Many thanks to everyone involved with the Presentation Night on Tuesday 17th March. We had a great night, and I hope everyone enjoyed themselves.
Thanks to Pauline for her hard work selling raffle tickets, and congratulations to Jack Dixon who won the first prize, an all expenses trip to the World Snooker Academy at Sheffield.
We have two unclaimed prizes, so you have until 1st April to claim these. The winning ticket numbers are 21694 (Bottle of Rum) and 21680 (Basket of Fruit).
All in all, after paying for the buffet and the entertainment, we made a profit of £173.00, which will go straight into the Coaching Academy's funds for next season.
Hartlepool Snooker Centre was opened in February 2003, providing a top class snooker venue for the people of Hartlepool and its surrounding area.
Top class professionals such as Paul Hunter, Peter Ebdon and Jimmy White have appeared at the club, but it became apparant that it was not only the local league players that wanted this facility, but an ever increasing amount of younger players were taking up the sport.
At this time, John Hartley, an experienced coach in the Teesside area, decided to start the Junior Coaching section, starting with a small number of children on a Monday night. This has now escalated, and there are over 20 players receiving coaching and advice, with the newer players working on groups on Monday evenings, and the more advanced coaching taking place with the experienced players in one on one sessions.
The coaching covers all aspects of Snooker and Billiards, starting with Basic cue actions and stance, before moving up to Practice Routines and Break Building exercises.
The majority of the material used in coaching has been written and developed by John Hartley, and has proved successful in the fact that several of the top junior Billiards players in the country have received coaching from John over the past seven years. In 2007, Ryan Clark reached the National under 16 billiards final, giving John a record 6 years in a row of coaching one of the two finalists. In 2008, Ryan surpassed this achievement, by winning both the English Under 16 and Under 19 Billiards titles on the same day.
Information is available throughout this website on not only the coaching, but also the Blindcraft Junior Cue Sports League, which was set up in 2005.
If your interested in joining the Academy, then please email your details to me at hartlepoolsnookercentre@hotmail.com and we will be in touch.
Alternatively you can come along on a Monday or Tuesday night between 5pm and 6pm and ask for John, and he will give you details.