As we go into December there is a real sense that lots of good things are happening and that we are ending the year on a high. Our activity to get more people aware of our sport and playing the game continues to build with sessions at Canterbury, Gloucester and Woodbridge. There is fantastic engagement and support in all three of these areas, particularly from the RFU clubs and from Gloucester University and it will not be long before we have another 3 wheelchair rugby clubs who are ready to join the league. A big thank you to the many volunteers who are helping to make this happen and to the RDOs who are providing invaluable support here – also to Steve Brown who continues to be a great ambassador for us. Steve will also be reading at the ‘Get Kids Going’ Carol Service – a high profile charity event being held on 12 December in the prestigious Guards Chapel, Horseguards. If anyone else would like tickets to attend this event then please email me and I will see what we can do. ‘Get Kids Going’ continue to be a strong supporter of GBWR and I am am grateful to Jane the CEO who has been working with me and who has agreed to further support us with funding next year.
I met up with Matt Hampson and Tommy a week ago and heard more about the great support the Foundation and Leicester Tigers RFU are providing to the Leicester Tigers Wheelchair team. This is a great partnership and it was exciting to see the ambition and enthusiasm Matt has for the players and the club. On 5 December the team will support De Montefort University who are helping to raise awareness for the International Day of Disabled People. The Tigers Marauders will put on a session and hopefully attract further interest in the game. Our thanks to the university which is also the current venue for our GB training sessions. Our congratulations to Mike Brown who won the QBE player of the autumn series – he was a certainty for the title having had a really magnificent series and it was great seeing him play in his preferred position at 15 which enabled him to really thrive. As you will have seen from my note, Mike has donated his £1000 prize to GBWR for us to use for our Youth Programme so a big thank you to him. The DMG met last week and covered a big agenda again. Feedback from the meeting has been good and it is really great to see the group working so well together to help shape our activities and plans. The DMG provide really valuable feedback so please do talk to your club rep if you have anything you want to get across to the management team. In addition to the DMG there was a meeting of all the coaches and for the first time we have been able to introduce the first cut of the GBWR Coaching Strategy which we have been working with Sports Coach UK to develop. This is an important first step towards achieving our aim of developing, retaining and increasing the number of wheelchair rugby coaches. We want to ensure that we can offer an attractive coaching option for anyone who wishes to coach our sport at whatever level. We will be kicking off the implementation of this in the new year with a workshop aimed at about a dozen coaches so watch out for this. Finally, our programme with the Military Recovery Units starts to get underway over the next couple of weeks. This will build on the activity we have been doing in Headley Court where there will be a further session on 5 December but will now start to also deliver in the Recovery Units beginning with Colchester on 4 December and Tedworth in Wiltshire on 6 December. A big thank you to Help For Heroes who are sponsoring this activity. And just to end….much of my time is currently being spent on laying the foundations for the World Wheelchair Rugby Challenge 2015 which will run alongside the Rugby World Cup. This is really starting to shape up now and I am looking forward to being able to share some good news about this soon… David Pond
