Hampshire Hockey Umpires’ Association
Management Team Meeting 1 06.09.10 7.30pm, RWMCC
Attending: RW, JMG, AT, CH, DB, AG, LW, NP, JHol, PG, GT (minutes)
Apologies: RS, RH, RJ, AN, JH, MH, MR, ME
Item / Action1. / Apologies for absence – as listed above
RW welcomed all to the first meeting of the 2010/2011 season.
2. / Minutes of the last meeting
All actions completed with the exception of:
· Item 2 from 4.13.2 previously LW to put together document provisionally entitled “Why should I join HHUA”
· Item 4 RW also advised that the Officers propose to set up an additional sub-Committee of HHUA, called the Development Committee. JMG asked if a Terms of Reference would be set for the DC. RW confirmed yes.
Additional items:
· Item 5.4 GT to publish a news item informing umpires that they should claim £4 additional expenses and inform the relevant Appointments Secretary should they not receive food and a drink after an appointed match.
· MH to inform HHA of this and advise that clubs not providing hospitality to umpires will be charged £6. / LW
RW
GT
MH
3. / Correspondence
a) GT advised that Jane Nockolds had sent a communication about the rule ‘changes’ to be adopted from September 1st. A news item had been published.
b) RW advised that although EHL were trying a 2 minute suspension for a green card, this was not being adopted in any other league.
c) RW advised that following a request from Hamble HC, he and GT had met with Jumbo and Richard Lea-Elmes. The meeting took place after the appeal against the Hampshire Day red card suspension term. A discussion took place about the outcomes of the meeting. See also Item 4 below.
d) GT advised that Dawn Bonner (Secretary SCHUA) had requested feedback on the service given to Counties by South. South rep (ME) has fed back.
4. / Umpire feedback from clubs
RW explained that one of the requests from the meeting with Hamble was that there be some sort of mechanism for clubs to provide feedback on umpires’ performances. Jumbo has received feedback from other clubs that they would appreciate this facility.
RW advised that this facility was already available through the South website and that it would cost £760 to implement on the Hampshire website.
A discussion took place, the key points of which were:
· Concerns that clubs would provide uninformed and ‘spur of the moment’ feedback that would not be balanced or constructive
· Any sort of numbered scoring system would be too open to differences in interpretation
· Would this necessarily lead to an improvement in HHUA
· If adopted, feedback should be monitored and ‘screened’ for feedback to the relevant umpire
Finally agreed to test a system without paying for the full facility by setting up a dedicated email address for the current season. RW to action / RW
5. / Reports
5.1 / Chairman
See Items 3 and 4.
5.2 / Vice Chairman - nothing to report.
5.3 / Treasurer – nothing to report.
AT requested that once new rule books are available, please could Committee Members help by distributing where relevant.
Agreed that AT should be informed if a rule book is not required. / ALL
5.4 / Appointments (Saturday/Midweek) – see report.
5.5 / Appointments (Sunday) – nothing to report.
5.6 / Indoor – nothing to report.
RW advised that it was looking unlikely that Indoor would be running this season.
5.7 / Coaching/selection – see report.
All agreed that only those umpires responding to the email request for ambitions for the current season should be worked with.
5.8 / Membership/L1 Register – see report.
LW also advised that she is without full internet access currently.
5.9 / Umpire Development – see report.
Several actions were agreed upon:
Following a discussion about allowing brand new (no experience) potential umpires to attend the morning only of a full day course, agreed to trial this at next course on 10th October.
By 10 Sep: Order 20 Acme plastic pea whistles from EH (@ £1.60 ea = £32), (allocate 20 rule books from new stock)
By 10 Oct:
· RW to pass stock of Ex-NPUA DVDs -Umpiring Core Skills -to CH
· AT to provide 20 copies of 2011-12 Rules once in stock
· CH to register 10 Oct coursewith EH and request 2011-12 exam papers
· Update downloads on website to 2011-12 rules:
o First game Survival Tips
o Pre-course Study Guide
· Also revise & update:
o Qualification Process
o How to Re-activate Level 1 Status / CH
CH
RW
AT
CH
CH
CH
5.10 / Young Umpire Development – nothing to report.
5.11 / HHA rep – see report.
5.12 / SCHUA rep – nothing to report.
6 / Any other business
6.1: DB advised that Portsmouth Grammar School have a new person in charge of hockey and so umpires should get a much better experience this season!
6.2: AG advised that only four clubs have requested and received a Lighting certificate by the September 1st deadline.
6.3: AG suggested that HHA be requested to consider holding the first round of Hampshire Cup matches in September to guarantee umpires getting games then. MH to take to HHA.
6.4: JHol asked if the Committee would like a dinner arranged again. Suggested mid to end of November in Southampton, potentially at the restaurant Posh.
6.5: GT advised that the original date for the 2011 AGM (1st June) has had to change to 8th June as RWMCC no longer available. RW mentioned a suggestion to move the AGM to September, in line with EH. [SCHUA have subsequently agreed to do this]. GT to check Constitution to see if June is specifically mentioned. [Checked – it just says ‘an AGM shall be held in every season’].
6.6: RW would like the actions area of the website to be used.
6.7: RW advised that there are two DVDs available from EH for a suggested donation of £5 plus postage: ‘Body Language 2’ and one by David Ellery (former football referee). / MH
JHol/ALL
GT
GT/ALL
Meeting closed 9.34pm.
Ginette Tessier Richard Wood
HHUA Secretary HHUA Chairman
Reports:
Appointments (Saturday/midweek):
1. Fairly quiet summer.
2. Initially a shortage of September matches to appoint to, but this has picked up and we should be at full capacity by the end of the month.
3. Saturday appointments made for 4th and 11th September in first instance. Second half of September due to be published on 11th (flexibility = beauty of the website!).
4. Not many new ACTIVE members (one more today passed on toLia) and we will probably be short (men's D2 should beware!) be quite short of available umpires on some Saturdays.
5. Ginette has written to all men's D1, Men's D1 and HWHL D1 teams to ask them to take action to help HHUA to recruit more new umpires from clubs and I hope we can discuss their responses (or lack of reaction!?) in the meeting.
6. I trust the compromise position (Martin Hannant, Anne Costain and Ginette = the nominated umpires for Trojans 2, Southampton 1 and Havant 1) has been reached over the requirement by South Women's league for every team in D1 and D2 to supply a nominated LEVEL 2 umpire to SCHUA every Saturday. I have also spoken to Stephen Downham and Chris Burton on this subject.
7. Chris Burton (Surrey HUA Appts Sec) and I have speoken recently to plan some more cross-border activity. We can perhaps discuss at meeting how regular and in what form this might take place.
8. Replies (only 50%) to Allan Notman's request for some umpires to declare their goals and aims are interesting and will doubtless be discussed in the next C&S meeting.
Chairman of Selectors:
On the 19 July, I sent an E-Mail to all A & B panel umpires requesting what their goals and ambitions were for the forthcoming season, out of the 48 panel members a total of 24 replied a copy of which is attached [NB: not attached as should only be viewed by C&S Committee].
My view is we work with those that have bothered to show an interest……comments please.
I will be working with both PG and DB to ensure those listed in the attached table get the opportunity to achieve their request.
I would like to mention that FIH have issued confirmation / minor changes to the new rules, these have been implemented by EH as of 01/09/10.
Membership:
I do not really have anything to report as far as membership is concerned. We have a couple of new members for this season but generally it is quite steady.
Umpire Development:
1) Past 12 months:
53 candidates passed exam on 5 courses (Yateley, Southampton, Portsmouth, Basingstoke, Havant)
– 21 of them now qualified Level 1 Umpire
- 18 due for assessment
- 7 dropped out or moved away
44 candidates assessed in past 12 months (21 & 29 in previous years), including 6 young umpires, and 5 with HHUA aspirations (Andy Gagen already started).
Currently 32 candidates awaiting assessment (61 in Sept 09, 39 in Sept 08), including 5 young umpires, and 3 with HHUA aspirations
2) The next course booked for Sunday 10 October at Wide Lane. Before registering the course with England Hockey, the committee is asked to approve:
a) Provide HHUA candidates with the DVD ‘Umpiring Core Skills’, in place of the text book Umpiring Hockey by Jane Nockolds.
The book has been in the course packs for years, but the current 6th edition is poorly structured, and has no index. Few candidates appear to use it.
The 2009 DVD has a good balance between elite umpires in action and good/bad examples on a game the candidate could umpire. A personal copy would help candidates much more than just the one viewing on the course.
We have 17 course packs in stock (enough for October course) but they will need updating to 2011-12 Rules, and EH have to publish a 2011-12 exam. HHUA could obtain DVDs to go with the books and get feedback, to confirm usage, before formally asking EH for course packs with DVD not book.
Action by 10 Sep: Order 18 DVDs from EH (@ £6 ea = £108), request 2011-12 exam papers, (allocate 18 rule books from new stock) [Action subsequently altered following meeting – see 5.9]
b) HHUA accepting inexperienced umpires attending just the morning of the Level 1 course, to obtain a ‘Level 0’ (let’s say) certificate of attendance. They do not face the burden of exam and assessment, nor get a full course pack. They would each have a whistle and rule book for a fee of £10.
Records show that the full course is a waste of time for candidates who have never umpired. Most clubs have stopped sending raw recruits on the course, but the universities still do, and some clubs still need to ‘switch on’ a bunch of umpires in a hurry to meet HWHL regulations.
In the morning session everyone (Level 0 & 1) would cover:
· Intro, the umpiring ladder, self-development
· View DVD - Umpiring Core Skills
· Classroom session on core decisions and basic skills
· On-pitch session - whistling, signalling, positioning, cooperation
· Wrap up and Level 0 candidates depart
In the afternoon session the Level 1 course continues with the content that scares raw recruits off and stops them umpiring:
· control, discipline and cards
· the rest of the rules in detail
· exam and preparation for assessment
For the October course, Southampton University have a dozen potential Level 0 candidates, and 3 clubs have shown interest for several more.
We might expect about half the Level 0 umpires to apply for a later Level 1 course, and maybe the course fee can be reduced by £10 to £20 if they re-use their own whistle and rule book.
Action by 10 Sep: Order 20 Acme plastic pea whistles from EH (@ £1.60 ea = £32), (allocate 20 rule books from new stock)
3) Level 1 Umpire assessments – clearly defined assessment criteria means more county umpires have felt confident to assess L1 candidates.
We need to expand the pool still further – 12 assessors used in past year - to ensure up to 25 candidates qualify in each third of the year (1st & 2nd half, & off-season).
One step would be to review the panel of Level 1 Assessors to include everyone who will accept being contacted by a candidate needing assessment.
4) Out-of-date materials on website.
Action by 10 Oct: Update downloads on website to 2011-12 rules:
· First game Survival Tips
· Pre-course Study Guide
Also revise & update:
· Qualification Process
· How to Re-activate Level 1 Status.
HHA Rep:
I know that this is not a good start the season missing my first meeting but unfortunately work matters have arisen and I am at my head office in Felixstowe.
Matters of note are the below and I feed back any constructive comments back in the next meeting.
1) Conduct of players and teams: Southampton and Hamble
From the matters arising both clubs have been or will be contacted to review their conduct. Richard Wood was delegated this task and will report on this matter in a separate report.
2) Appointing to games
A question was aired asking about the appointment policy and its timings. The feeling was that during parts of last season there were times when appointments were only made at “last minute” giving ULO’s only a day or so to contact the umpires and assessors that were appointed. This was largely due to the NPUA and SCHUA not being able to publish their appointments in good time.
Is this going to happen again? How much time would clubs get this season to contact those parties concerned?
3) Bournemouth HC Pitch
Over the past season Bournemouth’s pitch number 1 (nearest the clubhouse) was condemned due to the state of the pitch.