Yorkshire RFU has two Representatives who are elected by the Clubs in the County to sit on the RFU Council. They also participate in Sub-Committees of the RFU which report to the Community Game Board. Keep checking back on a monthly basis as your Reps keep you up to date with relevant matters from the RFU.

January 2018



The next meeting of RFU Council is on Friday, 9th February. This is prior to the England v Wales 6 Nations game on the following day. As part of Council Duties Ted Atkinson has been deployed to Newcastle Falcon for the England v Wales U20s Game.  An alternate will attend the Council Meeting in Ted’s place.

This has been a fairly quiet month, although two significant events took place throughout the month.

CGB Planning Day – at the start of the month Jim Chapman attended the annual Community Game Board Planning Day.  This day tends to centre around budget proposals for the coming year and, as such, it proves a challenging day. Obviously, the actual amounts being discussed must remain confidential as the budget itself has not yet been finalised and will be subject to approval by the RFU Board and Council in May 2018. However, what may be of interest to the CB is that the PFR budget (which in Yorkshire is devolved to Districts) looks likely to remain unchanged from previous year.

Education & Age Grade Conference – this is a bi-annual event which was held at the Holiday Inn, Coventry over two days from  Friday, 19th to Saturday, 20th January.  Jim Chapman (in his capacity as an England Colleges RFU Board Member) was joined by Toni Birch (who sits on the Age Grade Advisory Sub-Committee), colleagues from Craven College (who are a Focus College) and Laura Huntenburg (Chair, RFU National Youth Council). The main focus was on what the “player will look like in 2035” – what will his/her needs be? How will we communicate with them? How will we recruit and retain their interest in Rugby? 
The Keynote speaker was Will Roberts, Operations Director at the Youth Sports Trust and his remarks led to a series of workshops where delegates were broken down according to the types of institutions they represented (schools, clubs, colleges & universities). Not surprisingly, many of the sessions resulted in a call for more utilisation of technology in reaching and communicating with the group of players we looked at and a series of actions were discussed and will be taken forward by RFU Staff.

 Six Nations Championship - We now look forward to the upcoming 6 Nations Championship. I am sure you will all have the relevant dates in your diaries and, if not able to attend, will have your feet up in front of the TV with a suitable beverage by your side.  We hope you enjoy the Championship and let’s hope we can celebrate another Grand Slam come March 17th for Men, U20s and Women’s XVs respectively.



Activities in January (Jim Chapman)

Date

09
CGB Planning Day (Twickenham)
19-20
Education and Age Grade Conference (Holiday Inn, Coventry)
23
YRFU Competitions Sub-Committee (County Office)
25
Competitions Development Sub-Committee
Interview by Nominations Sub-Committee (both Twickenham)
29
North Yorkshire District S-C (Ripon)
30
Women’s Championship Review Group (Twickenham)



Activities in January (Ted Atkinson)

Date

03
Budget Meeting  (Bromsgrove)
17-18
England Students (University of Bath)
25
Club Dinner (Wetherby RUFC)
29
North Yorkshire District S-C (Ripon RUFC)
30-31
Player Development Sub-Committee (Twickenham)


January 2018
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