A note from the Squash Chairperson - Ange Scott

Thanks for coming to our Annual Club Champs and End of Year Prize Giving… how great was it to get back to playing and having some fun events this year… 
We welcomed a few new committee members this year with Bevan, Carli, Kerryn joining Noel, Tim, Suzie and Ange and just want to say a massive thanks to everyone else this year for the shared volunteering and help throughout the year… with special mention to Vicky, Flo, Erin, Luke and Lachie for their help.
Here's a recap of 2022... covid forced us to cancel our scheduled doubles tournament at the beginning of the year.  We were not alone at the start of the season, Leamington and a bunch of other clubs had to do the same.
We hosted 2 x W900 tournaments with a big thanks to Kerryn for managing these two really successful tournaments.  Kerryn was also the driving force with 2 x Women and Wine and Blokes intro to Squash programmes this year, which has seen some new members take up our great game, and we look forward to seeing their progress in the coming years.  
A big thanks to Finn for stepping up into the coaching position 3 terms of junior coaching, ladies, and running our last blokes to squash programme.
Our Junior 900 tournament again had great entries and next year we will be hosting the finals.
Juniors - 50 kids from age 4-15 have spent Tuesday afternoons in term 2 and 3 with Suzie, Jo Williams, Glen Reid and Carli.   Special thanks to these ladies. 
Now running club nights in term 4 to keep those who have joined up and keen to carry on paying. Expecting 15 or so juniors to progress with this.
Club nights have been a massive success, thanks Carli and Suzie with our fun team and individual competitions this year.
Interclub didn't see any winners for the recent Spring rounds but our Winter winners this year included;
Winning Men's Div 1, Congrats to Ash, Hamish, Gerard, Gareth, Brett and Dave.
Winning Men's Div 5 - Luca, Roger, Rafael, Bryce, Chris and Tim
Special Mention must be made of the Waipa open! With 100+ players entered, and a massive team effort or rostered helpers, along with key sponsorship and some of our teams first time hosting an event of this size. Thanks to all that helped! 
We all now have a much better understanding of what goes on behind the scenes to organise events of that size and am sure we are all set for next year's action packed event calendar. 
We start next year with a scheduled Doubles Tournament on 24th - 25th Feb, 
One day W900 - 28th May, One day M900 - 25th June, 
Waipa Open 21, 22 July, 
We will be hosting the Waikato Graded champs 31st August this year, 
1st & 2nd September,  Werder Junior 900 and then the FINAL 24 September!  
We are on the lookout for some new committee members so please let Suzie know if you would be interested to help out…. As always a few more hands helping out would be greatly appreciated next year…. 
AGM is scheduled for Monday 5th December 6.30pm so please come along and have a drink as we recap 2022.
Prize Giving 2022
So lets kick this off -  our special awards this year go to:
 
Higgie Cup - Personality of the Year -  Carli Van Zyl
Carli joined the committee this year as a passionate squash player and amazing business women, event organizer and communicator, she picked up some club manager duties while we waited for the amazing Suize to arrive, she organized the very successful calcutta tournament, club night series, is a key helper with the junior programme, along with endless hours creating frameworks, posters, documentation for the club.  
Congrats Carli all this work doesn't go unnoticed, so well deserved congrats!! 
Sam Crawford Cup - Club Player of the Year - Gerard Whittaker 
This year the committee has selected a player that has contributed and participated in both competitive and club events throughout the year, he has a 75% win ratio (admittedly not a lot of games), likes to dress up on the odd occasion, always has a smile on his face and happy for his wife to lend a hand whenever he can not, he has a love of this sport and includes his entire family in the game which is great to see, and he happens to be entering his 50th year this year - happy birthday and congratulations. Gerard Whittaker
 
 Smith Family - Most improved Men’s -  Jake (Jacob) Riggir 
Jake has played 34 matches this year and made a leap from E2 to D2 with a massive 530 points increase. 
Congrats Jake and good luck for next year you are our most improved male player.
 
T Oxenham - Most improved Women - Erin Fuborough 
Erin has played 20 competition matches and has a very healthy 75% win rate, she improved 530 points this year going from F to D2 .  Special mention must be made as Erin was also the E Grade Waikato Champion this year and would be in Invercargill playing the champion of champions if she wasn't here!!
We also have a few other club members that also should be mentioned in their improvements and achievements this year with all these players improving by over 300 points; 
Luke Furborough ( moving from E2 to E1) 
Renee Ward  coming back to squash after an extended break moving from C2 to C1 to end her season), 
Anna Harding ( moving from F to E grade),
James Moss (moving from C2 to C1 also coming back to squash after an extended break)
Graded Club Champs
This year we had 58 entries to our club champs, what a great competition with some awesome games, and bragging rights up for grabs! 
Winners are:
Champions for 2022
The Boyd Cup for Men's Champion - Finn Tremble
Pay2Play Cup Women's Club Champion - Leanne Browne
C Grade
Men's My Mortgage Cup -James Moss
C Grade Ladies  - Ange Scott
D Grade
Men's Falcon & Charlotte Fitzpatrick  - Divid Kilbride
Women's Waveny Parker Cup - Jo Wilton
E Grade 
Men's Hopkins Family Cup - Joseph Riley
Women's Williamson Martin Cup - Dale Houghton
F Grade 
Men's DCS Limited Cup  - James Ward
Women's Carmen & Aiden Page Cup - Melissa Donaldson-Seath
Junior Boys Club champion 
Empson Cup played at later date between - Luca or Lachie 
Junior Girls Club champion 
The Joelle King Cup - Drew Livingstone
Junior under 16 - 4 boys entered this competition and played a round robin, congratulations to James Morgan