OBC Cricket Club
OBC juniors has had another very successful season all round. 430 players registered with 47 teams from ‘Have A Go’ to Year 8 including 3 junior girls teams.
The club provided all teams with club coaches who ran the weekly coaching sessions with 80 volunteer managers with our teams on Saturday mornings. With support from NZC and Christchurch Metro they provided online and practical coaching courses, umpiring and scorer training, coach observations and feedback to these coaches and volunteers.
Over the season OBC continued to build on our relationships with schools in our area. Helping them develop cricket in the school, raising awareness and creating a link to play club cricket. OBC also provides umpire for school games during the week.
This season OBC has developed a Junior Committee to specifically looks at some of the issue related to the juniors and assist the club to provide a better service. They were tasked with delivering a new event "Fun Day' which was held at the Elmwood Bowls club in November. This was a great success with over 150 attendees.
OBC again ran a number of Cricket Holiday programmes throughout the season. Pre-season, Christmas and New Year that are always well received with over 300 bookings this season.
End of season Prize Giving and the clubs raffle unfortunately had to be cancelled due to the implications with Covid-19. The award winner that were passes on are below and the Raffle will be run at the start of next season.
Shirley Volleyball Club
Shirley Volleyball Club (SVC) members are looking forward to the start of the 2020 club season. We will hopefully have 7 teams playing -3 Men’s teams - an A and a B and a development team and 4 women’s teams as for the men but with an extra development team. Limited court space due to Covid restrictions may mean limited spots for teams in club competition but we should still have 3 women and 2 men's team’s’ straight into competition due to our good results last year. We finished 1st, 2nd and 4th in Women's A grade.
Covid has meant that Petra Manderson has returned to the club after 4 years in the USA collegiate system. She played at Hillsborough Community College for 2 years then went to a div 1 school Texas -Arlington where she excelled on the court and in the classroom. While there During her time, she made the NCAA highlight reel where she was recorded making fantastic pick-up. The women's A team has a new coach this year, he is the very experienced Warren (Wazza) Smith who has coached and played overseas. Much of the last season's squad are available and there are a number of young guns vying for places. Final selection process is due to take place this week.
The men's A team are going to field a team similar to last year and their inspiring Chilean coach Sebastain (Seb) Gonzalez Moreno will be at the helm. This team had a fairytale finish to last season winning the National tournament.. They went to the tournament qualifying second in the south. The semi was extremely tight against Pines from Nelson old foes who were the top team from the Central region. The final was against the top team from the North, North Harbour stacked with National reps and even a US Olympian. Our lads went out to a 2-1 lead but Harbour pushed back to take the 4th set which meant a 5th set had to be played. 5th sets are a bit of a lottery as you only play to 15 points. They fell behind early but showed real courage to fight back and take the set and the match narrowly.
Like many sports it was awesome to see what people were doing in lockdown to get and keep fit ready for the winter season. The girls had regular zoom workouts lead by Stacey Ngaio and Kim Smith….30mins of intense exercise. Once gym sessions were a ‘go’ both teams hit the weights. Roll competition games!
Elmwood Park Bowling Club
In some respect the last couple of months have flown past and I’m sure most of you have used the lockdown time in different ways and trust you all have come through well.
The Friday night catch ups will allow us to associate and chat which is something we have been missing during the lockdown.
Think about our club’s sponsors and if you can give them your support. More than ever we need our sponsors as we are sure it is going to be more difficult to get funding from our traditional charitable trusts.
To recap an abrupt end to the 2019/2020 playing season, overall Elmwood Park (once again) had a great performance across men, women and junior competitions. The Bowls 3 Five team came second in the national league grabbing them a spot in this year’s televised competition in Auckland. Looking forward to getting back into it come September, if anyone wants to give bowls a go, don’t be shy, everyone can do it.
HSOB Football Club
Well what a different start to the season, a big thank you goes out to Mainland and New Zealand Football for getting the game back up and running so quickly on the 6th June.
It is fantastic to be playing again and pleasing to have everybody back for another season, of particular note our young fellas are back with a team in Div 6, great to see. Remember we still need to do our share in making sure we stay on top of covid so good hygiene remains critical and contact tracing is required. We are using the IDMe app for contact tracing and the ground identification numbers are on the Mainland website.
The organisation and collaboration that has gone in amongst codes and council, has meant that we should get in a full season, which has been extended until 26th September. So plenty of football in front of us and if you are looking for a club then get in touch. As always The Elmwood Club is open on Saturday afternoons for a drink and a social get together so let’s make sure we all support them.
St Nicholas Netball Club
St Nicholas Netball Club is excited to be back training and looking forward to getting back on court now that restrictions have lifted
We were fortunate to finish all trials. We have been in contact with the players and overall they are keen to get going.
We have 12 teams selected. Our A and B Team had just started training’s when Netball NZ advised to cease all training’s and competitions for the foreseeable future.
We welcome John McCarthy to St Nicholas Netball as our A Team coach for this season. Our A Team has returning players and some exciting new players to the club. Rhonda Blair is back to coach the B Team. This is a mixture of returning and new players also. Both our A and B Teams mainly consist of young talented players which we hope to build a foundation around for the future - a rebuilding phase so to speak.
Our C Team which compromises a number of long serving members of our club, who came back together after travel, starting a family or retiring from Premier Netball to manage work, children etc. This team went unbeaten in 2019 and climbed back up through the grades. Keep up the good work girls and we can't wait to see you back on court.
Our Juniors are mainly made up of returning players each year and it is great to see these girls grow and develop. We can't wait to see all your smiling faces as soon as possible.
We postponed our AGM as this was meant to occur in the second week of lock down. We are always welcoming of anyone who would like to join the committee, to offer new insight so we can continue to try and provide the delivery of netball to children and adults. Whether you are a competitive, recreational or social player we will endeavor to try and meet your needs.
Missing Netball and looking for some different ideas for training whilst in isolation? Check out our Facebook page, as we have been posting different activities that you can try at home.
We can't wait to get started, so in the meantime lets be kind, train hard and look forward to getting together with your team mates.
Elmwood Croquet Club
The summer season certainly came to a shuddering halt which put paid to the last of the summer competitions and halt to our lawn maintenance program and end of season wind up functions.
We were pleased to start mowing lawns especially as the leaves were building up fast. After the breaking that we had many of our members made regular trips into the club grounds to see that all was well on their daily walks.
We are now planning for winter activities as we usually play indoor but we are leaving two of our lawns open for winter play on fine days. Fortunately we are a non contact support. The days we would play would be Tuesday and Sunday afternoons.
The club acknowledged the passing of Norma Jones early March. Norma was our representative on the original board of the Elmwood club
We are unsure of when the bridge and mahjong will be able to get underway.
Finally all our players are very keen to get back to playing, you don’t realise how important companionship till it’s suddenly taken away from you and the importance of physical activity.
HSOB / Burnside Hockey Club
Competition started for adult competitions on Saturday 13 June. School and Juniors hockey start Friday 19 June. A big relief for the hockey community as a whole, and our committee and players. Hockey did have to go through a bit of pain as we moved through different stages of Level 2 - only 10 people allowed to attend a practice for example. But that is almost long-forgotten, now that we are playing
Playing numbers are down slightly on last year, but there is only anecdotal evidence that this is due to Covid-19.
Rugby
We are excited to be starting our delayed season on 20 June after the season was shortened to just one round followed by semi-finals and then finals. We have teams playing in Premier Men, Premier Women, Premier Reserve, Colts Premier and potentially a more social Colts team once semester two starts in July. We are also really excited that we have two women’s teams this year – it’s great to see the numbers increasing in women’s rugby. We are looking forward to another successful season and hope to do well on the field again in what has been an extraordinary year so far. Best of luck to all our fellow Elmwoodians (if that is a word) for a successful 2020 season in their sport.