Hockey4All - Larne

Aim

LLHC have aspirations to build a Hockey4All programme within Larne town and surrounding village towns. Targeting a social hockey environment

Larne Ladies Hockey Club has been part of the Larne community since 1953, and I feel very privileged to be Chairperson of the club as we celebrate our platinum year of competitive hockey in the Women's Ulster leagues in the 2022-23 season.

Our key project goals for this crowdfunding opportunity are focused on our community

 Promote a social hockey session for non competitive players - offering facilities for past players & new players to join in friendship through sport.

 Disability & autism inclusive coaching sessions - 1 session per month

 Introduction to hockey sessions for primary school boys - provide facilities and coaching for primary schools to foster health, wellbeing & friendships for their pupils.

 Primary Schools Tournament for Boys & Girls- hold a primary school tournament in the Larne town.

Community impact

Hockey has a massive impact for our community as it helps to benefit their physical, social and mental wellbeing. Through Covid-19, we realised the importance of sport and how it brings all walks of live together. Our coaching expertise are also used by local schools and clubs who can benefit from our dedicated coaching team, we proudly showcase members from all local primary & secondary school.

From our junior section sessions in 2021-22, coaches were taken back by the impact the pandemic had on youth. Skills progress was delayed by at least 1 year on coaching attainment expectations, but more importantly socially the kids did not integrate with each other, this reflected in many children seeking a one to one coaching setting rather than lean on peers for support.

Our primary school integration programme will allow kids from local primary schools to integrate in a fun learning environment, embracing team work and building on their basic hockey skills.

Schoolboys hockey in Larne is non existent, and with this in mind our primary school programme will set about to build on the foundations of boys hockey for the town, with the aim of entering competitive leagues in the next playing season. 

Throughout our player and coaching team we have extensive experiences both professional and personally with Autism & DL, and this has generated a passion within our committee to strive for an all-inclusive environment. Often the most able are presented with the most opportunity, and at LLHC we wish to change this mindset. Engaging with local special needs school & YMCA ASD youth club.

Running a 6 week programme in each of these settings, we aspire to have new members join our club, and feel part of our hockey family.

Finally, our senior social hockey setting was supported by Hockey Ireland pick up a stick 6 week programme in the summer months. This is something in which LLHC club have continued with, aiming to offer a social training session. Targeting past and new senior players there is a need for some learning & coaching to bring players up to speed with the rules and the game as it is played today. We would aim to run sessions that focus on these things, but this requires additional pitch time, and room hire to facilitate. 

These are big goals but we are already excited to start the process towards success.

Why are we crowdfunding?

Naturally, all sports clubs have been affected financially by the pandemic. As a sport's club, our affiliation fees are one of the lowest across Ulster. We don't think finances should be a barrier to sport. We also offer many payment options to take a little of the burden off households.

Our club found themselves in the position that 2020/21 membership fees also became 2021/22 fees and with that our income was drastically reduced. This has had a drastic impact on providing an extended service to our community.

The Hockey4All - Larne project will have limited capacity to be supported by current membership & fundraising efforts. We need to do more.

Running our new programme will require a further demand for equipment and coaching, increasing our pitch & room hire further. It is important our club continue to fundraise so all our 5 teams and social set up continue to get the support and excellent standard of coaching they currently receive. 

We know this is an important part of Larne's Hockey is getting all our players together off the pitch so our club will continue to raise funds for this aspect off the pitch too. 

Generating additional funding is the only way of ensuring that our club can activity engage with our community with minimal expense and realise our community goals shown above.

How we’ll spend the money raised

We are a non-profit organisation, therefore, funding will be used for pitch hire, equipment, transport, room hire to facilitate engagement with local schools and youth groups.

How you can play your part

There are two simple ways to help us reach our target, and make this project a reality.

1. Make a pledge. Don’t delay if you’re going to support us because momentum is key to our success!

2. Spread the word throughout our hockey community. Share our project on your social media pages and tell the world to get behind us! The more people we reach, the more support we will get.

This project successfully funded on 3rd November 2022