President’s Message
I would like to welcome back all athletes and their families along with new members their families and supporters of our great club for season 2010 – 2011.
I am also extremely excited about our new ground that underwent a complete makeover in the off season with a new laser levelled turf track with new drainage and irrigation.
I wish to thank everyone on the 355 committee who helped make this a reality.
As I begin my 2nd year as President of Hills District Little Athletics I look forward to working with a very dedicated team of long serving and new elected committee people.
I would also like to welcome our new members to the committee and hope you enjoy the experience as much as I have and I can guarantee our club will benefit and improve with the dedicated group of people that were elected for the upcoming season.
Sponsorship is vital in any club and that is no exception here at Hills District LAC and it’s paramount that we band together and seek out new sponsors to our club this year, so I encourage everyone family to find one sponsor that would like to be a part of our great club in season 2010 – 2011, no matter how big or small the sponsorship.
This year we welcome back Explore & Develop Norwest and Keystone Martial Arts to Hills, and thank Castle Hill RSL, Dencon Surveying, Elite Sports, McDonalds, and Espresso Mobile Cafe - Bella Vista for their continued support.
Again we have another great season planned with State Relays, Trans Tasman, Hills Family Fun Day and Christmas Party, Zone, Regional and State Championships along with the State Multi’s and Cross Country Championships.
Please ensure you visit the website regularly for when, where and what time these events will be held, along with anything else you need to know, it’s on the website and in our hand-book for your information.
What makes a great club is a great team of volunteers who give of their time freely to ensure that every child has a memorable experience, along with learning the finer points of each event, improving on their previous best and most importantly having fun doing it…
So please parents any help you can give no matter how big or small the task will be greatly appreciated by all the athletes in our club so please look out for a committee member and volunteer your services just like all of us on the committee did, I guarantee you will enjoy the experience.
In closing I wish all of our athletes a fantastic season, enjoy competing, have fun doing it and above all go out and do your best and never give up!
Regards
Brooke Collins
President
Background
The Hills Little Athletic Centre commenced its first track and field season in 1972 and is the fourth largest club out of 200 Centres in NSW. There are approximately 40,000 “Little Athletes” throughout NSW, and around 85,000 nationally. Hills Little Athletics Centre Inc. is incorporated under NSW law and is affiliated with the Little Athletics Association of NSW Inc.
Our Centre is operated on a non-profit basis, and has no paid employees. The Centre is operated entirely by parents and family members as well as former Little Athletics parents on a voluntary basis.
Our Centre draws on families throughout the Hills District, however, some of our athletes come from as far away as Auburn, Epping and Seven Hills. Baulkham Hills Council along with several committee members maintain our track and field facilities in the best possible condition.
Our Philosophy and Goals
Little Athletics was originally formed to provide athletic track and field competition for younger children because the senior clubs did not cater for children younger than 15 in their regular events. Little Athletics is not essentially here to produce highly skilled specialist athletes, but to provide the basic athletic learning and competitions for that large number of children not adequately catered for by any other body.
Generally, it must be accepted that specialisation is unwise until at least the mid-teens.
Specialists also can be better serviced if they are trained and perfected by specialist coaches. Our Centre, and Little A's in general, cannot claim large numbers of these coaches and probably never will. Nor should we invest our few coaches on a few specialist athletes at the expense of the majority.
We will be attempting to provide many events for many children and will attempt to teach as many of those children as many of those things as we are able. We will do a better job if we get more parental support to help supervise/coach the very basics with us on training days. Small groups behave better, learn more, and get more turns at practising a set task. As a result, when these children reach an age where their physique starts to stabilise, they may then start to specialise in the events in which they are good and to which they are physically suited. The Hills District Athletics Club as a good record of helping these older athletes. The Hills District Athletics Club has a web site at: http://www.hillsdistrict.com.
Competition is the driving force behind sports people trying to improve and improving is the glue that keeps together the effort that any one person may require to stick with the sport in which they are currently involved. Therefore, any sport requires a mixture of "Family, Fun and Fitness" and "Competition" the level outgrows the basic "family, fun and fitness" concept. We should as parents or as committee members, guide all the children to their own level of needs and as long as they are enjoying themselves we have been successful.
We must also provide competitions sufficient to cater for the better athlete who constantly strive to improve his/her performance and thus feed the natural wish to succeed. By providing this level of competition, we are in fact character building and this is important and provides the springboard from which the senior athletes of tomorrow may be drawn. However, we are aware that the greater the degree of competition, the greater the discrimination in favour of a specialist minority. As parents, you are free to choose all, some or none of the competitions provided.
Saturday competitions are designed to encourage self-improvement as the important yardstick and we would urge parents to explain to their youngsters the meaning of such a system. Encourage them to collect their tickets, enter them into their books and watch the steady improvement in each event. We may also need to help them to cope with not winning some of the time or even never winning. We believe it is important also to help some children to cope with always winning if they are to develop a personality acceptable to their friends.
All children benefit by parental involvement. Our Centre cannot succeed at training or in conducting the Saturday competitions without parental involvement. WE ARENOT A CHILD MINDING ORGANISATION but a co-operative community project to provide an organised fun sport for a large group of children. Let's adhere to our motto of "FAMILY, FUN & FITNESS"
Range of Activities
Little Athletics extends beyond our regular weekly Saturday morning competition our
athletes have the opportunity to participate at:
• Coaching during the week
• Gala Days and special events throughout NSW.
• An annual Trans Tasman Challenge with a New Zealand tour for Under 11 and 12 athletes.
• NSW senior athletics competitions for Under 13, 14 , 15 and 17's athletes who are automatically dual-registered with the senior body, Athletics NSW.
• A range of Championships for individuals (Zone, Region, State and National), teams (State Relays), and all-round athletes (State Multi Event and National).
• Development camps.
Sponsorship
The Centre is extremely grateful for the support of our ongoing sponsors.
We encourage you to support our sponsors, please let them know you are member of Hills District Little A's
Platinum Sponsor:
Espresso Mobile Cafe - Bella Vista
Gold Sponsors:
Avant Construction
Dencon Surveying
Silver Sponsor:
Elite Sports
McDonalds Australia
We continue to enjoyed the tremendous support from our
Premier Sponsor:
Caslte Hill RSL
We encourage you to support these businesses.
If you would like to become a sponsor, or know of any organisations that may be interested, please contact Geoff Bryant or Brooke Collins for further information.
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