A happy new year to everyone! I can’t tell you how excited I am about the year ahead – we have so much to really look forward to. I have been teasing you for a while about some exciting news I have …. I am afraid you have to wait a few more days for it but to give you a little more to think about – next Wednesday – 21 January I will be joined at Twickenham Stadium by our ambassador England rugby star Mike Brown, GB Captain Mike Kerr, Chris Ryan and Coral Batey to announce a major partnership with an international company which is a household name and part of the corporate fabric of GB! At this point I am unable to say more but do keep tuned on Wednesday when I will tell all on the website at the same time as the media launch.
The new partnership promises to take our sport into a whole new and exciting period of development and is a great way to start a new year. But 2015 has many more exciting things to look forward to. This week we as a senior management team have been working hard at developing the business plan for 2015-16. One of our areas of real attention has been this year’s National Championships which should be an amazing event and will for the first time have a big community programme around it. The Copper Box in the Olympic Stadium is an amazing venue to hold this event and for the first time we will be looking to attract spectators to watch our domestic teams.
Then of course we have a fantastic GB programme to savour. I visited the GB squad who were hard at training at Lilleshall in the first week of the new year. There is such a good feel about the squad and so much potential evident. I was feeling pretty proud when I saw the heading on the IPC Website ‘10 Young Guns in Wheelchair Rugby to Look Out for by Rio 2016’ . Included among the 10 were Ayaz Bhuta, described as ‘one of the most consistent players in the world’ and James Roberts, described as ‘a big threat when Rio 2016 rolls around’. The squad has a really great performance programme this year with training and games against Japan, Switzerland, Germany but always with the European Championships in sight – the important qualifying tournament for Rio 2016. The Europeans is quickly followed by the World Wheelchair Rugby Challenge 2015 – our very own international event. We are putting so much into this at the moment and again I will be giving out some very exciting news about this next week. The event will be fantastic for our athletes but also for the opportunities it will give to our Table Officials, Referees and many, many volunteers both new and old. In addition we will also have the WWRC15 Community Day in the Copper Box on Sunday 11 October. This will be a great family day out with lots for everyone to enjoy. So 2015 will be a year to savour and a chance to take our great sport to ever greater heights – this level of ambition and engagement is hard work and I thank everyone who will help to make this year happen!
David Pond
