NORTH WEST HOCKEY UMPIRES’ ASSOCIATION

Season 2004 / 2005

Towards the end of last season the NWHUA reviewed and revised its rules. Two major changes resulted in that a Management Committee (MC) replaced the old Council and a Selection Committee (SC) replaced the old Grading Committee.

At the AGM of the NWHUA in May 2004 there were several changes in personnel. These are all listed in the NWHUA handbook.

Bob Lloyd stood down as the NWHUA representative on the Cheshire HA Committee and Chris Todd agreed to take his place.

The total membership of the NWHUA increased substantially following ratification of the rule changes of the Association. However, a large number of members joined to receive the benefits of the insurance package, but sadly they do not umpire regularly for the NWHUA.

At the start of this season there was a mini crisis concerning the number of umpires who confirmed their availability to umpire on a regular basis for NWHUA and this affected the service that the Association was able to provide for League hockey. Umpires were appointed to N2W matches, but not always to NW1 matches during the first half of the season. The new Saturday Appointments Secretary (Tony Shutt) worked tremendously hard to find new umpiring talent to fill the gaps and his enthusiasm and persistence paid dividends during the second half of the season when many more NW1 matches received appointed NWHUA umpires. There is considerable optimism for next season and at some stage it is the intention to start appointing again to some NW2 matches.

The NWHUA fulfilled all its commitments to appoint to the various rounds of the Cheshire Plate and Cup and also to the Cheshire Under Twenty One Competition staged at Deeside Ramblers Hockey Club.

The formation of the Cheshire Hockey Development Group also required a representative from the NWHUA and Chris Todd has also taken on the role. A report on the work of the Cheshire HDG may be found elsewhere.

The YEAR 2005 is the “Year of the Umpire” and the emphasis is on young umpires and consequently various Young Umpire Action Groups (YUAG) have been formed to deal with this initiative.

Chris Todd

NWHUA Representative