Hi Team Toowong,

So much to talk about, The 20/21 year is in our rear-view window, so long and thanks for all the craziness.

The 21/22 year starts today, and I am sure we are going to have a great year commencing with the Summer Athletics Season.

This newsletter is to wrap up the Winter Season and get things under way for 21/22, and let everyone know so of the key events and activities planned for the year and reflect on the outstanding performances from the Winter XC season.

Winter Cross Country 2020/21 Series

Firstly a huge congratulation to all our athletes who completed in 2020/21 QA Cross Country Cup, Brisbane Cross Country Series, the State XC Relays and finally the Queensland State XC Championship out at Toogoolawah. It was a season constantly under threat of Covid, with the Toowong team heavily hampered by a school’s outbreak and quarantining of many members in Brisbane’s inner west just days before the State Championships. The Toowong club finished the QA Cross Country Cup in a solid second position behind Thompson Estates and well in front of Ignition, Ashgrove Rangers, UQ and Athletics North.

To achieve in the Brisbane XC series requires a level of commitment for you our members, to get to as many events as possible and not get injured throughout the season, easier said than done (especially for our Masters competitors 😉).

Some of the many stand out performances from the Harriers (best within top 10) in the Brisbane Cross Country Series;

• U8 Boys – 1000m, Connor Geagea, 1^st series Win
• U10 Girls – 1000m, Claudia Lekieffre, 1^st series Win
  • • Juliana Stander, 2^nd overall series
    • Sarah Anderson, 7^th overall series
    • Indie Walden, 9^th overall series
• U10 Boys – 1000m, Sonny Millar, 2^nd overall series
  • • Tony Geagea, 3^rd overall series
    • Edward Wilkinson, 6^th overall series
• U14 Girls – 3000m, Grace Adams, 4^th overall series
  • • Emily Boyd, 6^th overall series
    • Grace Freeman, 8^th overall series
• U14 Boys – 3000m, William Bryant, 5th overall series
• U18 Boys – 6000m, Thomas Bryant, 1^st series Win
• Open Women’s – 4000m Short Course, Jess Anderson, 1^st series Win
  • • Lauren Murray, 2^nd overall series
• Open Men’s – 4000m Short Course, Wayne Adams, 1^st series Win
  • • Ross Anderson, 3^rd overall series
    • Harley Wilkinson, 4^th overall series
• Open Women’s – 8000m Long Course, Meryll Fletcher, 1^st series Win
• Master’s 50+ Women’s – 6000m, Miwa Kolb, 1^stseries Win
• Master’s 50+ Men’s – 6000m, Robert Gunningham, 4^th overall series
  • • Bruce Jones, 5th overall series
    • Darryn Bryant, 6^th overall series

The Queensland State Cross Country Relay Championships was an extremely successful and fun day for all. We entered 17 teams, and brought home 1 Gold, 2 Silver and 6 Bronze medals, more importantly we all dug deep for one another. Some true heroism on display from our younger members stepping up for the team.

• U8 Girls – 3x 1000m, Toowong A, 3^rd
• U8 Boys – 3x 1000m, Toowong A, 4th
• U10 Girls – 3x 1000m, Toowong A, 3^rd
• U10 Boys – 3x 1000m, Toowong A, 3^rd
• U12 Girls – 3x 2000m, Toowong A, 3^rd
  • • • Toowong B, 10^th
• U12 Boys – 3x 2000m, Toowong A, 2^nd
• U14 Girls – 3x 2000m, Toowong A, 3^rd
• U14 Boys – 3x 2000m, Toowong A, 13^th
• U18 Boys – 3x 3000m, Toowong A, 4th
• Open Women’s – 3x 3000m, Toowong A, 5th
• Master’s 30+ Women’s – 3x 3000m, Toowong A, 4^th
  • • • Toowong B, 9^th
• Master’s 30+ Men’s – 3x 3000m, Toowong A, 2^nd
• Master’s 50+ Men’s – 3x 3000m, Toowong A, 1^st
  • • • Toowong B, 3^rd
      • Toowong C, 5^th

Though our numbers were considerably down due to an unplanned Covid lockdown, those who were able to contend stepped up in what ended up against a quality field on what ended up being a surprisingly challenging course.

• U10 Girls – 1000m
  • 5^th Juliana Stander
  • 6^th Indiana Stansfield
• U11 Girls – 2000m
  • 2^rd Zoe Renton

• • 8^th Miranda Bowen
  • 9^th Liliana Talevich
    • Above team achieved 2^nd Teams event
• U15 Girls – 4000m
  • 17^th Chloe Flack
• 50 – 59 Masters Women’s – 6000m
  • 1^st Miwa Kolb
• 30 - 39 Masters Men’s – 8000m
  • 3^rd Mathew Stansfield
• 50 - 59 Masters Men’s – 8000m
  • 3^rd Paul Byres
• 60-69 Masters Men’s – 8000m
  • 1^st Peter Jones

​So that's a wrap for the Winter Season, or so we thought.

On the last weekend of the season a fellow historic club ‘ Ashgrove Rangers’ hosted the first ‘South Burnett Rail Express Rail Trail Relay’, a 60Km out and back multi team relay. Toowong Harriers are never one to shy away from a challenge and supporting another great club and a well-run event.

I am proud to say our teams stood up, winning both the Men’s and Women’s 60km relay events

Women’s Winning Team 4:41.26 : Meryll Fletcher, Therese Hancox, Grace Freeman, Indie Stansfield, Lucinda Freeman, Karen Wallace-Freeman, Paulette Jackson (Fred Freeman - lead cyclist)

Men’s Winning Team 3:41.12 : Gerard Gosens, Matthew Stansfield, Bruce Jones, Chris Tagg, Michael Jackson, Dennis Fitzgerald, Rob Gunningham, Peter Jones (Geoff Seawright – lead cyclist)

21/22 Club Membership

​As of today the Membership is open for the 21/22 season, you can now renew their annual membership the Registration button on the revolutionise Club Portal or via the ToowongHarriers.org.au website. There are three QA membership levels available; Base ($12), Gold ($110) and Platinum ($220) plus the Club fee, the details/benefits of these can be found. As per usual if you are a member of the Toowong Harriers Little Athletics side of the club you be able to use a discount code available from myself or Trudy (Little A’s Centre Manager) to give a $35 reduction per youth membership.

• Base $12 + $43 Club Fee
• Gold $110 + $43 Club Fee
• Platinum $220 + $43 Club Fee

For those of you with friends and family whom joined QA for the Winter season or the Road to 2032 School competition but are not aligned with an athletics club, we can get their QA membership transferred across and onboard them with the best club in the state.

Your membership is for an entire year from October 2021 to September 2022 and all events are open to all ages from U12 to masters. If you would like to know more, please contact Wayne our Senior Co-ordinators. Seniors@toowongharriers.org.au

To many this process of QA & LAQ and club fee’s is a little confusing, so please do not hesitate to drop me a line at President@toowongharriers.org.au or alternatively give me a call on 0487710101.

Around the Track

There has been absolute plethora of work happening around the club this winter to ensure we are in a great space to start the new athletics year. This has been delivered through a number of grants and a tremendous number of hours put in by your committee and fellow members, thankyou to all whom have assisted.

• New Larger Patio across the front of entire of clubhouse
• New signage around club and carpark
• Repainting clubhouse and new entry door
• Carpark line marking
• New discus circle
• New long jump beams
• New track lawn mower

Uniforms

We now have our full range of new club kit available from our Queensland based suppliers & manufacturers ‘Scody, and Impi Sportswear’, these new uniforms are high quality, athletics focused designs to meet the broad range of members, please have a look at the Online shop or drop into the club meets to check them out.

21/22 Summer Season 

I would ask all members to get on board with the Summer Athletics Season (QA or QMA) and give it a go, The first half of the Summer Athletics event grid is now up on the QA website https://qldathletics.org.au/index.cfm/competition/

First of these event’s is the Alana Boyd Shield of the 6^th of November, and the all-important Queensland Relay Championships on the Saturday the 20^th November, followed by the Toowong Gift on Sunday the 21^st November. We will be looking at putting forward as many teams as possible for this event, so get training now. The Seniors Co-ordinator will be looking for nomination from athletes willing to form teams once we become aware of the events list (watch this space).

Another addition for club members to the year’s summer program is the ability to compete at Jack Cook Centre Meets. Note senior club members (Open - Masters) may attend and compete at our Centre meets (combined Little Athletics meets) in the 15 - 17yrs+ age classification. This is a fun, low stress, in club way to get times on the board and get back into Track & Field competition. The event calendar can be found https://www.toowongharriers.org.au/club-meets along with the program of events (5 events each meet) @ $6 per meet.

Coaching gets into full swing as of this coming Sunday morning (10^th October) with the first of the open ClubHouse training mornings at Jack Cook Park from 8.00–10.30am every Sunday, Middle Distance squad training continues on Thursday evening from 6.00pm, we are proposing the have another evening (Monday nights) for more speed and event specific training if there is interest from members.

I will be sending out more information around Shield meets, State relays and Coaching in the coming weeks, for further details on QA events & Senior Coaching please contact Wayne on Seniors@toowongharriers.org.au

To all those involved in this year’s Summer and Winter seasons, I thank you for being part of the family which is our club, We look forward to seeing you all back for next year's Athletics & Cross Country Season in 2021/22. Lets train and be better than we were before.

Stay healthy, Train hard and continue being awesome.

Cheers to all,

Ross Anderson

President

Toowong Harriers Athletics Club