Charity Events

The Club has worked with a variety of Oxfordshire based charities and groups. These include KEEN (Kids Enjoy Exercise Now), ROSY (Respite nursing for Oxfordshire’s Sick Youngsters) and KOTS (Kids Off The Streets).

KEEN offers sporting and recreational activities for children and young adults with special needs, in Oxfordshire. A number of Stars players took to the ice recently with some of the kids involved in this project and it was a great success.

ROSY is also an Oxfordshire Charity and was the chosen charity for the Stars 2006-2007 Season. A number of ROSY children attended special events with the Stars while Stars fans donated money at various home games throughout the season.

Finally the Club helped to jointly launch the KOTS Charity with the City Council StreetSport programme. KOTS aims to provide all year round skater hockey activities through schools and community clubs. The Charity was launched in 2006 with a skater hockey tournament which was again attended by a number of hockey players. The kids involved in the Summer events also came to various home games in the 2006-2007 season.

Group Events

Oxford City Stars are able to offer free introductiory ice hockey sessions to groups of young people, aged 14 or under. The club can arrange for a particular group to have a free session on a Monday, Wenesday or Friday from 12.15 to 13.30. Oxford City Council provides the use of the rink and the Stars supply the coaching and ice hockey equipment. This is in conjunction with the Oxford Streetsports project.

Two Friday sessions were held in August 2006 and each of these were attended by more than 50 Streetsports kids.

School Events

The Club is also running a programme involving local Junior and Middle Schools. Here, groupd of children from the schools are invited to visit the rink on a Wednesday at 5pm to have a go at ice hockey and learn something about the sport. All equipment such as skates, helmets, gloves, pads and sticks are supplied and it allows children to have a go on the ice with practice pucks. The children are carefully supervised by the Stars coaches and the school teachers/assistants. This is a non-contact session where they can skate around and learn the basics of ice hockey.

After this the children attend a talk in the rink conference room where they a taught some of the basics of the game. This discussion is led by either the Clubs Head Coach, a senior Team Manager or one of the Senior Players. The talk is followed by a short ice hockey film and finished with a short question and answer session. The evening lasts about an hour, finishing at about 6pm.

Everyone who attends is then given a free ticket for the next Stars game at the rink. If they wish to come as a group then an member of the Club is often avaliable to sit with them during the match and able to answer any questions they may have about the game.

A number of school groups have already been involved in this initiative. These include:

• St Mary and St Johns School, Oxford
• Caldecott School, Abingdon
• Dunmore Primary School, Abingdon
• Eynsham Primary School
• Great Rollright School
• St Peter's School. Cassington
• Watlington Primary School

If you would like more information, or have a group who would like to come along then please contact the club on the following email address.