Reflections of 2023

Hi everyone!

As we are reaching the end of 2023, it is worth reflecting our journeys and pat ourselves in the back!

So, here goes, I hope you make it till the end 🙂

With 126 registered members (with a potential to reach 130-135 as, even at this time of the year, interest to join our club is still vivid), filling the rosters of 8 registered teams across all age groups and genders, getting active across 5 venues and, while dressed in true blue, tangerine and black with a splash of white, are measuring their skills against others, dressed in something that is not colour-clashing, is a great measurable fact to pencil down and digest.

For all of us behind the scenes, witnessing our club consistently growing season after season, is a moment to celebrate. Managing to continue to respond against the challenges of converting the current demand of people that want to get into handball and team sports in general, to a sustainable growth of our internal handball community, is a fact to savour.

Achieving to effectively harness the power of volunteering and keep things moving for another year, against an ever-increasing workload, is a testament that whenever there is clear vision and a roadmap to realise it, people that share this vision will back it up.

We have been embracing planning for a few years now and reaping the benefits at all levels. We focus on building strong foundations against our strategy, we want to become sustainable, to be here for the long term.

Every season we aim to do things better and attempt to introduce something new that builds upon our foundations.

This season we registered 2x more teams, (1x women and 1 x Under-14 girls, the latter for the first time in our club history), we have partnered with EHA to promote handball in local secondary schools and universities, our women team got promoted to the Premier League – to join our men team that got promoted last year, our junior teams are consistently performing top-tier positions in all of their age groups at national level, we have started to live stream our PHL home games, we have built a new website and revamped our social media, we … got back control 😊 of our competition kit supplies and are building a webstore with more products.

Closing notes, almost there …

And all of this, while remaining financially robust, which allows us to support our low-income members, subsidise our travel costs to out-of-London games (so that we compete with full rosters by reducing financial barriers), invest towards our volunteers learning and development, build on our governance by pursuing to register as a Community Amateur Sports Club (more on that next year), and aim to keep people safe by offering safeguarding and first aid courses to all of our front-line roles.

We grow community handball in our locality, we remain as open and diverse as our current volunteering capability and capacity allows us to. We sustainably grow the latter, we sustainably improve things at all levels of our activities.

And we will only achieve this through You, by You and for You. We are a members’ club. Our power is you. Everyone counts. You can make a difference, even your smallest contribution counts. We don’t expect you to, no pressure! But, from experience, once you do, you get back dividends in so many aspects that you usually stick for life.

I would like to heartfully thank all our current volunteers across all roles (management and field) for their amazing contributions. Our club would not exist without you. We, all here, owe you every second of activity that this club offers today.

We are having another great season, and we will be having another great year – till the next one!

You will find us in the handball courts and in the handball backstages.

Just look for the true blue, tangerine and black with a splash of white …

Take care, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

George
Club Secretary & Director