Keely Dunn is the founder of FHumpires which provides support and mentorship to umpires all over the world, whether newbies umpiring in their first season, through club umpires with 20 years of experience, to international FIH umpires.

On Monday 8th April, 2024, Keynsham Hockey Club hosted Keely at our clubhouse for a lively interactive seminar and Q&A. If you've ever heard Keely speak, you'll know that this was always likely to be fun way to spend a Monday evening and so it proved.

The audience of about 35 included umpires from City of Bath, Firebrands, Keynsham, Old Bristolians, Badminton and Pucklechurch, Westberries, Wick, Winscombe, Yate, Keynsham and several independent umpires.

Keely's talk concentrated on:

• How can your positioning on the pitch help you get the big decisions right and ensure that you and the players all enjoy a great day of hockey?
• When and why should you use cards? Do you feel uncertain about when to move up or down with management interventions, but are worried that giving cards will cause a match to spiral out of control?

Feedback from the audience was universally positive. One said "It was an excellent seminar at Keynsham today. I learnt so much and cannot wait to trial out some of the new interior Mission Critical Positioning in summer league. Thanks for answering my signalling when using radios as well as the importance of running backwards." Another said "I also wanted to say thanks for a very entertaining and informative evening."

Who is Keely Dunn?

Keely is an ex-international umpire including twice going to the Junior World Cup and umpiring Olympic Qualifiers. She also spent six seasons umpiring in England’s National League, working her way up to the Women’s Premier Panel and the Men’s B Panel as well as umpiring over 80 of British University league matches and the women’s BUCS final twice.

Keely now contributes to the umpiring community through her weekly WhatUpWednesday live shows on YouTube, clinics, umpire coaching and mentorship. She has Umpire Managed two editions of the EHCO Trophy in the Netherlands and has recently returned from doing the same for the National Hockey Masters in New Zealand.

A few photographs of the evening are available here.

The slides are available here to download. The evening was also recorded by Keely so will hopefully be available online in the near future and we'll provide a link to this.

In the meantime, we would encourage any one who would like to engage in further discussions about umpiring to consider joining the FHumpires Discord server which is available here at fhumpires.com/ds.