We have also recently invested in a white lining machine to enable us to mark out the lines each week as the school contract only allowed for this to happen once every 6 weeks. Website There has been general agreement throughout the Club that our web-site is at best functional, but needs an overhaul to make the look and feel more user friendly. To this extent, one of our parents, Richard Cairns (a professional web designer) has kindly created a new web-site for the Club,

which we expect to go live after Christmas. Richard will be providing an overview of the new site at the manager’s meeting on January 14th 2009. Senior Club A number of you will have seen and heard about the latest developments with Hart Council on the future of the senior club. Graham Smith will be attending our January meeting to update us all on progress together with other areas of interest within the senior club. I would urge you, your players, and parents to sign the petition that is gathering momentum at present. This is on display at Danny’s Place or alternatively attached to this note. Social Scene The Colts held their first ever social evening on Saturday November 29th in the Fleet clubhouse where a sell out audience were ‘entertained’ by Dale Fontaine, aka ‘Elvis’. Keith deserves huge credit for making this event happen and for raising additional funds for the Colts Club. I know that Keith has plans for future events throughout 2009 which I hope you will all support. Christmas parties have also been arranged in the Fleet clubhouse for our younger members (U6, U7, U8 squads) Sponsorship A big thank you to those of you who have persuaded or cajoled businesses to sponsor our teams for this season. I am pleased to thank the following:Bombardier (U8’s) RJL Engineering (U15 Reds) As well as sponsoring our U8 teams, Bombardier is also the team sponsor of Championship team Derby County FC. A letter from Richard Moritz to Derby has resulted in our U8 teams being invited to Pride Park in the New Year to be mascots for the day. General Updates Honours Board – to be updated - (U14 Blues league winners, U13 NEHYL cup winners) SPL website – work ongoing to provide a functioning site (live in Jan 2009) GK Training – has started for younger age groups, with 11 aside planned for Jan 2009 Referee List – attached but not yet complete for 11 aside teams Pre Season Tournament - there is some discussion at present on whether we should hold our own tournament in late August / early September (to be discussed at our manager’s meeting in January) Kit – Brad Boardman of Cupmed will be giving a short presentation at our manager’s meeting on how we have designed our own playing kit and rain jackets which allows us to continue to play in our existing colours, given our current supply challenges with Prostar.

Manager’s Meeting – Wednesday January 14th 2009 There will be a meeting in the Fleet Town Clubhouse on Wednesday January 14 th 2009 when all managers / coaches of our teams will be invited along for the evening to hear about and discuss our latest developments, to meet with other managers, and to ask Jim, Rosi, or my-self about any other matters. As mentioned above, we have 3 guests attending the evening – Richard Cairns (website), Graham Smith (Fleet Town FC), and Brad Boardman (Cupmed). I will issue a more formal agenda nearer the time, but please put the date in your diary and do your best to come along. Start time will be 19.45. That just leaves for me to thank you all for your efforts so far this season, to wish your teams continued success and enjoyment for the rest of this season, and to enjoy the brief respite from football that the Christmas period brings. Happy Christmas Jamie