Dates for
Your Diary

Contents

Sun  26 June  Road Race, Albert Park
Tues 12 July  Annual General Meeting
Sat   9 July  Road Relays, Sandown
Sat  23 July  Cross Country, Bundoora
Sat   6 Aug   Cross Country, Frankston
Sat   6 Aug   TRIVIA NIGHT, Ashburton Primary
Sat  20 Aug   Coliban Relays
Sun   4 Sep   Half Marathon, Burnley
Sun  18 Sep   Tan Relays
Sat   1 Oct   Shield Round 1, Program 1
Sun   9 Oct   Melbourne Marathon
Sat  15 Oct   Shield Round 2, Program 2
Sat  22 Oct   Shield Round 3, Program 1
Sat   5 Nov   Shield Round 4, Program 2
Sat  12 Nov   Shield Round 5, Program 1
Sat  19 Nov   Shield Round 6, Program 2
Sat  26 Nov   Shield Round 7, Program 1
Sat   3 Dec   Shield Round 8, Program 2
Sat  10 Dec   Shield Round 9, Program 1

Presentation Night
Annual General Meeting
Club Records and Rankings
Endurance Performance Systems Sponsorship
Trivia Night
Winter News
International Notes
Thames Hare and Hounds
U20 & U23 Australian Championships
Sandown Road Races
Bendigo Cross Country
Yarra Bend Cross Country Relays
5 km Handicap Results

The Annual Presentation Night was held on Saturday 21st May at the Box Hill Community Arts Centre.

Apart from the presentation of trophies to Box Hill members who had performed with distinction over the past year, there were several other highlights from the evening, including an entertaining and inspirational talk by Steve Hooker and Mark Stewart about their experiences at the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, a photo presentation showing highlights from the past year, a short video showing highlights from the Zatopek meet and a video presented by Bert Tilley showing some of the highlights from the Australian Club Championships.

The most decorated member on the night was Veronica Kirby who won both the Armstrong Shield for the outstanding junior female and the Martha Fraser Shield as the oustanding senior female.

Steven Hooker took out the prestigious Allan Barlow Shield as the outstanding senior male athlete while Ronnie Buckley was awarded the Reg Barlow Shield as the outstanding junior athlete.

In recognition of his service over the past year, as well as many years beforehand, Robert Falkenberg was awarded the Club Award and presented with a medallion.

The Annual General Meeting of the Box Hill Athletic Club will be held on Tuesday 12 July 2005, commencing at 7:30 pm in the Officials Room at the club.

All members are invited to attend this meeting where reports will be presented outlining the performance of the Club over the past year. The election of office bearers and committee members to guide your club for the next 12 months will also be held.

Pizza, soft drinks and tea and coffee will be served immediately following the meeting which should not last longer than 30 minutes.

A formal notice of meeting and agenda is attached along with a nomination form for the committee. If you are interested in helping plan for the future of the Club or would like to be involved with helping to run the most successful athletic club in Australia, please fill in the attached nomination form and return it to a committee member or mail it to the Box Hill Athletic Club, PO Box 247, Box Hill 3128.

Please click on the following link to download a notice of the Annual General Meeting.

Sarah Hewitt has kindly volunteered to take over the task of updating the women's Club records and all-time ranking lists. She is also going to try to record all PB's by female members throughout the season so that they can be recognised and publicised.

As a starting point, Sarah would like to get a full listing of everyone's PB's so that she can update the current rankings lists and be in a position to record and recognise any PB's by members during the next track season. Could you please email details of your PB's (event, performance, date and venue) to Sarah at hewberrys@aapt.net.au or else mail them to the club at:

Box Hill Athletic Club
PO Box 247
Box Hill 3128.

The Club is most fortunate to have recently gained the sponsorship of Endurance Performance Systems. Endurance Performance Systems was established as a multi-sport coaching service in 1994 by Tony Benson, a 1972 Olympian and 1992 Olympic T&F Head Coach as well as a Box Hill athlete for many years and current Club coach.

EPS's record of significantly improving triathetes, runners, duathletes, swimmers and cyclists of all levels - elite, age group, fun and fitness, beginner or junior - is your insurance YOU will also improve.

If you are interested in extending your training to include cycling and swimming, then please contact Tony on 9329 2192 or by email at tony@benson.com.au to find out more about how he can help you to fulfill your potential.

The Club’s major fundraising event for the year is once again going to be a Trivia Night and auction. This year’s event is being held at the same venue as last year – the Ashburton Primary School on Saturday 6th August 2005, commencing at 7:30 pm. Please put this date in your diary and start organizing your friends to fill a table of ten people. We also need to start collecting items to auction on the night so start asking your friends and relatives for favours. If you can assist in any way, please contact Leana Tilley on 0402 264 503 or at leana@bambooblinds.com.au (email) or Cameron Joyce on 0402 264 504 or at camjoyce@bigpond.com (email).

The Box Hill teams have had a successful start to the season with large numbers of members running in the first few races of the season. It has been particularly pleasing to see the large number of senior men and women competing in each race, although the number of juniors competing for the Club has been somewhat disappointing.

One of the initiatives taken by the winter sub-committee this year which has helped to raise interest in the winter season has been the issue of a weekly bulletin by email to anyone that is interested in hearing the latest news and results and catching up on upcoming events.

If you are not already on the mailing list to receive these winter newsletters and would like to be kept up to date with what is happening during the winter season, please send an email to Graeme Olden at golden@sprint.net.au or Julie Milner at jmilner@tpg.com.au.

A number of Box Hill Athletic Club athletes have been performing with distinction on the international stage over the past few months.

Mohamad Zeed was selected to represent Australia in a team to travel to China to compete in a series of meetings leading up to their National Championships. Despite only having a few weeks to prepare after a break at the end of the track season, he ran a PB for the 110 m hurdles while away, as well as running a fast 100 m flat, which must give him great confidence to train hard over the rest of winter to aim for selection in next year's Commonwealth Games team.

Steven Hooker has been training hard in Melbourne in preparation for this year's World Championships in Helsinki, but took time out for a quick trip to Japan where he jumped 5.65 m to finish fourth, but managed to beat the Olympic Champion from last year. This was a great performance in the middle of winter training and gives him great confidence to be able to mix it with the best overseas later in the year. Steven has recently left to travel to Europe to prepare for the World Championships and we wish Steven best of luck with his preparations and competition in Helsinki. Mark Stewart is also spending time with Steven in the lead-up to the championships so we look forward to hearing good news from both of them later in the year.

Matthew Coloe has also been training hard in preparation for the World Youth Championships in Marrakesh and recently managed to run the pre-departure time in a time trial on a cold, windy day at Box Hill so he is in great shape and is also looking forward to a most successful trip overseas.

The Box Hill Athletic Club is pleased to annoucne that we have established a relationship with the oldest running club in the world - Thames Hare & Hounds, which was established in 1868.

Club Vice-Captain, Simon Wurr has sent an open invitation to any club members that came to work in the UK, or are visiting for a holiday to contact the club and join club members for a run or training. Thames Hare and Hound have won the UK marathon team title for the past three years and have Sir Roger Bannister, Sonia O'Sullivan, Phill Sly and Benita Johnson amongst their members.

"Thames" as they are more well known, organise the annual varsity match between Oxford and Cambridge University every December and are located in Wimbledon in south west London, home to a large community of Australians and right next to the vast green open spaces of Richmond Park and Wimbledon Common. Although we compete at the highest level, we also put on an extensive range of "mob matches" and inter club cross country events for people of all abilities. Our website is at: http://www.thameshareandhounds.org.uk/v3/index2.php

Please feel free to Simon Wurr at Thames Hare & Hounds at simon.wurr@westminster.org.uk.

A number of Box Hill athletes competed with distinction at the Australian Under 20 and Under 23 Championships held in Brisbane earlier in the year. An Under 18 State Match was also held in Brisbane over the same weekend with Veronica Kirby and Joshua Ross representing Victoria in this competition. A full listing of the results by Box Hill Athletic Club athletes is provided below:

U20 and U23 Australian Championships
Under 20
Veronica Kirby     HJ       1.71   3rd 
Jennifer Chan      PV       3.30   6th 
Georgia White      PV       3.30   7th 
Jacqui Williams    PV       3.30   8th 
Josh Ross          100m    11.47   7th 
Joel Pocklington   PV       4.65   1st 
Ronnie Buckley     Discus  53.61   1st 
Theo Oostveen      110H    15.19   5th 
Under 23
Mohamad Zeed       110H    14.28   2nd
Lauren Burns       Javelin 39.20   2nd
                   Discus  40.98   2nd
Lachlan Aspinall   800m    1:56.5  7th 

U18 Interstate Youth Match 
Veronica Kirby     HJ      1.73   1st 
Josh Ross          200m   22.36   1st 

Box Hill is getting closer to unseating Glenhuntly as the premier distance running team in Victoria. Just as Box Hill has dominated track competition in recent years, Glenhuntly has dominated winter competition. Now that dominance is under threat. After finishing third behind Geelong and Glenhuntly at the cross country relays, we finished second to Glenhuntly at the cross country at Bendigo. On Saturday 28 May 2005 in the 10km road race at Sandown, Box Hill were the first team to have six men across the line. Unfortunately we didn’t have any runners in the top ten and when the points were added up we finished second again. After our poor performances of last winter this is a still a great result, let’s hope we can have a win in Men’s division 1 soon.

Our women’s team is competing in division 2 this year and had a clear win at Bendigo, but without Jocelyn Keage and Rachel Johnson our team finished a close third at Sandown. It is important that we keep finishing near the front in the women’s competition so that we can be promoted back to division 1 next season.

For a full report and results, please click on the following link...Results.

Box Hill had some great results at the second event of the cross country season at Bendigo on Saturday 14 May 2005. On the dry and hilly Belvoir Park Golf Course our runners put in some excellent performances.

Our Division 1 men’s team improved on its 3rd placing at Yarra Bend to take 2nd behind Glenhuntly, with our first six finishers all in the top 35 placings. In Division 4 Box Hill easily won the team’s event, while we had three finishers in Division 7.

After failing to fill a team in a number of events last year our women’s team has been dropped to Division 2, but hopefully we can reverse that situation by winning this division this season. Jocelyn Keage, Rachel Johnson and Jess De Bruin all ran well to convincingly win the Division 2 competition.

For a full report and results, please click on the following link...Results.

Box Hill had 12 teams and over 40 athletes take part in the first event of the 2005 winter season, the Cross Country Relays at Yarra Bend. It was a great day for Box Hill with the men’s open division 1 team finishing with a bronze medal. Our division 4 team winning by a large margin and victory also to our team in division 7 and to the under 18 boys. On the women’s side the under 18 girls finished second.

For a full report and results, please click on the following link...Results.

Twenty nine athletes took part in the first event for the winter season on Saturday 23rd April 2005, the 14th running of the Box Hill 5 km handicap race along the bike track at Gardiner’s Creek. John Vaitkunas snuck under the handicapper’s guard to win the race by 5 seconds from Fiona Turner with evergreens Chris O’Connor and Megan Sloane also separated by just 5 seconds, a further 30 seconds behind in third and fourth places respectively. Andrew White ran the fastest time for the day with a time of 16:25, closely followed by Iain Reitman with a time of 16:33.

For a full report and results, please click on the following link...Results.