Counties Lead the Way West Mids has played host to the same county sides every year as far as girls U15s and U18s has been concerned. However, this year, thanks to the work of the North Mids W & G forum, both Shropshire and Greater Birmingham have managed to ensure that youth activity has provided them with players for county activity. Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Warwickshire, Gtr Birmingham and Shropshire all put girls forward for the tournament that took place on 14th December 08 at Southam RFC. The tournament was the result of the hard work of volunteer Nadine Attwell (Warwickshire female ref) and Matt Smith from Southam RFC who organised everything about the day. All girls and volunteers found the day to be a huge success – if a little cold and wet and are already looking forward to the next event in Dec 09. 
Seniors Follow in Youth Team Footsteps With the success of the youth CB work led by Ken James (Paviors) and Mick Kemp (North Hykeham), Claire McGinley (Derby) decided to pull together the first ever NLD senior Ladies side. Thanks to support from the W & G forum and from the NLD CBRDP, Claire enlisted the support of coach Simon Jones (Staffs) and they both managed and coached a squad of 30+ senior players from the NLD area to their first triangular tournament, where they drew with Staffs seniors and beat Leicestershire seniors. This programme – thanks to Claire and Simon’s hard work – is set to continue again from September ’09.
| Youngsters secure funding for Oxfordshire Girls Rugby Players from the U18 Oxfordshire Girls Cluster team have made a successful application to the Youth Opportunities Fund (YOF). Girls rugby in Oxfordshire has been on a rapid rise in terms of the numbers of girls playing the game, the number of matches being arranged and the number of clubs offering rugby for girls. Much of this is down to the hard work of the club volunteers who work closely together to make sure there are regular fixtures for the girls at club or County level. The U18 players decided it was time to do some work themselves and held a meeting to work on a project plan to access funding from YOF. The announcement the England will host the 2010 Women’s Rugby World Cup has generated much excitement and the girls saw this as the perfect target to work towards. Knowing that the profile of the World Cup will raise interest in the game, the girls have planned for meeting the demand for Girls Rugby in season 2010-2011. The plan includes providing kit and equipment to run effective sessions, putting more people on coaching courses, ensuring volunteers are trained in First Aid, and accessing other courses such as Business or Management Skills.
Oxfordshire County Council was on hand at Witney RFC to present a cheque for £3,000 to fund the project. Wasps and England A Captain, Claire Purdy was invited to attend and she congratulated the girls on their achievement and wished them success with the project. Claire then offered some coaching guidance to the players before watching the two cluster matches
RFUW Toolkit Success
In 2008 the RFUW made £7,500 available for clubs through the Club Development Toolkit Fund. 60 clubs applied for the funding and the RFUW was delighted to award 8 clubs with £500 each and 14 with £250 each. The successful clubs have been working hard to put their money to good use and many projects have now been completed. Newquay RFC was awarded £500 to increase the numbers of U15 girls at the club by introducing girls to U12’s rugby initially. They have been running mini’s training sessions on Friday nights with 2 coaches, a first aider and a manager present. They have been training with the U11 boys and have just begun playing matches with them. They were going to set up their own team, but have become such an integral part of the boys’ side that they didn’t want to let them go! The girls will be introduced to U15s training at the end of this season to prepare them for the step up the following season.
This project has also been taken out into local schools, with the lead coach doing sessions to prepare them for the Emerging Schools competition. Hampstead RFC was given an award of £250 to improve the recruitment and retention of Senior players. The 15 new players they have recruited surpassed their aim of 10 in their original application. They have been innovative in their approach; they have created their own website, ensured weekly emails are sent out and have used some of the Toolkit Fund to produce fliers advertising their club. Their new recruits have commented on the new resources and feel that this had enhanced the approachability of the club. They have also employed a new coach for one of their weekly training sessions and paid for a fitness coach to work with the players in pre-season. This obviously paid off as they are currently sitting 2nd in their league, following their promotion last season!
Awards Galore! The RFUW was pleased to award the first annual Sue Garnett Volunteer of the Year award in October to Peter McCullough from Herts and Welwyn Girls. Peter won his award for his outstanding contribution to improving the standards and levels of participation in women and girls sport. Peter received his award from RFU President Brian Williams at the RFU Constituent Body Leaders Conference. The contribution of 2 further volunteers was also recognised as Paula Brotherhood (Leicestershire) and Steve Lumb (Barnsley) were presented with Outstanding Volunteer awards.
Clubs have also been getting in on the action with Paviors U15 girls being named the Junior Club Team of the Year at the Gelding Borough Sports Awards. The girls only started playing together in the 2007/08 season and played 13 matches with ten wins and one draw. They entered the RFUW National Competition and won the Midlands section. This season has also started well for them winning all five games played so far, with three wins out of three in the Notts, Lincs & Derby Cluster League and also two wins in two friendly matches.
Youth Cluster League off to a Flying Start!
Due to the hard work of the club volunteers in the Notts, Lincs and Derby area, the Women and Girls forum decided that it would be beneficial for the clubs with girls youth sections in the area to participate in a friendly merit table. In this way, the teams could guarantee fixtures for many of their match weekends and a small trophy could be played for.
Thanks to the commitment of volunteers such as Ken James (Paviors), Claire McGinley (Chair of W & G committee and Derby player) and Melvyn Ashton (NLD RFU youth volunteer and member of W & G forum), the friendly league is now 3 matches in with 4 to play. All club volunteers work hard to ensure the fixtures are honoured and Melvyn Ashton keeps a record of the results. 7 teams at both age-groups from across the Midlands East region are benefiting from these fixtures and enjoying the experience.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment