It is with great pleasure that I can announce that following the acceptance of the City of Kingston (KCC) budget last Monday night, the long awaited and much anticipated re-surfacing of our synthetic pitch at Farm Road will go ahead this year.

With the support of the City of Kingston and especially our Central Ward councillors Ron Brownlees, Rosemary West and Lew Dundas, we have been working closely with KCC Sport and Recreation personnel on the re-surfacing project since August last year. That we have been able to get this project up in such a relatively short time bears testimony to the long standing and cooperative  relationship that exists between KCC and SUHC.

The re-surfacing of Farm Road is a very significant development milestone for SUHC. The new pitch will be an FIH approved, “National“ standard  dressed turf (or hybrid) pitch which will be a vastly superior playing surface that in itself offers all SUHC members the opportunity to enhance their hockey skills and knowhow and improve our club’s competitiveness at all levels.

We are a fair way along the specification and tender preparation process with KCC and our plan is for work to commence immediately in the first week of October 2012 after this season ends. Naturally this will lead to some disruption to the off season activities normally held at Farm Road but we are working on alternative options so that the inconvenience to members will be minimal. Meanwhile we will keep you posted of the re-surfacing project’s progress including news on initiatives we expect to introduce to help fund it.

The re-surfacing of Farm Road is very positive news for SUHC and hockey in the southern and bayside suburbs of Melbourne. Please help yourselves and continue to support SUHC anyway you can  as we move forward into new exciting phase of your club’s development.

David Finlayson
SUHC – President