Please see attached from Rainey LHC

This year's Irish Varsity tournament will take place in Ulster between Saturday 29th October and Monday 31st October 2016. The venues used will be the Ulster University, Jordanstown and Belfast High School.

There are total of 44 matches; 16 matches each day on Saturday and Sunday with a further 12 matches on the Monday. Matches are generally 25 mins each way and 30 minutes each way on the final day.

A lot of time and effort has gone into this tournament and your involvement would be greatly appreciated by the Organising Committee. There is likely to be a full programme of provincial matches on this day and there would be an expectation to honour any local appointments. However, umpires wishing to be appointed to any of the days should contact John Cathcart directly via email - j.cathcart@ulster.ac.uk - and advise him of your availability.

£15 (sterling) is available to each umpire for each game umpired, to cover travel expenses etc. Umpires will have access to tea & coffee ...

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From the 1st January 2017, ALL senior matches (not umpired by a panel umpire) MUST be umpired someone who has passed a Rules Course within the last two years.

The Ulster Umpires Committee recognise there is a need to develop a course for club umpires who have been regularly umpiring for many years and have gained considerable experience; but have not attended a recent rules course and therefore have no formal qualification.

So we have developed an intense course (completed in one evening), designed for experienced club umpires who already have a good 'working knowledge' of the rules. This is NOT an alternative for those who are just starting to umpire; nor is it a course for someone who has a poor understanding of the rules. Because course participants are expected to be regularly umpiring for their club and have a good understanding of the rules, the pass mark for the Refresher Rules Test is 80% (the pass mark for our normal Rules Courses is 75%). Should anyone fail the ...

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Just over a year ago, Ulster Umpires adopted IHUA guidelines with regard to the placement of players on temporary suspension. Generally it states that:

Green carded players are asked to stand behind the umpire who awarded the card; and

Yellow carded players are sent to their respective benches.

IHUA said that they would review these guidelines after a year. As part of this review process we would like you to give your view on these arrangements. All feedback is welcome positive, negative or if you have any suggestion as to how this could be improved we would love to hear from you.

So if you have a view on this, please send all feedback to PJ Whyte at

whyte_pj@yahoo.co.uk

by 1st October. PJ will review all the feedback and report to the Umpires Executive who will advise IHUA as part of the review process.

Des Simon has reached his 100th birthday, today, Tuesday 20th September 2016. He made an immense contribution to Irish Hockey; he was presented with his FIH International Umpiring Badge in 1964 and was also an international and provincial selector.

He was an ever present member of the Irish Hockey Union Executive Committee in the early seventies and later went on to be President of the Irish Hockey Union in 1973-74, an honour he well deserved. He was also President of the Ulster Branch however he was best known for his role as Honorary Secretary of the Ulster Branch between 1970 and 1985. In recent years, Des duly received Honorary Life Membership in recognition for his services to Irish Hockey.

Des brought great stature to the game through his high standards of efficiency and integrity. He will be celebrating this magnificent milestone tonight at a special organised 'party'. We hope he has a super night - but not too much as we might need him this weekend!!

All the season has just started and already some of us have forgotten how the simple things can make things so much simpler pitch side. So here are a few tips that will make both my life and yours a lot simpler.

1. When you receive your appointments for the month ahead, glance over them and alert me as soon as possible if you notice any problems. As appointments can change, don't pay too much attention to those appointments that are a few weeks away, as a lot can happen between now and then.

2. If there are any changes to your appointment you will usually get an email alert from the system informing you that something has changed. If you receive one of these emails log in to the portal and check out your appointments - it could be that the appointment is the same but perhaps the time has changed or your colleague. If the change occurs within 24 hours of the match, I will try to make contact with you to alert you of the change. If the change has been caused due to a 'call-up' to ...

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We are now pleased to confirm the dates for the next Umpires Rules courses are as follows:

Coleraine Rugby Club

4th and 6th October from 7pm each night.

Lisnagarvey Hockey Club

18th and 20th October from 7pm each night

The cost of the course is £40 per person if pre-booked with Ulster Hockey or £45 on the night. All of the first night and part of the second night will be spent taking delegates through the full course, so it is important to have full attendance. The Rules Test will be sat on the second night and takes most people around 40 minutes to complete - the pass mark is 75%.

As from the 1st January 2017 ALL senior matches must be umpired by individuals who have passed the Rules course AND have been registered on the Umpires Portal, we expect that places will book up very quickly. So to avoid disappointment please reserve your place with Ulster Hockey as soon as possible.

In line with IHUA, Ulster Umpires have decided to adopt new FIH Guidelines in relation to players’ misconduct towards umpires (including crowding of Umpires), which often occurs following the award of goals, penalty strokes and penalty corners, etc.

While there is no ‘right’ for a player to protest any decision by an umpire, from the start of the 2016-17 season, if there is a challenge to an umpire’s decision it MUST be made by ONLY one player (preferably the captain). Any other (i.e. second or more) players approaching the umpire are liable to green card personal penalties. Repeat offences may result in yellow card personal penalties.

Players are reminded that player protests and crowding of umpires is NOT acceptable and that the repeated questioning of decisions or ‘approaching’ will be dealt with accordingly.

Welcome to the new season! Once again, marking your availability is crucial to the appointments process. A number of you are yet to update your availability for September. The deadline has passed but you can still change it by logging in to your personal area and clicking on the 'Change Availability' button. Please do this ASAP. In general, if marking yourself as available for IHUA appointments. you should also indicate that you are also available for provincial appointments. Please do not assume that by indicating availability for IHUA appointments that you will be automatically selected!