Womens & Girls Development within Counties: The way forward"

The following is a paper discussion from Amanda Bate, who until recently ran things in the county, but has now been "called upstairs" to cast her magic across East Region and London North. It will be discussed at tonight's meeting:

Recently the 5 WRDM’s , who cover the whole of England, discussed ways of helping county groups to plan the development of W&G rugby in counties.

Eventually the RFUW and the RFU will merge and the better infrastructure W&G have the easier this merge will be.

Herts, like some other counties has really developed in the past 3 or so years, helped by the formation of the forum. However, it was felt, and I agreed, in the case of Herts, that the forum, in its informal guise has just about run its course. For those of you at the inception of the forum, may remember that attendance and the number of clubs represented was much higher then, than it has been in the last 6 months or so. The forum used to plan and feed back, but the last few have just been general discussion and nothing taken forward as a group, apart from the county teams, but of course, clubs, individually have been very pro-active in some cases.

An idea has been discussed and I would like to see if Herts could do it and be a pilot study in a way. Devon and Cornwall are interested in having a go. Read the Management structure idea and development plan and see what you think. You can adjust both to fit your needs.

At first reading you may think this is too big a project to take on, and you may be right, in which case feel free to go on as you are. However, if you want, or feel the need to have a better structure, maybe this is the way forward. I have begun a development plan, but the plan must be what you as a group want. If it is, it will serve to keep you focused and your work will be measurable. If it’s not a plan you want, nothing will be achieved from it.

Women and Girls Management Group
Structure:

• Chairperson
• Secretary
• Treasurer
• Funding/sponsorship Officer
• Press/communications Officer
• Volunteer Co-ordinator
• Coaching Officer (to sit on or be in contact with CB RDP coaching committee)
• Referee Officer
• Welfare Officer (to have contact with county Welfare Officer, or Welfare Officer to sit on this committee)
• CB RDP representative, or someone from CB RDP sits on this committee.

Also, people to lead on the development of:

• U12’s
• U15’S
• U18’S
• Senior
• Competitions and Events Officer.

Of course it may be that the treasurer is also the funding officer, the press officer is also the secretary…i.e. use skills people already have. But it is also fairly certain that new volunteers will need to be sought from within your clubs. (For guidance, the HSP website has job description templates on it, should this sort of information be needed. In fact google any of these committee positions and templates, guidance notes will be found.)

This group, would, with help and support from the WRDM, write a development plan for the development of the county. This would include age group development, coach development, volunteer development as well as county teams development.

The development plan can be as simple or as complex as the Management decide they can handle. Once agreed it would be passed to the CB RDP for their acceptance. Once a year it would be evaluated and revised, each time feedback being given to the Herts Exec via the CB RDP. This should ensure that W&G rugby is taken seriously and becomes included properly and totally within the entire county rugby structure and planning.

A General Forum

It is suggested that once at the beginning and again, maybe half way through, the season a general forum is held. The first part of the forum could be a workshop. Say on, form filling around affiliation, or funding applications etc, and then an hour on the questions and answers Parents, players, coaches, and other interested parties could be invited to this.

Support from the WRDM.

Amanda would aim at this,

• to write a development plan for the group to adjust as they see fit.
• to attend meetings of the group when invited, if possible.
• to help provide volunteer training
• to help with funding applications
• to help with the general forums

Amanda also envisages that possibly at the RFUW Regional conferences, members or representatives from the county management groups could get together and find out what each county is doing. If counties have similar set ups they could be very beneficial to each other.