Annual General Meeting
IT'S all change at the top for Stubbington Green Runners.
Chris Hall has taken over from Mike Clarke as the new club chairman - one of a number of fresh faces following the Stubbington Green annual meeting.
Mike will take up a new role as welfare officer, while in another change Paul Hammond takes over as secretary from Mark Le Gassick, who takes over the reins of men's captain. Susie MacGregor succeeds Chris Haskell as ladies' captain.
There's a new man at the helm of cross country, with Phil May responsible for cross country secretary, while to highlight the growing influence of triathlon within the club, Richard Thomas has become triathlon secretary. Though Mike Harper will continue as track and field secretary for the time being, a new appointment will be made at a later date.
At the annual general meeting, which was held at the Crofton, outgoing secretary, Mark Le Gassick focussed on the Stubbington 10km race. Mark praised the success of last year’s race with a record 1,109 finishers and how race director Gary Littlecott and everyone involved did a great job to make it a success.
Mark outlined plans for the new route for the race in January 2009, and how the club committee believes the course will work very well. It has been well received by the authorities and runners alike. Mark stressed that the club still needs the help and support of members to make the race happen and make it a success.
In his secretary's report, Mark talked about the past cross country season, praising everyone’s efforts in winning the Today’s Runner title (which was last won in the early 1990s) and also the good individual and team performances in the RR10s with good turn-outs at each race. He highlighted the fact that the Hampshire Cross Country League was one area that we need to focus on more as a club with attracting more runners to take part in the Saturday afternoon series of races.
Mark also mentioned that it was great to see how well the ladies have progressed over the last 12 to18 months, now that Stubbington has a squad of competitive ladies to draw from. He praised the ladies team of Lucy Simmons, Susie MacGregor, and Lou James (who were all present) for their superb team result at the Eastleigh 10k where they picked up third place in the Southern 10km champs (which is possibly a first for the club), and helping to guide the ladies to promotion to Division One of the Hampshire Road Race League.
As part of the any other business section of the meeting, there was discussion about how to improve turnouts at the Tuesday and Thursday evening training sessions. It was agreed that more variety was needed and possibly we need to make the Tuesday start time a bit later because 6.30pm was too difficult to make for many with work/traffic etc. Any suggestions for improved training sessions/runs will be gratefully received.
Several people were mentioned for their efforts in the club including:
Mike Clarke – for his role as Chairman for past 12 years
Barry Hards – IOW marathon win at 50 years of age
Mike Bell – for his work on the web site
Glen Street – for the Today’ Runner and his Tues/Thurs sessions
Dave King- for his work on The Green Runner, the website and for his charity work and 80 race challenge.