ESTEC Hockey Club

Chairman’s Report 2013

The club AGM held on 2013-01-13 noted an active year for the Hockey Club during 2013.

In addition to the regular training sessions on Monday evenings, the club held the following events:

–          an international organisation tournament (see Social Competitions)

–          a social evening with Go Kart (see Social Events)

The club once again has a well-defined Monday evening timeslot making it possible to offer a stable format for members to train. This is thanks to the ready assistance of the SSCC Executive Committee (Execom), the ESCAPE Supervisors and friendly cooperation from the volleyball, fencing and martial arts clubs. We hope this situation continues in the future.

The club finances are sound but are at a lower level than it is accustomed of being. This is due to purchases for equipment update in early January ‘13. Although we are not in any danger of running out of funding the club will need to keep tab of expenditures against expected income in the next years.

The club spirit continues to be at a high level thanks to the untiring efforts of our (Social) Secretary. We admire her creative thinking in this important aspect which also inspires outside our own domain (see Social Competitions)

All in all we thank the members and especially its officers for their continued dedication to the sport as we look forward to yet another great year of floorball at ESTEC.

Membership

The club membership remains stable consisting mainly of individual members and a couple of Family memberships.

All members are encouraged to help introduce more members to enjoy the sport and to ensure a diverse base both for training and for competition.

The club decided to maintain the club fees at the current subscription rate for the year 2014.

The club members unanimously supported the following club officer nominations for 2014:

–          Chair: Rune Iden

–          Treasurer: Pierrik Vuilleumier

–          Secretary: Piia Tikkamaki

Equipment

Sune Skoglund, our equipment manager, procured two baskets to keep the sticks in place within the locker since they tended to literally stick out and being prone to scars and damages.  The locker itself became a bit worn out since one of the locker hinges got skewed preventing the doors to close and lock. A new locker was provided by ESCAPE site manager and is now working fine. This followed the conclusions from our 2013 inventory.

Our equipment : sticks, balls and goals seems to be in relative good shape, but the ones that showed evidence of wear has been replaced or upgraded – which in most cases were the grips.

The club has now a better variety of sticks on hand which is to the benefit for “old” and new players. Note that some players tend to purchase their own sticks once their preferences are known.

Health and Safety

During the year 2013 there were no injuries or incidents to people, equipment or property reported.

Every new member is fully briefed of the health and safety and rules of the club and the sport before they join the practise. This is done together with all team members (see separate Health and Safety Report 2013). 

Club and Social Activities

Social Events

During the year, our club held one social event – with pleasure and speed.

Go-Cart        

The social event 18^th December at the Uithof in Den Haag ensured the participating members an experience to an even speedier sport that floorball and where Milan again showed excellent skills and tactics as well as agility to keep his fellow competitors at bay. The event featured 9 members and club supporters with unison pleasure in driving the rather speedy and non-polluting electric go-carts in the challenging circuit at the Uithof.

The event was topped off with a dinner at the bistro beside the indoor ski slope which of course featured an Austrian style menu with “Schnitzels” in different fashions as the most popular course.

Social Competitions

The club tries to hold regular competitions with like-minded folks throughout the year to improve our training. Thanks to the efforts of our Social Secretary Piia we enjoyed also this year competitions with an international flair.

External Competitions

2^nd INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATION FLOORBALL TOURNAMENT on 23^rd MARCH

ESTEC hosted a competition at the Escape for two NL-based international organisations; Europol and ICCT, including a sole EPO participant, joined in a four team total points round robin tournament with ESTECs two teams. The matches were played at a high pace and in good spirits.

To secure ever-lasting fame to the winners, the club acquired a price – “ESTEC Invitational Floorball Tournament Trophy”. Thanks to Sami who ventured the trophy shops in Leiden with ditto negotiation, we were able to present a challenge trophy for the tournament this year and future ones to come.

The teams were evenly matched but the ultimate winner was ESTEC I, who ended the tournament with 3 wins. EUROPOL placed second and ICCT/EPO on 3^rd while ESTEC II closed out on an honest 4^th place.

We’d like to thank all the participants as well the staff of the ESCAPE bar & facility for all their support.

Internal Competitions

No internal competition was arranged in 2013, but it is generally regarded as an excellent way to motivate players as well as introducing/re-introducing new and previous members/players to the game. 

Club Promotion

The club has been less active in 2013 in promoting Indoor Hockey and we realise that we need to intensify our efforts to ensure growing membership. There is a need to find additional and/or other ways of increasing the recruitment. Al members are being encouraged to come up with inventive ideas.

SSCC Day June 2013

This year the SSCC and ESTEC sponsored a “Fun Day” to mark the 25th anniversary of the ESCAPE facility and the 45th one for ESTEC.

The Hockey club did not participate with their own demonstration in the event although several of the members participated in other event – which was challenged with less than nice weather. This encouraged many of the visitors indoors to the disappointment to the outdoors events and to the despair of the indoors events that became unusually crowded.

Club Website (http://hockey.dasweb.net)The hockey site is maintained at a server external to ESTEC. It is maintained on a pro bono basis by a former member, Felix Jakob. This is well appreciated as it offers the club access to a weekly sign-up sheet, activities reports and photographs, training videos, etc. As befits its technical leanings, there are charts for statistics for our collective muse.

Members are invited to provide club-themed feeds to the site via Piia, our local site administrator.

ESTEC INDOOR HOCKEY CLUB

Chairman’s report 2012

The club AGM held on 2013-01-21 noted an active year for the Hockey Club during 2012.

In addition to the regular training sessions on Monday evenings, the club held a number of events:

–          friendly matches with non-club members at ESTEC to introduce the game (see Club Promotion)

–          an inter-international organisation tournament (see Social Competitions)

–          a social evening at a curling club (see Social Events)

–          3 members attended the world championships in Zurich, CH (see Social Events)

The club once again has a well-defined Monday evening timeslot making it possible to offer a stable format for members to train. This is thanks to the ready assistance of the SSCC Executive Committee (Execom), the ESCAPE Supervisors and friendly cooperation from the volleyball, fencing and martial arts clubs. We hope this situation continues in the future.

The club finances are sound but are at a lower level than it is accustomed to being. This is due to recent purchases to update equipment and new jerseys. The club will need to plan out these expenditures against expected income in the next years.

The club spirit continues to be at a high level thanks to the untiring efforts of our (Social) Secretary. We admire her creative thinking in this important aspect.

All in all we thank the members and especially its officers for their continued dedication to the sport as we look forward to yet another great year of floorball at ESTEC.

Membership

The club membership remains stable consisting mainly of individual members and a couple of Family memberships.

All members are encouraged to help introduce more members to enjoy the sport and to ensure a diverse base both for training and for competition.

The club decided to maintain the club fees at the current subscription rate for the year 2013.

The club members unanimously supported the following club officer nominations for 2013:

–          Chair: Rune Iden

–          Treasurer: Pierrik Vuilleumier

–          Secretary: Piia Tikkamaki

 Equipment

Sune Skoglund, our equipment manager, procured replacement inventory during 2012. This followed the conclusions from our 2012 inventory (refer to 2012 annual report).

It was agreed that we needed more hockey sticks for Right of Body (RB) players and also sticks for shorter players. Since complete sticks are quite expensive we chose to buy only one.

We have also changed one netting of the goal since it was full of unintended holes due to wear and tear.

We have changed blades on old sticks; 7 RH blades and 5 left of body (LB) blades.

We also bought 50 balls. This will be enough for a couple of years.

In summary all our sticks are now equipped with curved blades, all flat blades has been changed. Grip tapes were changed in 2011, so they are in good shape. We only needed to repair one of the sticks.

We now have one new blade and two grip tapes in storage.

The club should have a better variety of sticks on hand so as to introduce new players to the necessary equipment. Players tend to purchase their own sticks once their preferences are known. The club will decide on further refurbishments following the 2013 inventory. It will be reported in the 2013 report.

Club and Social Activities

Social Events

During the year, our club held several social events.

Curling

This was an social event to bid our member Deborah Müller farewell with an evening of ice curling on 4^th October. The event featured 16 members and club supporters with some highlight pictures of impossible body gyrations for lasting memories.

World Championships

The club was represented by Piia, Sune and John at the 9^th edition of the Floorball World Championships in Zurich, Switzerland during 8-9 December.

It featured 16 countries in 4 groups who contested for the top prize (see the cup to the left). In addition to being great fun it was also a learning experience for us and we hope to bring some of the observed up-to-date equipment and techniques back to the club.

Social Competitions

The club tries to hold regular competitions with like-minded folks throughout the year to improve our training. Thanks to the efforts of our Social Secretary Piia we enjoyed a number of social competitions during 2012. These were mainly matches against colleagues at ESTEC and other international organizations here in the Netherlands.

External Competitions

1^st INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATION FLOORBALL TOURNAMENT on 24^TH MARCH

ESTEC hosted a competition at the Escape for five NL-based international organisations. Along with ESTEC, the EPO, Europol, and ICCT/Eurojust participated in a four team total points round robin tournament with ICCT and Eurojust forming a single team. The matches were played at a high pace and in good spirits.

The teams were evenly matched but the ultimate winner was EUROPOL, who ended the tournament with 2 wins and 1 tie. ESTEC placed second. EPO and ICCT/Eurojust tied for 3^rd place.

We’d also like to thank the staff of the ESCAPE: Thierry Ras for assisting in the planning, Jos for his help on the day, and the bar staff for all you do.

 Club Promotion

This year we had the opportunity to promote our club as the SSCC Club of the Month during March. A big thank you goes to the club members Piia, Milan and Rune who worked hard to promote the club.

Internal Competitions

The ESTEC Indoor Hockey Club began the month of March by organising the first social game against the TEC directorate on Monday 5th of March. We received a lot of enthusiasm from TEC team. This friendly game ended after a tough but fair game with numbers 6-6 featuring great tactics and coaching by Milan, the Captain of the TEC team.

On Monday 12th of March the club of the month played against HSO directorate with the lead from their captain, Charlotte Beskow. The HSO team was leading most of the game and after half time won with a score of 2-1. Congratulations to the team.

SSCC Day June 2013

This year the SSCC and ESTEC will sponsor a Fun Day to mark the 25^th anniversary of the ESCAPE facility and the 45^th one for ESTEC.

Volunteers for ESTEC Funday – Saturday 22 June 2013

·      Multinational food fair

·      Bazaar/boot sale

·      Live music

·      Sports & club activities (fun-run, try-outs, etc)

·      Other

The idea is to have an event with a family atmosphere that will be  of interest to the whole ESTEC community.

The event is to support the HRF – Humanitarian Relief Fund. There is an SSCC budget in place to help with the event.

Volunteers are sought for the SSCC organizing committee as well as at the club level.

Contact: estec.sscc.execom(at)esa.int

Club Website (http://hockey.dasweb.net)

The hockey site is maintained at a server external to ESTEC. It is maintained on a pro bono basis by a former member, Felix Jakob. This is well appreciated as it offers the club access to a weekly sign-up sheet, activities reports and photographs, training videos, etc. As befits its technical leanings, there are charts for statistics for our collective muse.

Members are invited to provide club-themed feeds to the site via Piia, our local site administrator.

Monday 12th of March the club of the month played against HSO directorate with the lead from their captain, Charlotte Beskow. HSO team was leading most of the game and after half time won the game 2-1. Congratulations to the team!

The hockey team would like to thank HSO for their participation and skillful playing and hope to see the players also on Mondays in the future.

Next week we hope to play against EOP, captain Pierrik Vuilleumir. If you wish you take part, please contact Pierrik.

The ESTEC Indoor Hockey Club has started the month of March by organising the first Monday game against the TEC directorate on Monday 5th of March. We received a lot of enthusiasm from TEC team. This friendly game ended after tough but fair game with numbers 6-6 with great tactics and coaching by Milan, the Captain of the TEC team.

The Indoor hockey club would like to thank the TEC team for their interest and for their excellent skills in Hockey and we hope to have raised some of the players interest in this great sport.

Next game planned for 12th March at 19:00, is against HSO directorate. Anyone wishing to support and join the HSO team, please contact Captain of the  HSO team, Patrik Sundblad.