2022 Annual Report & Summary of the Year

30 December, 2022

From the Altona HC President, Alex Tyrrell:

​This year has been an historically important year for the hockey club in many ways, returning for our first full season after two abandoned seasons in a row – the first time in over 70 years – and also celebrating our 90th Anniversary as a hockey club. Founded in 1932 as the Altona Baptist Hockey Club and entering a single men’s team, it was great during the season to reflect on how far we have come to be the large, diverse and successful family club that we are today. One of the standouts of the year was the 90th anniversary function which featured two panels of members regaling the audience with stories going back through the decades all the way to the 1940’s thanks to Life Member Frank Ranger (also celebrating his 90th year).

As you will see echoed many times through this Annual Report – it was great to be back on the pitch for a full season in 2022. The focus really shifted back to the pitch and our members playing hockey, improving, having fun and competing. We returned to almost identical numbers to 2021 thanks to the great work of the Board and Volunteers, particularly Tiff Bartlett leading the junior section of the club, and all of the coaches involved in creating a positive environment.

There were many highlights of the year which will be outlined in this document, some of my personal highlights:

• Two Altona juniors, Cooper Burns & Connar Otterbach representing Australia together in the U21 Burras at the Sultan of Johor Cup.
• Cooper taking out the Fin McNab Award to be Altona’s first Premier League Best and Fairest winner since Justine Cooke in 2006, and first male winner since Darren Duff in 1994.
• The finals campaign including our first ever Premier League home final in front of a huge crowd, with the men making a run to the Prelim, the Women’s Metro winning the Premiership and our Men’s Metro & Pennant teams all featuring.
• Pride Cup being one of the biggest days on the calendar with a big crowd, members from across the club asking to be involved and the incredible atmosphere created by both our members & the clubs we played against.
• The Senior Men & Women both winning the Indoor Victorian Club Championships on the same night at the brand new facility at Parkville.
• The Facility Development progress, meeting and engaging with local Parliament Members Tim Watts & Jill Hennessy, the Mayor of Hobsons Bay Peter Hemphill, our local Councillors Daria Kellander and Tony Briffa, as well as local council officers. The development is progressing well and an extremely important project for the club.
• At both ends of the age spectrum – huge Hookin2Hockey numbers for the 8-week program at the start of the year led by Andrew Scanlon, and then at the end of the year, the launch of a 10-week Walking Hockey program for the 50+ age group, led by Prue Phillips and supported by a Hobsons Bay City Council Grant.

As a Board, one of our biggest goals for this year was to return to some sort of normality for hockey, and this also meant with our full offering of teams and services on the pitch. With the inertia of regular hockey broken, it was a large administrative effort to get this in place and to have a successful year. We spent a lot of time at the start of the year ensuring that we had all roles and tasks at the club clearly laid out with both an accountable and a responsible party. This was a worthwhile exercise, and also helped to highlight some large risks and gaps in our volunteer force that we are working to fill. So if you are reading this and considering helping out – please reach out to myself or any board member, as a volunteer run organisation we rely on the help and support of our community.

The other main element that work highlighted is that we have over 80 people who regularly volunteer their time week in, week out to run the club. I want to take this opportunity to thank all of those people, in particular the Board for their work over the year in returning to hockey. And thank you to the wider AHC community in their efforts this year on and off the pitch in making the club what it is.

Go A’s.

Alex Tyrrell, President, Altona Hockey Club.

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