By Adrian Sims
I have been a member of the CSSC for over 20 years. I currently work for HM Revenue & Customs and prior to the merger of the Inland Revenue with 
Customs & Excise I worked for the Inland Revenue. I was a member of the Inland Revenue Sports Association (IRSA) before the merger and I'm currently a member of Revenue & Customs Sports & Leisure (RCSL).
I have always been a keen and competitive sportsman and enjoy participating in most sports. I'm now 42 and in my younger years my main sports were rugby and cricket but I would turn my hand to any sport.
I first became involved in organising sporting events for the IRSA about 15 years ago when I volunteered to take over the organisation of the IRSA West Midlands Indoor Cricket competition and subsequently I have organised several events since for IRSA and more lately the RCSL. I am also a member of the RCSL West Midlands Executive Committee and prior to that I was a member of the IRSA West Midlands Executive Committee.
In recent years I have become involved in hockey, this was purely by accident when in 2005 at very short notice I became responsible for organising the IRSA West Midlands 7-a-side Mixed Hockey Team and as the team did not have a goalkeeper I ended up playing in goal for the team. Unfortunately for the rest of the team who all play hockey to a very good standard, we have yet to find a proper hockey goalkeeper to replace me, however even with me in goal the team have been very successful and we have won the RCSL Hockey competition on two occasions and have never finished out of the top three!
Due to the camaraderie and banter within the RCSL Hockey Section I decided to take annual leave to go and support the RCSL Men's Hockey teams in the 2006 CSSC Hancock & Evans men's 11-a-side hockey tournament at Beeston, Nottingham. And guess what… I ended up playing in goal for the RCSL 2nd team in one game. In 2007 I became more involved with RCSL Hockey and helped with organising both men's and ladies' teams for CSSC events and in 2008 I was duly elected to the RCSL National Hockey Committee. This is a role which I still have and thoroughly enjoy due to the fact that I have developed several friendships from within the RCSL Hockey fraternity and it is a pleasure to organise and manage teams on their behalf.
For some reason (and I have know idea why!), Hilary Gray from the CSSC Events Team approached me at the 2008 Hancock & Evans tournament and asked me if I was interested in organising the 2009 Hancock & Evans tournament as the current organiser had stepped down. Before I could engage my brain and give consideration to the request my mouth had said yes! What had I let myself in for?
So since 2009 I have been responsible for organising the CSSC Hancock & Evans tournament on behalf of the Civil Service Hockey Association and the CSSC. What does this entail I hear you ask? Well luckily for me the majority of the organising process was already in place so I was just able to continue with this without making any major changes to the event. A good piece of advise I was once given was 'don't try and fix something that isn't broken.'
However even though the organising process remains the same you still have to put arrangements in place well in advance for the event such as setting the date, booking the venue, advising Group Choice of when the event is due to take place, making sure you have the sufficient quality umpires for such a prestigious event, book a physio to cover the event and make sure the event has been suitably advertised with details of the closing date for entries. Closer to the event taking place you have to get individual trophies for winning players and runners up, chasing up entries, squad details, checking squad details for valid CSSC membership, producing a timetable of all matches taking place and making sure the winning team from the previous year brings the trophy to the tournament . Luckily for me Hilary Gray is a Godsend as she does some of these tasks for me to ease my burden and I also have the full support of the Civil Service Hockey Association Committee.
Another important part of the organising process is to seek feedback from the teams that have entered the Hancock & Evans tournament to see if they have any ideas on how the tournament can be improved for those participating in future years. Again Hilary Gray assists me with this for which I am grateful.
As a so-called 'sportsman' I can tell you that you can never replace the buzz you get from actually playing and taking part in sport. However what I can tell you is that organising or managing a sporting event does go some way to replacing that buzz. The reason I say this is because I always get a good feeling from watching people enjoying taking part in a sporting event that I have been responsible for organising. I can honestly say I have always enjoyed organising sporting events for the RCSL and CSSC and as a result I have made many lifelong friendships. I would therefore encourage as many of you as possible to become organisers for your department's sports association, for CSSC or to be a volunteer at the CSSC games.
