Welcome everyone to our AGM.

Our club has now been going for eight successful years and continues to provide the opportunity for many young athletes to train and compete up to national level. Last year 2006, was a difficult year. However the club came through it successfully and had a particularly good 2007 on the track with third position in the UKA Young Athletes League and a first ever appearance at the Wessex Young Athletes Cup Final on the Isle of Wight in July.  

The Tuesday move to Noadswood School was completed and has run successfully throughout the autumn and winter terms. The non availability of the sportshall towards the end of the year remains a problem however.  The club continues to train at Hardley School in the summer, because of the condition of the sports field and our storage facility.

The coaching programme went well with most events being catered for during the year. I should like to thank the new coaches who joined us over the last year.   

The club’s development programme centred on Noadswood School has improved slowly. However facilities for athletics still need improvement and this remains part of the club’s objectives. We received our Clubmark accreditation earlier in the year. We were one of the first in Hampshire to receive it. It represents the benchmark for best practice of junior athletic clubs in particular. 

The club finances have improved to such an extent that we need to consider whether to start investing again in equipment. I should like to thank Karen for auditing the club’s books and suggesting improvements to our records. A big thank you to Cathy for keeping the register and collecting the training fees.    

On the competition front, our under seventeen girls took the bronze team medals in the county cross country championships. At the county track and field championships the club’s athletes won twelve medals plus a gold in the multi events. There were two finalists at English schools, Chrissy and Rory. Chrissy went on to come second in the high jump and then to represent England in a schools International. I would like to thank Dave and his team for all his efforts as track and field team manager.

The club continues to support school athletics within the New Forest and has supported existing events as well as starting new ones.

So a big thank you to everyone who helps makes our club so successful, athletes, coaches, officials and helpers. I’m sure our athletes appreciate all the efforts made on their behalf.

Just for the record we held committee meetings in November (last year), January, April, July and October.