UKPA Executive Nominees and Season Award winners announced

This week saw a double announcement by the UKPA. Firstly, they announced the nominees for the exexcutive committee positions, which will be elected at the AGM next week, and then at the UKPA ball they announced the winners of the 2009 season playing awards.

The UKPA executive elections seem to be a fairly sure thing with only three nomination up for the four executive positions on offer. Eric Jenkinson, former vice chairman and currently a trustee, is running for Chairman, he will replace the long serving Dave Brookes who decided a while ago that he would not run again. Iain Heaton, currently sport development officer and a former players representative, is running for Chief Executive Officer and then Quentin Cornforth, currently Arden Club's treasurer is running for the position of treasurer. There are no nominees for the position of secretary but nominations will be taken from the floor of the AGM.

This four positions are the only remaining four executive positions to be voted for by the whole membership. This is due to the change in the UKPA constitution and executive structure which was voted in at the EGM at the end of October. These four people will be joined on the new look executive by five regional executive officers, one from each region and these will be voted in by their respective regional members.

Then it falls to these nine individuals to appoint people to the positions such as sport development officer, chief umpire and director of coaching. These positions are no longer voting positions and will no longer need to attend the monthly executive meetings.

The 2009 season playing awards were made at the UKPA ball, hosted by Arden polocrosse club at Stoneleigh Park in Warwickshire, on the 21st of November. The ball was an excellent occasion which went on until the early hours of the morning with Big Agenda, band of former UK captain Jason Burbidge and effectively polocrosse's house band, keeping everyone dancing until they dropped. The full list of season awards was as follows:-

The Charles Mason Trophy, for a non exec members who has done a great deal for polocrosse- Helen Hodgetts

The Minter Strover Trophy, for an under 16 who has been a great ambassador for their sport - Tom Bowden Eyre

The Chapple Shield, for the most improved player - Will Halcrow

The Laura Millington Trophy - Layla Henshaw

The Jock Kay Memorial Trophy, for the horse of the season - Triple Strike (Sophie Lodder)

The Player's player award - Sarah Simkin

The Janet Jones Memorial shield, for the main league - Arden

The Polocrosse Extreme Cup, for the league adjusted for size - Solent

Best Numbers for the season:

Ladies's number 1 - Charlotte Pykett

Ladies' number 2 - Sarah Simkin

Ladies' number 3 - Sophie Lodder

Men's number 1 - Guy Robertson

Men's number 2 - Rob Jenkinson

Men's number 3 - Jason Webb

In other news from the UKPA this week they reported that the demonstrations performed at the Your Horse Live Show on the weekend of the 14th and 15th were a great success. The demo team consisted of Jason Webb, Islay Young, James Robertson, Sarah Dernie, Rhi Lee Jones, Joel Sics and Tom Beney. They performed two 45 minute demos which were very well received by a large crowd. The UKPA also had a stand on site in order for people to find out more about the sport and they said there was a great deal of interest in the sport on both days. Iain Heaton said "The demos went really well and hopefully we have educated a few thousand more people about the sport. I have to say a massive thank you to all the guys who did the demo and also to Penny Webb for master minding it all. Development wise, centrally at least, we are probably taking a bit of a break for December with nothing booked into the calendar but we need to get up and running again in the New Year and really make use of all the publicity we have received of late. We have also just launched our new promotional documents and our subsidised kit offer in order to help people get involved in the sport more easily. Regions, clubs and individuals can use these documents to promote the sport around their local areas."

To read the new UKPA Promotional documents go to the Interested in polocrosse or the Members sections in the UKPA website, www.polocrosse.org.uk