Terry O'Gara, Wallsend Harriers

Terry's body was buried at Holy Cross cemetery after a funeral mass at St Columba's Church, Wallsend, on Tuesday 31st January.

Tributes to Terry here and here

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At the January Management Committee Meeting it was announced that Phil Lancaster and Ian
Woodward would be stepping down from their respective roles of Secretary and Chairman,
at the Club's next AGM to be held on 29th March 2012.
 
If anyone is considering, or knows someone who could fill these vacanies the roles and
responsibilities of each can be found at the links below. Support for other roles would also be appreciated.
 
Please submit your application, or expression of interest no later than 2nd March 2012, to Ian
Woodward.

Chairperson : Membership Secretary  :   Secretary  :  Welfare Officer

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Fifteen Poly runners took part in the Morpeth 11K Road Race on New Years Day. Graham Cook was the first Poly runner home in 6th place with a time of 36.45 which I believe was a PB. First Poly lady home was Katherine Davis with a time of 49.42

NS Poly results here
Full results here
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For the statisticians among you. Since April 2006 I have been keeping an annual record of the number of times the NS Poly home page has been accessed. I didn't put a counter on the site until sometime early 2003 but since I started looking after the site in November 2002 the count has exceeded 144,549

From April 2006 to date (01/01/2012) the home page has been accessed 118,159 times with the number of visits per year increasing each year, except for 2009. A yearly breakdown is shown below:

2003/4/5      26,390
2006              10,347
2007              14,168
2008              17,001
2009              16,490
2010              28,610
2011              31,543
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Congratulations to John Renney and Victoria Spence in the recent North East Regional Awards nominations, both finishing runner up in their respective categories; Development Coach and Young Volunteer of the year. Chronicle article here.

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We had a good turnout of Poly members at the 2011 Blaydon Race, if I counted correctly we had 83 runners across the finish line. A good night for running, dry, not too hot but with a bit of a headwind.

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Group leaders please read this and if you wish to register your group with Run England go here for more information.

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In August 2010, North Shields Polytechnic Club were awarded a grant of £1000 from the Wells Sports Foundation, whose patron is Jessica Ennis, World and European Heptahlon Champion.

The grant would enable the Club to buy junior batons, marker cones, hurdles, indoor and outdoor javelins and shot putts, a flexible jumps bar and an overhead projector and screen to host England Athletics' Run in England, Athletics Leaders, Assistant Coach, Coaching Children and Officials education courses.

We are also hoping to use the money to purchase a specialist weights platform for our throws section.

Representatives of the Wells Sports Foundation hope to making a formal presentation of the cheque to our Chairman Ian Woodward, in the coming weeks.
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For a while now NS Poly have had a group on Facebook where we put up photographs of events and it also gives members somewhere to talk to each other (often about relatively prosaic things like who needs a lift to a race, or whether anyone knows what the training session is that evening). Take a look here

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In November 2009 a promotional video was made by the Tony Blair Sports Foundation in partnership with the NS Poly and involved a number of our junior and senior club members at the clubs track. This video can be seen on the newly launched web site at:
http://www.tonyblairsportsfoundation.org/sports/pages/athletics/

In appreciation for his part in the making of the video and to the other club members who ably assisted him, Tommy Brannon received the following vote of thanks.

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Subject: website launch

AT LAST – our new website has launched and I thought you’d like to see your oscar winning performance………

http://tonyblairoffice.org/sports/pages/athletics/

thanks once again for helping out with this.

Jeanette Pickard

Chief Executive
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Paul Dickenson, a former club member and now BBC Sports commentator has kindly provided a list of some former Poly athletes who he remembers from his time with the club. See here
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Read Tommy's story - Focus on Tommy Brannon
Read the full version of Focus on Barbara Ingman from the Poly Patter here.


 A couple of pictures of our gym here


North Shields Polytechnic Club Cups and Trophies information here. If you have any further information about these awards can you please let me know at Les@holywell.demon.co.uk