Congratulations to Kent Crusaders who not only won the Division 1 Super Series 3 at Kent over the weekend but also topped their Division to become 2013 Coloplast Champions. It was a close run thing with Storm gaining the same number of points as Crusaders but losing on goal difference. Crash with 22 points were 6 points behind the leaders. In Division 2 Bulls came out top in Kent and also went on to become Division 2 Super Series Champions for 2013 with 34 points. West Coast Burn were in second place with 28 points, just topping Dragons who also had 28 points but lost out on points earned between the Burns-Dragons games. It has been a great Super Series – the standard of play is increasing all the time and it is good to have more teams and players involved. Congratulations to the Hawks and Crushers for coming through their first Super Series – you have been a great addition to the competition and hopefully you will have gained a lot from it. So things now move on to the Nationals at the Dome in Doncaster in 2 weeks time. This is a new venue for us and it will be good to take the competition to a different part of the country. As well as the competition itself, we will be organising an informal buffet with an awards presentation over the weekend so do get your votes in for all the categories. This week sees the GB squad come together in Leicester for one of their camps in preparation for the start of the international season which begins in Denmark on 4 June. Congratulations to Alan Ash who will captain the team for the first wave of competitions where his experience will be invaluable. As we continue to build the new Performance system it has been good to welcome Andrea Snowdon as Performance and Operations Manager – her wealth of experience in elite and olympic sport will be a great benefit. At the moment I am deep into all of the end of financial year business preparations. The annual audit of our accounts is currently being undertaken by Mazars and I am busy writing our Annual Report and preparing for the AGM. This year it is being held at Brunel University in London at 7pm on 21 June, the night before the Challenge Cup which will be a Powerplay tournament also held in Brunel. The full details of the AGM and the Powerplay will be out soon but I hope as many Members as possible will make the AGM which gives you an opportunity to hear from the Board and staff and to present your views. A big thank you to all who have helped with the various ‘fun in a chair’ days and to those who alongside Roma provided the rugby opportunities at the Naidex exhibition especially Amanda and Dave Anthony who met his match with 5 year old Charlotte!
David Pond
