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posted 12/12/2011
I have been remiss in not continuing to recognize members of our FHF family that make this such a great organization. I would like you all to recognize (and thank) the herculean efforts of Mark Stone our Facilities Director. Mark can be seen at the fields picking up trash, watering the field, fixing the storage shed, painting the circles and repairing and installing the new water cannons etc etc. Mark has also brought up some ideas for future improvement of our facility including some form of lockers/storage areas that each club can store goalie and training equipment in rather than bring it in the back of the car. We hope to move forward on some of these projects in 2012. Thanks Mark for your selfless volunteerism.
2011 was a great year for FHF with our youth numbers on the increase despite a difficult economy. We along with US field hockey were fortunate enough to hire a technical director Ben Maraquin who has been instrumental in implementing a middle school program and this has now branched out to a primary school program in 8 schools in Ventura County. Ben has also been responsible for the High Performance program in the area and was appointed as the Junior National Coach in 2011 and also the Senior Men's Assistant Coach in December of 2011. Ben has implemented a standardized coaching methodology that he has made available to all FHF coaches through online video links. We have a wealth of coaching knowledge in FHF that is unequaled in other parts of the country and I urge all of you to contact Ben or any of the other high level coaches if your team needs some coaching assistance.
FHF just hosted a USA field Hockey level 2 coaching clinic with 9 attendees from our local area absorbing new techniques and strategies for training our youth teams. FHF attendees were Tyler Sundeen, John Ginolfi, Paul SIngh, Sean Harris, Jen Ginolfi, Tom Harris, Erin Creznic, Joe Knecht and Dave Jackson. We would like to thank USFHA and the instructors Nick Conway and Chris Clements for providing the first Level 2 coaching clinic ever held at Moorpark.
Nick Conway has stepped down from the Men's National program to take the Assistant Coaching position on the Women's National Team. Good Luck in London, Nick thanks for all your efforts with the Men's team. The new Men's National Coach is Chris Clements who originally hails from New Zealand but has been coaching in Holland, Boston College and was Assistant Coach with the Men's team this year. We wish Chris all the best in his new position and will give him all of our support at FHF.
In summation we have had a great year at FHF with the opening of the long awaited restrooms and the opportunity to host the US National and Junior National teams in 4 International Series. We hosted the 40th CalCup with the CalCup organizing committee doing another splendid job in maintaining the longest running hockey tournament in the US. Sylvia Scally presented the FHF committee with a check for $50,000 from CalCup which we place in a designated Turf Replacement account to pay for new turf in 2015/2016.
Thanks to all of the volunteers who have taken time to serve on an FHF committee, who have volunteered to coach a youth team, who have stepped in to help build our restrooms or who volunteer in anyway for our league. We could not run this organization without you!
Have a great Holiday Season.
Dave Jackson
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