Ventures Hockey Club celebrates its 75th Anniversary with a month of activities starting on Sunday August 18. A day of fun is promised filled with hockey fete matches and some Trinimatch games at the St James Barracks.
From Thursday 22 to Sunday 25 August, Ventures will host an indoor hockey tournament at the Chinese Association. All clubs (men and women) will be invited to participate. The main event, a Dinner and Awards Function, which takes place at Pier 1 from 7.30 p.m. on Saturday 7th September, will give members a great opportunity to see, meet and hear some of the history and future of the club. Ventures, originally Venture (Ladies) Hockey Club, owes its introduction to hockey to the first official women's hockey club, "Wanderers", which was established in 1926. Members of Wanderers, the only women's hockey club of consequence in Port of Spain in the late 1920's must have exhausted their enthusiasm of playing matches among themselves in those years. This led to a decision by some members to branch off in 1927 and form Ventures, true competition was then underway, because of the initiative of the late Denise Stoer. A true pioneer of Ventures, Stoer pursued an idea that was discussed among a small group within the club.
What a far cry, today's annual subscription of $200.00 compared to 75 years ago where the Rules of the Club stated that the entrance fee for new members was sixty cents and the monthly subscription thirty- six cents. The one item in the rules which has remained to this time is: "The club's colours shall be white and green."
The first president of the club was Major T.W.Carr. Today, the most senior member of the club, Florrie Kelshall, can boast of having served as President for 11 consecutive years from 1971-1982. Other presidents were Felix Leotaud, Tom Cambridge, Stoer, Adelle King, Allana Steuart, Irma De Lima, Ellen Kuei Tung, Caryl Cowie and the current president - Terry Young Sing.
How did Ventures stay the 75 year course as no other club has managed to do. Says De Lima: "Ventures always had somebody committed to proper management and Florrie was one of those who held the club together in a very serious way. She was always respected by members."
Also says Kelshall: "Early Ventures had a very social life, later on we played more hockey and the emphasis was then placed on competition. but we never forgot to socialise with each other. We were always celebrating someone's birthday and/or other events."
In 1981, seeking ways to raise funds to obtain a clubhouse and so that other major programmes could be undertaken, Jennifer Thompson came up with an original idea following her viewing of "Telematch", a German programme, on TTT. Other members like Julie Ann July, and later Allana Steuart, took the idea several steps further, and "Trinimatch" was born. Ventures streamlined the feature, revised it when it began to wane after several successful years, and modified it in recent times as a Ventures-owned feature now being run on an ongoing basis with great financial success. The club patented the idea and offers a package to business houses that wish to stage sports day on a special scale.
Ventures has always been on the move. And in the late 70's introduced the Mini-Hockey programme catering for youngsters between the ages of 5-12 years. In the mid-90's Ventures came to the rescue of schoolgirls' hockey which was going through a difficult period of only having a few games to play and in some cases schools were without coaches. Thus in 1996, Ventures schoolgirls programme started providing technical assistance to any schoolgirl player in a fun way, with no obligation to become members of the club.
And just as the early Ventures of 1937 joined with Wanderers to tour British Guiana, latter-day Ventures did not sit idly by and wait on the Women's Association for foreign tours. Ventures visited Guyana in 1973, Barbados in 1976, the United States in 1983, Europe in 1985, Canada in 1994, and attended several of the annual Banks' Tournaments in Barbados.
Ventures was amongst the teams which obtained sponsorship once the Association allowed this medium of support, and enjoyed a great partnership with Heineken from 1983. The club can boast of having secured its fair share of representative players at National level; National Awards; and WITCO Hall of Famers.
And says RoseAnne Reyes "After 75 years Ventures is flexing its strongest muscle....its heart. We look forward to seeing everyone at these celebrations as we prepare to take on the next 75 years... We're 75 and we're sooo proud!!!"