Welcome to the 2025/26 season! Whether you’re brand new, returning to the club, or part of the furniture, we’re incredibly excited to have you here! This is our 10th season as South Berkshire Hockey Club, and also the season that we get to celebrate being EuroHockey Club of the Year. We aim to make it accordingly special!

First things first, the season begins with the AGM at 12.30 on 30th August and I look forward to seeing as many of you there as possible. There’s still time to get your availability in for the accompanying Club 6s event, please do so at your earliest opportunity so this is as easy as possible to organise. Materials for the AGM will be out this week to give members a chance to look over before the event and submit any questions, please take the opportunity to do this! Unfortunately as with everything in the world costs are rising and we’re having to adjust our membership costs accordingly ~£25 per member. We have kept this increase as low as possible and believe these subscriptions remain competitive, but we also want to make sure any concerns about these decisions have been addressed.

On a more exciting note, the biggest headlines about the future of the club remain infrastructure related:

Pitch-side dugouts are slowly on the way pending the council confirming where electrical cables lie. Wellingtonia Landscaping have been contracted to perform the works upon approval, allowing us to build bespoke wooden dugouts of higher quality than generic plastic ones.
Clubhouse structural renovation has also begun with decoration planned for next Summer
Car parking at Cantley Park is to remain free. The FA have taken over the running of Cantley Café and pavilion to alleviate some of the losses of the site. The club will continue to attend council engagement meetings but at this time we expect no impact to the club and paid parking to remain off the table.

Finally, a call for help. At the end of this season I plan to step away from any responsibilities involving the playing of hockey at South Berks. I will continue to remain in position as chairman for as long as you’ll all have me, but take up a more traditional chairman role overseeing finances, facilities and long-term vision while a Club Captain oversees all things playing, coaching and umpiring.

Plans to achieve this are in hand, but open to flexibility. The larger issue is the lack of new voices and volunteers that I have seen put their hand up over the last two Summers and what this means for the sustainability of running South Berkshire Hockey Club when we come to fill the gaps below this.

Life is busy and I really value that we put on a club where people can just turn up and play to switch off, but we also need more people willing to add their voices to their team/section/club to make it as successful as possible at all levels. With a transition in the running of the playing section upcoming this coming season is your opportunity to be as loud and as involved as you can be to ensure the club goes in the directions that you feel are important. If you are willing and able to lend an enthusiastic hand, whatever section you belong to, we’d love to have you reach out to your representatives. We can’t operate without our volunteers.

In the meantime, we are ready and excited to get the 25/26 season underway! I hope it brings you all many new memories and experiences that you don’t get anywhere else!
Further details on all of the above will be covered at the AGM. I look forward to seeing you all on the pitch soon.

Kind regards,
Peter Forbes
Chair, South Berkshire Hockey Club
chair@southberkshirehockeyclub.org.uk