Hinemoa Coach’s View

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30708, 25 March 1965, Page 14

Hinemoa Coach’s View

W. B. Syder, coach of the Hinemoa Women’s Hockey Club fifth-grade team, has written to the editor of “The Press” in response to an article on Monday morning. The article concerned the forcing into recess of the Rangiora club because the Canterbury Women’s Hockey Association demanded payment for all raffle books issued last season, including those not sold.

Mr Syder emphasises that his letter is not an official reply because the Hinemoa president is out of the Kaiapoi district at present, and no definite statement can be made until an executive meeting is held. “The facts are this,” writes Mr Syder. “The club was given a package of 200 books, each of 20 tickets, to sell on behalf of the Canterbury Women’s Hockey Association —4O books to each team of 11 girls. In the three lowergrade teams the average age was 13 and no girl was 15, so that no tickets were issued to these girls because it is against the law for children of this age to sell raffle tickets. “This means that about 20 girls and a few club supporters had to tell 200 books of tickets in a community that already supports three local

weekly raffles which, incidentally, offered far better prizes. Also, this raffle was promoted at a time when freezing works were slack so that foreign capital was not available. To sell the amount required in the community would mean the sale of more than three tickets to each household in the area, surely a terrific task. Aims of Club “The aims of the Hinemoa Hockey Club are to promote clean, healthy sports for the young girls of the community and with this in view recently has built a small pavilion with a changing room and toilet facilities. This has been the target for local fundraising by the club. “As all senior-grade games are played at Hagley Park, there are fewer than 40 per cent of the games that Hinemoa contests played on the local grounds, and with no senior games available, spectator support is negligible so that ground collections would not be worth-while. Any increase in membership fees would result in a decrease in members, as the girls have to pay bus fares to Christchurch every alternate Saturday and supply their own uniforms, etc. “If the Canterbury association tries to enforce this levy for unsold tickets there can be only one result. That would be to force all of the affiliated country clubs into recess. Perhaps this is what the association wishes to do and, if so, perhaps this is the time to form a North Canterbury Women’s Hockey Association, rather than lose for these young girls the opportunity of playing a clean, healthy, open-air sport during the winter,” says Mr Syder.