It really feels as if we have upped our pace over the last few weeks and are now powering towards 2018 with a host of activities between now and the end of year. My last blog was a few days before our fundraising weekend at Sevenoaks rugby club. I am sure you will have seen the press release on the website which was picked up in this month’s edition of ‘Touchline’ the monthly magazine of the RFU. It was just such a fun event, especially the Sunday which saw all the various youth age groups from U7 through to U11 break from their games to get in a chair and try out wheelchair rugby. One of the dad’s who runs a marquee business had kindly laid a wooden floor on the Sevenoaks pitch and in bright autumn sunshine over 250 young rugby players came through to either have a go or question Johnny Coggan, Ollie Mangion and Chris Ryan, all of who did a great job. My thanks to them but also to Stuart McLindon who organised and coached a seemingly endless stream of young people, and to Lee Stutley who as always kept us all on track including retraining me after I managed to tape a pair of gloves back to front on a young player! The event raised over £7500 towards our Tokyo target which is amazing. This came as a result of a number of fundraising initiatives over the weekend including a lunch, which was also attended by our Chairman Kevin Aitchison and Trustee Simon Le’Fevre, a ‘buy a pint for GB’ campaign and a raffle with some very generous prizes put up including the use of a villa for a week in Spain. I cannot thank the club and its members enough for the huge effort they put in to make the weekend such a success, and also Lucy Jones our own Head Fundraising. But the story does not quite end there. Kate Digweed, who attended the lunch and who keeps racehorses has pledged GBWR all race winnings her horse called Rothman earns this season. Rothman obviously realised we needed his help to get the team to Tokyo and on the Monday after the pledge he came in second at the Plumpton races, earning GBWR just over £950! So we can now all genuinely say that we have a part share in a racehorse this year! Rothman next runs on Monday 20th again at Plumpton so fingers crossed and I may even have a bet myself! A big thank you to Kate for supporting us in this unusual way.
Last weekend we had the first of the new talent identification weekends. There were 12 athletes selected to go to the southern/midlands sessions held in Birmingham and a further 12 for the sessions in Sheffield. Our lead talent coach is Darren Mathews who, as an assistant coach to the GB team, means we have a seamless link into the elite programme. Alan Ash is the talent assistant coach and it’s great to see him using his long experience of representing GB to coach the international players of the future. Gary Banks in the south and Danny Dawoud in the north are leading the coaching in the Regional Talent Centres. The weekend was a great success and I noticed some very positive comments from athletes on social media – especially from Faye West at Westcountry Hawks. The coaches will now review all of the athletes who took part and will select 12 to go forward to the talent pathway. A big thank you to Sport England who is funding our talent work. It is really exciting to have the full talent pathway up and running and it makes it even more important for us to continue fundraising so that we maintain a strong GB squad and programme so that our talented athletes have something to aspire to.
Today I have come from a photo shoot at the Lloyd’s building, home of the insurance institution Lloyd’s of London. It is located on the former site of East India House in Lime Street, in London’s main financial district, the City of London. The building was one of the most innovative buildings of its time in London and is still one of the most unique buildings in London. It was a real privilege today to be permitted to have a photographic session to capture images of Ollie Mangion and Ayaz Bhuta in action amongst the brokers on the brokerage floor. The photos, taken by internationally renown photographer Ian Jones, was for a press release ahead of a fundraising event at Lloyd’s on Thursday 23rd. We are hugely grateful to Inga Beale, CEO Lloyd’s for hosting the event in the building next week. It will see the GB squad play the Lloyd’s Rugby team and also provide opportunities for people from the insurance industry to jump in a chair and have a go. Among the guests for the evening will be friends from the Japanese Embassy and also the Chair of UK Sport and Olympic rowing medallist, Katherine Grainger. We hope the event will encourage some in the industry to invest in the GB squad and support it through to Tokyo. The GB squad and staff will show the NGB’s support for Stonewall’s ‘Rainbow Laces’ campaign, by wearing rainbow headbands or laces during the evening.
Yesterday we launched the Quad Rugby tournament which we will host in the Leicester Arena in March. Martyn Salt has been commissioned to manage the event and he is already well advanced with his planning. We hope to be able to announce the teams taking part by the end of the month but suffice to say we expect them to include the best in the world. Martyn has already put up a website and twitter feed so it would be worth following these as more tournament details are revealed. We have plans for this to be a top class event and want to get ticket sales launched in the next couple of weeks.
//www.wrquadnations.com https://twitter.com/@wrquadnations
Next week we have the AGM and a chance for you to hear the progress against our business plan and to question the board and senior management team on our performance last year and our plans going forward. I know that Kirsty has a DMG during just before the AGM so I hope that as many of you as possible will be able to come to the AGM and join up with your DMG representative. Those unable to come but who want to vote on the resolutions can submit a proxy vote and the details of how to do this are on the website now.
So as I said at the start there is no let up as we move towards the end of the year. After a difficult start to 2017 I am already feeling that we are in a very good place and am optimistic that 2018 is going to be a year to remember for all the right reasons!
David Pond
