It is with great pleasure that we report on what happened on this day:

Opening and welcome was done by Davidson School Principal Mrs. Grace Keese.

*From the Youth Desk: The Chairperson of Nkonkobe Municipality Youth Desk Mr. Kapani gave a very good encouraging speech that the children must build on the past and become good sportsmen and women using opportunities like this to become good community leaders and citizens of our country.

Amathole Hockey Association

Then Mrs Pat Smith followed with an uplifting speech encouraging schools to make hockey part of their school programme. She also explained to the teachers, parents and government representative the role and assistance of SA Hockey as well as the Amathole Hockey Association's assistance for the day. She also introduced the 8 coaches who gave coaching and umpire training to the new coaches and umpires of the 20 participating schools. She also explained that amongst the coaches was an ex- hockey player as well as an ex-National SA hockey player who is now giving back to the community by helping in coaching other coaches. She also thanked the structure of the Nkonxube Hockey Association and in particular Laetitia Golden for doing an excellent job in preparing for this event.

We also had the privilege of having the chairperson of the Nkonkobe Sports Council Mr. Vusani Nyamezele with us on this day, and he is giving his full support in establishing hockey as a new sports code in this area.

The vote of thanks was conducted by our convenor, Mrs Laetitia Golden, who thanked Davidson School for availing their fields and facilities for this day, the Education Department - Fort Beaufort District for helping with the transport of the learners. Here we particularly think of Mr. Fetcha, who went out of his way to help the schools.

We thank SA Hockey for providing the schools with equipment etc. A special thank you to Gary Dolley for the support and encouragement he gave us to develop hockey in this area.

Thanks to Amathole Hockey Association for sending the coaches on this historic day and special mention must be given to Pat Smith the Development Officer who is truly supporting and assisting us in bringing a good structure and to have a quality hockey association that will develop hockey and bring out quality players from this area.

We thank all the different government departments who supported us and in handing out valuable information to the learners. They are: Social Development, Health Department, SA Police and Home Affairs.

On this day we also took part in the Nkonkobe Municipality's campaign to prevent crime in our communities and therefore we handed over one of the bags to the Golf Course Community in Alice, which has the biggest crime rate in this area. We as Nkonxube will assist this community by coaching the children in the sport of hockey. This was highly appreciated by the community members of this area.

We really appreciated all the help but we are a little bit concerned about the fact that we could not hand out any bags to the 8 High Schools who attended the launch because some of the learners from the primary schools who already know the game are attending these high schools, but with no equipment they are not able to continue with the sport due to lack of funding - and these schools are in the rural areas. We are hoping to get assistance with this at our next festival that will take place on 9 August 2011.

We really appreciate your assistance and therefore we were able to launch hockey in this area successfully and with the help of all these very important stakeholders we hope to have a very good working relationship in future.

Yours in sports
Laetitia Golden
Nkonxube Hockey Convenor