Dear all,
I hope you are all keeping well now the sun has started to shine.
Help our former CEO in his efforts to support Ukraine refugees
As some of you may have seen our former CEO David Pond was recently out in Poland supporting the relief effort at the border. He and his team were successful in raising £45,000 to purchase ambulances, medicine, and medical equipment. He has now started a crowdfunding page to raise additional funding to support the ongoing effort while he establishes his charity ukraine1st.co.uk. Ukraine1st.co.uk will enable David to gain access to further sources of funding to support the humanitarian effort.
We would like to support David in his efforts to raise funds and hope you can do the same. Please contribute to this effort either by donating to the cause, or simply by sharing to raise awareness.
Paralympic league
Our Premiership Paralympic league concluded on the 8 May with West Coast Crash being crowned champions. They had secured the title back in April. It has been a challenging and very condensed season due to the lack of availability of venues due to a surge of bookings post COVID. Thank you so much to all our players, coaches, officials, volunteers, and supporters for your commitment over this period and I am glad that we were able to get through the season with relatively few hiccups. We have begun the process of reviewing the competition format for 2022/23 and beyond and taken into consideration the feedback we received at the March Club Forum for a return to the two-day format. The team are currently putting costs together and we shall report back as soon as we have more information to share with you.
World Games
We have now selected our squad to take part in the World Games in Birmingham Alabama this July. Thank you to all who expressed interest to be part of this squad. We are excited to be part of the inaugural addition of low-point wheelchair rugby to the World Games. Information on how to watch will be shared once released. Click here to see the squad announcement.
Canada Cup and Tri Nations
The GB team will be spending the Jubilee bank holiday weekend in Canada for the highly competitive Canada Cup in Vancouver. They will be competing against the current European Champions France, Japan, Canada, USA, and Australia. This will be a great opportunity for the GB team to continue building towards the World Championships. The schedule has been announced here. From there the squad will move onto the Tri Nations in July being held in Birmingham, Alabama which is directly after the World Games. It is going to be a busy summer for the GB squad.
One year to go to the Euros 2023
It is just under a year to go until we host the 2023 World Wheelchair Rugby European Championship at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff. At the 4 May board meeting we discussed in depth the innovative plans to build a wheelchair rugby court stadium on the field of the Principality. We are all very excited for this to come to life. There is an ambitious legacy plan as part of the project with that aims to use the Euros as a way to drive engagement and awareness of wheelchair rugby, build and strengthen local and national partnerships, which enable the consistent long term growth of wheelchair rugby in Wales. This will be achieved in partnership with local businesses, schools, and rugby clubs. Additionally, we will be launching a new competition the Welsh Open as part of the Swansea Para Sport festival in August. More details to come on that new event shortly.
New roles
As you may have seen we are currently advertising a new role for the development team – the club development manager. This is a key role which will be supporting clubs across the country to develop their clubs across areas such as recruitment, sponsorship, and governance. An increase in the more specialised role will enable us to support clubs in a more targeted fashion and provide them with the expertise required to improve the areas important to you on an individual basis. We are also looking for a new trustee to join our board to lead on welfare and safety in sport. This is a role required as part of the new Sport England Code for Sports Governance. You can find more information on how to apply for either of these roles here.
Digital Club Handbook and workshops
Our new Digital Club Handbook will be released in the next few weeks which aims to support clubs to develop their digital presence supporting efforts to recruit new members and attract local sponsorship. This handbook will be supported by online workshops to help you navigate the handbook, ask questions, and get the most out of the resource. Be sure to sign up once the invites are released.
Collaborations
If you’ve been on our Instagram over the last few months, you will have seen some great stories from a few of our players who have cerebral palsy (CP) or multiple sclerosis (MS) as part of the awareness months/weeks for those conditions. We will continue to support awareness months/weeks going forward to reach more people and share the stories of our members that highlight the benefits of being involved in wheelchair rugby. GBWR is also in the process of building stronger relationships with charities that support individuals with a wide range of conditions
Women’s wheelchair rugby research in collaboration with Loughborough University
Vicky Tolfrey and the team at Loughborough University will be working with us over May and June to conduct research on female wheelchair rugby players. The research aims to determine what training adaptations are needed to ensure female players develop optimally, and if the current 0.5 point on-court addition is the best rule for female players. World Wheelchair Rugby is supportive of this research and keen to explore any potential rule changes that the research recommends. If you are a female player and are yet to be contacted and would like to part in the research, please contact us at info@gbwr.org.uk.
We have a busy few months ahead and we will begin increasing the frequency of our communications to ensure you are all kept up to date on the goings-on across the leagues, GB team, and organisation.
All the best,
Jason Brisbane
CEO GBWR
