Hi Pirates, 

Now that the Summer season has officially drawn to a close (1 final piece of activity TBC is the Presentation Day), we can cast our eyes towards our 2009 Winter Development Programs which include the Hills Winter Competition and also Junior Development Clinics at Corbin hosted by many of our 1^st Grade Players/Coaches.  We have received a fantastic response to these initiatives – more than 80 Pirates Juniors (i.e. almost a third of last Summer’s Junior registrations) are registered to participate in the Junior Development Clinics and/or the Hills Winter Competition. 

Given the number of Juniors participating in the Sunday Clinics, we have sorted all registered Players into 2 Groups:

1. Rookie/Live Ball Development (U9 – U14): 11:00am to 1:00pm

2. Tee Ball Development (U7 – U8): 12:00pm to 1:00pm

Below are some important details to note:

• Dates: the Junior Development Clinics (JDC) will run on the following 9 Sundays -  19^th April, 17^th May, 31^st May, 14^th June, 21^st June, 5^th July, 12^th July, 26^th July, 2^nd August.  
• Cost: the registration fee for the Junior Development Clinics is $45 per player (i.e. an average of $5 per Clinics) to be paid at the first Clinic attended.   Eftpos facilities are available.

Note that the above Clinics dates are aligned with every home game that our Pirates Winter Major League Club will be playing this season.  Hence, canteen facilities will be open.  I would encourage you to make an afternoon of the JDCs – after finishing the Clinics, sit down to cheer on our JDC Coaches as they represent the Pirates in 1^st Grade (starts 2:15pm).   

Final comment for players who have registered for the JDCs and the Hills Winter Competition:

• U12s: Hills has advised that the U12 Winter competition will be played on Sunday mornings, 9am – 10:30am.  For this reason, we have delayed the start of the JDCs to 11:00am so that our U12 players have time to return to Corbin and attend. 
• U14s: unfortunately, the U14 Winter Competition games will be played on Sunday mornings starting at 11am.  This means that our U14 Winter team will not be able to attend the Sunday Junior Development Clinics.  However, our JDC Coaches have offered an alternative – our U17 Winter squad train with our Pirates SWBL Coaches/Players on Tuesday evenings.  We will open up 9 of these sessions to the U14 Winter squad as well.

Cheers, 

Mark 'Skip' Scully

Vice President - Juniors