A Great Few Days

We have had a great few days. Firstly there was the Xmas Tournie at Tipton which went really well and it seems everyone enjoyed the bake off! It was a good social evening and 34 players took part in the powerplay. A big thank you to all who made that happen, especially Lee. Then there was the DMG which had really good representation including reps from the new clubs. The group was able to agree its revised  Terms of Reference and, subject to a final check back at the clubs, there was also agreement over the Competition Rules for the Nationals and the Super Series and the dates for these tournaments in 2013 and 2014, all of which means we can get ahead of the game especially with venues for ...
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Job Opportunities

In my last blog I mentioned that I was trying to get ahead of the game with advertising for new posts and you will now see these appearing. The first jobs out will be for two Regional Development Officers each to cover a different part of the country and for a Head of Officiating position. These will be followed by job opportunities for a Performance Director and a Head Coach. All the details for all jobs will be available on this website and on the RFU, UK Sport and Sport England sites. If you are interested in any of the posts then please read the Job Descriptions carefully to confirm that it really is a role you would like and also to ensure you have all the requirements listed. There...
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Plans and New Jobs

Having presented our funding plans to UK Sport and Sport England we now have to wait until December for the decisions on what future funding we may have. That has not stopped us progressing our plans though and the last couple of weeks have been about getting moving in a number of key areas. As many of you will know we are now working with Roma Sports in Bridgend who are developing new chairs for us. The prototypes are out there being used and refined and we will be in a position to purchase some more soon so that we can get new chairs into those clubs who are struggling to meet the demands of the new post London interest. London has helped to provide some spare chairs but I hope to have fou...
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More Support For Clubs

The end of October is always an opportunity for us to take stock. By then we have all of our financial data for the six months - April to September so we can see if we are keeping to our budget; and we are also able to review progress against what we said we would do in our business plan and see how we are getting on. This week I sat down with Kirsty Clarke and Bev Everton and we spent a day on this. We agreed that a lot of what we said we would do this year has been achieved already but as you would expect there is still much more to do in the second part of the year. We have prioritised this work and I have been able to  put some additional money into giving more support to our clubs. ...
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Exciting Times for Bulls and Hawks

It has been a good week. It started last weekend with the North East Bulls who  celebrated their 10th Anniversary in style with a regional tournament. The North East Bulls took the final on Sunday beating the Dragons narrowly by 39-36 in a competition that also saw the Caledonian Crushers in only their second competitive outing. It is really excellent to see that regional tournament taking place and to see Crushers really developing as a new club so well done and congratulations to all teams and to Bulls on their anniversary. At the other end of the country I was able to join the Hawks in Plymouth for their Monday night training session. It was fantastic to see 9 new players and to experi...
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Clubs Agree New League Divisions

A big thank you to Sport Nottinghamshire and Simon Starr for hosting this week's meeting of the Domestic Management Group. The group made up of the club representatives discussed a number of items all about making sure the game lives up to what players want. An important decision taken at this week's meeting was to create two divisions for the league in recognition of the growth of new clubs: Division 1 : Crash A; Storm; Crusaders; Mauraders; Pirates; Warriors Division 2: Crash B; Dragons; Bulls; Crushers; Hawks It is great news that we now have enough clubs for two leagues and even better news that there is still more interest for new clubs in other parts of the country and we are work...
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