The membership for the Juniors between the ages of 8 years and 11 years is still at the low cost of £5. New membership forms are now available for you to fill in.

However there is an additional cost for any Juniors who are over 11 years of age. England Athletics are now charging a fee to take part in any races which individuals run for their clubs. This will now become an automatic part of your annual subscription. Juniors between 11 and 13 years will now pay £10.

Juniors between 14 years and 18 years will pay £14 for a year.

To pay, fill in the form (available from Carol) to ensure we have the correct details and if paying by cheque, please make payable to Harwich Runners. Please hand this in to Carol as soon as possible.

Please contact us if there any questions regarding the forms.

Telephone: Carol Cordwell 01206 395103 or
Claire Bransby, Membership Secretary 07792 951862

TRAINING DATES FOR 2012

Saturday 3rd March
Saturday 17th March
Saturday 7th April
Saturday 21st April
Saturday 5th May
Saturday 19th May
Saturday 2nd June
Saturday 16th June
Saturday 7th July
Saturday 21st July - This will be our last session of the Summer.

Carol and Trevor

SPORTS RELIEF
We would like to bring your attention to this year's sports Relief. This year Harwich Runners are trying to support the run which is being held in Harwich

It takes place on Sunday 25th March 2012 and is open to everyone. There are three distances; 1 mile, 3 miles and 6 miles. It will be held near the Cricket Club, Dovercourt.

Adults are charged £6, children £3 and families of 4 are £15. If you are interested then please look at www.sportrelief.com for more information to enter.

1 MILE EASTER RUN
Harwich Juniors would like to invite any children to take part in this fun run. It will be held on Saturday 7th April 2012 at 10am outside the Harwich Cricket Club, Low Road, Dovercourt. The 1 mile course will be 2 laps of the field. This is open to children of all ages. Everyone who participates will receive something from the Easter Bunny. There is no charge for taking part.

COME AND JOIN IN THE FUN! If you can't run, we will let you walk.

THE JUNIOR 1 MILE HANDICAPS
Shortly the Harwich Runners will begin their 5K HANDICAP SERIES. For all juniors there will be the opportunity to take part in

5 x 1 MILE HANDICAP RACES

(two laps of Cliff Park)

These races will take place on Thursday evenings at 7.30pm. (It is a good idea to arrive around 7pm). You will need to book in at our HQ, which is the Navigator, the 4th Dovercourt Sea Scouts Hall, beside Cliff Park, Harwich.

The dates for these races are:

Thursday 17th May 2012

Thursday 7th June 2012

Thursday 28th June 2012

Thursday 19th July 2012

Thursday 9th August 2012

The idea of a handicap race is to give runners of different abilities a chance to compete equally. First you need to work out roughly how quickly you can run a mile in (unless we have these details from previous races). You will then be started off at different times and given a number when you finish. As you proceed through the series, you will be given a set time to start when you book in and your scores will be recorded. At the end of the series there will be a trophy for the junior with the best handicap results. After each race there will be prizes for the winners.

This is a good opportunity to improve your running ability and it is a popular event. You can take part in as many races as you want to. There is a small charge to take part in each race. PLEASE NOTE: if you are over the age of 11 you now need to have signed up to the UK Athletics affiliation as well in order to compete. (This is now automatically included in your membership subscripition. It is a yearly fee of £5 and covers any other official races you may wish to enter).

All races will start at the Cliff Park, Harwich. We hope to see you there!

The adult races follow the same format as booking in, etc as above. They do however start from 8pm. There is a charge for entering each race but this is reduced if the membership fee has been paid.

JUNIOR CROSS COUNTRIES
Very soon the Cross country races will begin and here is some information about them.

Over the winter we have a series of Cross Country races. These occur on Sundays and will now start at 10am. This means that they will take place before the adult races from now on. It is advisable to arrive around 9.30am to allow time to book in, etc. Juniors over the age of 8 years old on the race day are able to take part in each race of approximately 1 mile. The race is normally set over a part of the adult Cross Country course. It is well attended and many prizes are awarded to the winners. There are also prizes for the different age groups. Juniors now need to be members of Harwich Runners as the cross countries races are now only open to club runners.

Kurt Barrington is our Junior Rep and he will be booking Juniors into the races and making a note of their results. His telephone number is at the bottom of the page. He will also be assisted by Claire Bransby and Gary Donoghue. So if you are interested in taking part, please let Kurt know (or one of the others) and they will give you any additional information you need. There may be a charge for taking part. Please note that cross countries can be cold, wet and muddy, but most find them very enjoyable, so why not have a go. Some people wear spikes or trail shoes to run in, but trainers are okay as well.

The dates and venues for the Cross Countries are as follows:

Sunday 6th November 2011 at Harwich. The top of Lunish Hill, Ramsey. (This is a Harwich Runners event so please give it a try.)

Sunday 27th November 2011 at Springfield, Hylands Park, Chelmsford.

Sunday 11th December 2011 at Halstead, Gosfield school.

Sunday 15th January 2012 at Hadleigh, Duke Street.

Sunday 29th January 2012 at Ipswich, Martlesham Heath.

Sunday 12th February 2012 at Witham, Notley Park.

You can take part in just one or all of the races. The choice is up to you, but we imagine that once you have taken part in one race, you will be keen to do it again.

We hope that this information will be helpful.

Kurt Barrington tel:01255 556129 or Claire Bransby tel: 07792 951862

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

JUNIOR NEWS

MARCH 2012
We have had some very good training sessions since returning in January. We have been pleased with the effort put in by those attending. Hopefully, the weather will continue to improve but please remember to wear enough clothes when it feels cold. The cross country session went well despite the snow at a few of the runs. It was nice that so many Juniors took part and did really well

We now have the 1 mile races to look forward to in the 5K series, if you would like to take part. Please see the 1 mile handicap dates above.

Before then we have our yearly 1 mile easter run. This is held in place of our normal training session, followed by an egg hunt. Information about the run is with the other events at the top of the page.

DO NOT FORGET MEMBERSHIP FEES ARE DUE BY 1ST APRIL.

JANUARY 2012
On Saturday the 17th December 2011 we held our Christmas run. Having had a lot of rain the ground was very slippery which meant that you had to be careful when running. We had around 25 children who took part. We were able to present one of our trophies for 2011 to our Junior Runner, and the other was passed on as soon as possible to our most improved runner:

Junior Runner of the Year - Jake Kerrison
Most improved Runner of the Year - Joseph Hammond

It is always very hard to decide who to choose as we are very lucky to have so many Juniors who show promise and who are a delight to have at the junior training. We then began our Christmas run and with Father Christmas in attendance and taking part, the children completed the two laps of our one mile course. Although we do not time the race, the Barringtons managed a hat trick with Jack first, George second and Archie third. They were followed by Sarah Hughes, forth and Theo Sanderson, fifth.

We would like to thank everyone who attended our run and hope that they enjoyed their presents from Father Christmas. We would also like to thank all those who helped, with a special mention to Janet and Marilyn and of course Father Christmas.

We have had a very successful term at our training sessions. We still aim to provide a session that is suitable for all ages (between 8 and 14 years) and abilities. Please remember to wear enough clothing when it is cold. You can always take a layer off if you get too hot. Jack and Becca have been assisting myself and Trevor for courses they are doing. They have been very helpful.

We still have the 1 mile Easter run to provide a date for. Instead of the summer run we are going to have a morning of races and games open to everyone, We have the 1 miles runs during our 5k series to come. Cross countries are still going on.

We wish you all a Happy New Year.

Carol and Trevor

NOVEMBER 2011
We have had some enjoyable training sessions since our return in September and have been pleased to welcome some new Juniors. We have now had our first cross country and were pleased to see some of the Juniors taking part, well done to all of you.

The session on Saturday 3rd December will be taken by Peter Clarke, definitely not one to be missed. This will be our last training session before Christmas because we have the Christmas Run on Saturday 17th December.

We hope that you have enjoyed the sessions you have attended and will return for our first session of Junior training on Saturday 7th January 2012.

We hope you have a lovely Christmas.

On Saturday 16th July we held our Fun Sports Morning. We had around 15 children attend despite the torrential rain. We were very lucky we had rain to start and rain to finish, but we were able to use the grass and it stayed dry in between. We did a mixture of runs and races like the three legged race. Anyway, we had a fun time and we would like to thank all those who attended.