THOUGHTS OF CHAIRMAN PEARSON

Its been a very busy few weeks with June/July being the peak time for the track season I have been busy officiating while at the same time keeping an eye on many things going on behind the scenes so to speak. We had a committee meeting at the beginning of June where we took the major decision for the club to become what is known as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation which is a new legal form for a charity and we feel this will have considerable benefits for the club going forward.This will have to be approved by members at an EGM once the considerable amount of preparation has been completed. We are at present in dispute with Southampton University re the use of Wide Lane Playing fields as they wish to charge us over £1000 pa for roughly 10 athletes to use the grass for training twice a week.I am seeking to find an amicable solution but in the meantime we should not use this facility. I  went to two days of activities arranged by Active Nation called a Tryathlon for the children of Southampton to try a range of sports from archery,bike riding,football plus a host of other sports.Myself and Pete Waring did 8 sessions of 30 minutes on the long jump each day which the children seemed to enjoy. Active Nation must be congratulated on organising this as over 1100 children participated. There was probably little direct benefit to the club but I feel that the more children we can get into sport the better for the nation as a whole. I also had the opportunity to meet John Oxley the managing director of Active Nation who I have been trying to meet for over a year and explained our plans for a club house which he is very supportive of. I went up to Birmingham on Saturday with the UKWL team so had to miss the BAL match at Southampton.The ladies who competed did very well but of course we suffered by being unable to field an athlete in some of the events. A big thankyou to Tim who works wonders with this squad and I know gets very frustrated at times. I was trying to follow the BAL match on twitter and I received a tweet that it was all on the final relay and it seemed like ages until someone put me out of my misery by tweeting that we had won the match. Congratulations to everyone involved, Athletes, Team selectors, Officials, and all the people who make a home fixture a success. Congratulations to Mary on the birth of another grand child. You have a long way to catch me up Mary!!!. On Sunday I went along with Alan Cropp to the Wessex League match at Bournemouth to track judge.It was a sea of red and white and it was quite awe-inspiring to see so many of our young athletes having a good time. I do feel that as a club we are progressing  and I am really looking to the rest of the season. Richie