April is really busy and exciting month as we move into the new 4 year cycle. We will be at the Spinal Unit Games at Stoke Mandeville between 15-18; the Active Lifestyle Sport Roadshow at Lougborough between 19-20; at Durham University on 23 for a Talent ID day which Bulls are running, all are important for our recruitment and talent identification objectives. Super Series 2 is on 27-28 at Stoke and then on 30th we have the launch of our partnership with Harlequins which I will talk more about in a future blog. We end the month by taking part in the 3 day NAIDEX exhibition where we will be providing demonstrations and ‘have a go sessions’ for young people and adults. In addition to the above, we are really excited about the progress being made to establish the Marauders Tigers team which will be the 4th new team to enter the league which is great news. Our thanks here to Matt Hampson who has been behind this initiative and also to James Price and the Marauders club who have put a great deal into helping to make this happen. We are now working very hard to make sure we can support the new team so that it grows and becomes well established. Key to supporting all of our clubs are the new Regional Development Officers, funded through the Sport England award. All three started their jobs this week and are in the middle of their induction programmes so you should soon be meeting them. All will be at the Spinal Unit Games and Jo Arnold who covers the North and the Midlands will meet with the Marauders Tigers this week. At GB level there is also lots happening. Lorraine Brown and Paul Shaw have now met up with all 2012 GB and development athletes and a squad of 18 has now been selected. Whilst the majority of the 2012 squad remain in contention for future GB selection, Steve Brown, Andy Barrow and Aaron Phipps have all decided to call an end to their international careers. All three will be much missed but we thank them for the huge role they have played for GB and hope they will stay involved either as club players or in some other capacity. Andy deserves a special mention as he has been part of the squad for 15 years. The current focus for the Performance Director and Head Coach is to finish building the new staff team and to get the squad ready for the key event this year which is the European Championships in August. To prepare for this we have a great summer of competition with the Denmark Challenge in June, followed by a Poland tournament and then the Swiss Challenge in July. Recruiting is well under way for new posts still to be filled. The performance team has engaged Andrea Snowdon to provide performance operations services – similar to the services provided by the old Team Manager role. Andrea is hugely experienced in operations management and amongst others has provided services to the RFU, British Cycling, England Hockey and British Handball. Bev Everton will return to a full-time position with Coloplast but will be kindly released by Coloplast to do the Head of Support role which she did up until the end of London 2012; finally, interviews for the Assistant Coach takes place on Wednesday. We have also been successful in our bid for funding from the Peter Harrison Foundation. We have been awarded £20k this year with a further £20k for the following 3 years providing we are meeting the objectives for which we applied for the funds. This funding is to support our Sports Science work which will be delivered in partnership with the Peter Harrison Centre at Loughborough. I think that is about if for now other than to wish those taking part in the Europa Cup the very best of luck this weekend.
David Pond
