Chairman’s Welcome

A big welcome to all new and existing Glasgow Hawks players and supporters for the new season almost upon us. This kicks off in earnest with a local derby against West at Old Anniesland on Saturday 21st August at 3pm and we hope to see a good crowd turn up for the season kick off.

Last season saw us raise our playing standards once again and it was only a couple of injury time defeats that prevented us hitting our objective of a top three finish and a place in this year's British & Irish Cup. At 2nd XV level we finished a strong second in the Premier Reserve League and given the strength of the squad the 2nds should see another striong season. We have managed to keep the core of our senior squad and with some new faces (and exciting players)committed to Hawks, it is hoped we can take our progress to the next level. We wish our Director of Rugby, Peter Wright, his playing management team and all the players every success for this season.

Our Community Development Manager, Grant Talbot, and his team, have done a magnificent job in growing our youth and community involvement, taking rugby to numerous primary and secondary schools in the local area. With additional state secondary and primary schools being added, the community programme continues to go from strength to strength and we are very grateful for the sponsorship received from the independent schools, Scottish Rugby and The Williams Family whose support is invaluable. The Glasgow Hawks Trust, with Brian Simmers at the fore is working tirelessly to secure more funding from Trusts so the Community work can expand further and take rugby to more and more corners of west and north west Glasgow. Grame Davidson's Youth section continues to grow and it is hoped that as time progresses we will attract more and more kids to the youth section from the community work of Grant and his team.

The Hawks’ Board continue to work hard to put in place a supportive management structure that will grow Glasgow Hawks as a club & we have added Chris Breckenridge to the Board this year in order to bring the management closer to the players and as a bonus bring the average age of the Board down somewhat!. Rory Mackay and Greg Francis will also assist in this aspect of our work. The hard work of our Commercial Manager, Zena Melki has resulted in the retention of key sponsors and securing new sponsors and I would like to thank all our individual & corporate sponsors for supporting the development of Hawks and we look forward to working closely with all our sponsors in order that they see a return on their investment in the club. We would encourage everyone to support our sponsors whenever they can and members of the Hawks Supporters' Club will now enjoy a great many discounts with many of our partners so please check the website for details of these.

Finally we are in the process of finalising our club social programme so watch out for more details at www.glasgowhawks.com. In addition to the Supporters' Club Dinner and the Players' Awards Ball we will be adding more events which will include some fundraisers for the senior players' tour to Canada in the summer of 2011.

On behalf of all at Glasgow Hawks have a very enjoyable season and we hope to see you all at a match or function during this coming season.

Yours Aye,

Allan

Allan Mackintosh
Chairman
Glasgow Hawks.

This article was posted on 11-Aug-2010, 10:07 by Hugh Barrow.