Cameron Howes
It is with equal measures of sadness and honour that I nominate Cameron Howes as a Life Member of the Redcliffe Hockey Club. A club that Cam has literally served a lifetime with Pride, Unity, Integrity.
Cam’s legacy to our club spans over 55 years and will never be forgotten and is irreplaceable.
Cam has been our President since 2021 and has been focused on continuing the growth and success of our club both on and off the field and has been working tirelessly to achieve this goal. Cam has had a hand on every aspect of the club from the smallest detail, like ensuring our facility presented visually pleasing to the eye of our members and visitors, to working on practical ideas for junior development in schools, striving for success in our senior teams, and importantly financial sustainability into the future. And to continually improve our club with the goal to be a ‘destination club’ that we are all proud to be a part of.
Cam embodies everything about what it means to be part of the family that is the Redcliffe Hockey Club. Cam has been a member of our club since the age of 5, as a player, premiership winner, coach over many years in all divisions and many age groups (juniors and seniors), both male and female, and most recently administrator as our President.
One of the first actions Cam took as President was to set in place a culture statement for us all to live by when performing all of our respective duties in the club. It’s a simple 3 word statement, ‘Pride, Unity, Integrity’. It doesn’t come as any surprise that these 3 words also perfectly some up our President.
Pride - Cam took enormous pride in our club and everything it has to offer the hockey community.
Unity - Build on the lifelong fellowships and friendships to work together to ensure the long term future of our club.
Integrity - Always holding ourselves to account to do the right thing in achieving our goals, on and off the field.
Cam has worked tirelessly to ensure the long term future of our club and to showcase our facilities that many of you here today have worked so hard to build over many years. The envy of any hockey club.
He was always thinking of innovative ways to make a visit to the Redcliffe Hockey Club fun and memorable and hopefully somewhere visitors wanted to come back to, Cam ensured that whenever we were fortunate enough to host club days, that we made these days an ‘event’ for our members, visiting teams, and spectators.
Cameron was also the driving force behind the club’s 90 Year anniversary dinner in 2022 which was an outstanding success attended by over 200 people. The volume of work that Cam put into making this event polished and memorable cannot be understated. A fantastic celebration enjoyed by everyone that attended.
Another of Cam’s recent initiatives for financial and cultural viability of our club was the introduction of non-player memberships to encourage former players back to the club to support our teams, rekindle friendships, and be an important and integral participant in the future of our club.
His vision for future success is already coming to fruition with (and not for the first time during his tenure) the Brisbane Hockey Association entrusting the Redcliffe Hockey Club to host senior men’s semifinals in recent years and add to that our successful Premier League 1 Women winning the club’s first ever Premiership in our 93 year history. Cam’s vision for on-field success coming to life!
We will all strive to continue Cam’s vision.
In Cam’s retirement, he was also going into schools accompanied by some of our young stars with hockey equipment to introduce kids to our sport and hopefully our club. The vast amount of passion and hard work that Cam invested in his, and our club is immense.
As a player he made many representative teams as a junior and some of his team mates in those junior days are still friends today. Cam’s senior playing days also saw success, having played over 300 Division 1 games for Redcliffe over 2 decades, a powerful corner hitter with long time partner in crime our former President, Trevor Barsby. They were a formidable force at the top of the circle in the penalty corner battery, and fierce in the defensive line.
Division 1 Premierships were delivered along the way in 1988 and 1989 and it’s been interesting to hear comments from his playing adversaries in recent times describing Cam as being a ‘hard and fair’ opponent, which to me translates as being uncompromising, with an intense desire to win!
One of Cam’s mantra’s was ‘Winning is fun, and fun is winning’. This mantra was delivered in full in this year’s historic Grand Final victory, along with all the other Grand Final successes in 2024, in junior and senior grades. This would’ve filled Cam with so much pride, joy, and satisfaction, and of course it is devastating that he wasn’t able to witness this success for himself. But I believe we all know that he and his Mum, and Life Member Marg were surely watching over proceedings with broad smiles and advice for the umpires.
The entire Howes family across many generations have been heavily involved in the Redcliffe Hockey Club for over a staggering 75 years which is mind blowing for a community sporting club. With Cameron, Tina, Connor, and Sophie all playing for our club, and also themselves being significant contributors to the success of our club over many years. Along with Cam’s sibling’s Karen and Lincoln.
Included in this nomination are these words and feelings from the Howe’s family.
“Our message to the committee
We thought Cam’s moment would’ve come when he was some old codger, after he’d had a chance to put a bit more icing on the cake of his storied legacy with this great club. Getting round a bit slower, with a bit less hair and a couple more sunspots. He’d have helped build more things, invent more programs, and tackle more challenges. We would’ve liked to be there to celebrate it with him. But it wasn’t to be this way, and as a result this moment now means something very different. It instead appears as an opportunity to acknowledge all he gave, the intrinsic elements he pioneered for and embedded in the club, and the legacy that these actions may carry on. But in the same breath we have an opportunity to recognise the opportunity loss, the unknown future contributions that Cam had no doubt pledged to the club, promised, but now taken away. This said, we look to recount on Cam’s career, to story some key moments and achievements over a lifetime of vested involvement in the Redcliffe Hockey Club. After a lifelong association, we know that Cam and our whole family, hold the Redcliffe Hockey Club and the opportunity for life-membership, very close to our hearts and in very high regard.
Cam joined the club at the age of five, playing in under 8’s. As he continued to play throughout his childhood, onto his teenage years, and well into adulthood, it now seems fated that this random assortment of under 8’s would form lifelong friendships and foster much of the strong community spirit which has become a feature of the club throughout the decades that followed.
Many of these young men went on to play and represent Redcliffe at the highest level, winning premierships together, and moving into coaching and administrative roles later in their careers. Cam was arguably one of the best examples of this, as his willingness to contribute to the club in many and varied ways, radiated throughout his life.
Contributions started early, alongside his mum Margaret, brother Lincoln, and sister Karen, the family would year after year, spend Sunday afternoons during the preseason, helping club founder Mary Nairn, to top dress and fertilise the fields, clean the clubhouse, and fill the drinks machines ready for the new season. These formative years were a sign of the future perhaps and his inclination towards the extracurricular.
Cam’s role as President in particular saw him contributing much to efforts such as maintaining the clubhouse, grounds and turf, engaging actively with local council grants to upgrade key aspects of the club, instilling heritage significance and values in the clubs branding, and his collaborative efforts with BHA/BWHA to continually advocate for Redcliffe. Cam was a teacher by trade which he no doubt brought into his coaching, but his analytical and practical approach was able to bring a level of innovation and administrative sophistication to the systems and processes of the club, during his tenure.
Alongside his cohort, Cam was a talented player. A one club man, he played over 300 division 1 men’s games for Redcliffe. He won multiple premierships, was selected to represent Brisbane in state championships many times, and was a finalist in the Oakbridge Medal. As a corner hitting fullback, he played hard, sometimes too hard, but always with heart.
Beyond the lifelong friendships that Cam and the rest of us forged through hockey, our family owes much to the club. Cam met his wife Katina at Redcliffe, where she was also a player, and they grew a family with hockey at its heart. Their children, Connor and Sophie, both played in junior and senior grades, and still maintain many of the close friendships that kicked off long ago in Cam’s humble under 8 squad.
The club meant a great deal to Cam over the last 50+ years. It was perhaps the most constant undercurrent of his life, and contributed much to the quality of that life. In return, we believe that through his vision and hard work, the Redcliffe
Hockey Club, is now a better place.
Thank you for your consideration of his Life Membership nomination
Cameron’s family
A big thank you to Connor and Karen for these words. A difficult and emotional task to
complete after their inconceivable loss.
There are a lot of words, thoughts, and feelings in this Life Member nomination for Cam, but in reality, only the following statement is really necessary as we all are fully aware of what he has given to our club.