President's XV award: Last chance to enter

Letchworth Girls and Welwyn Girls have been successful in the past - can you make it a Hertfordshire hat-trick?

With only three weeks left before this season’s President’s XV Awards close, there is still time to put your club/rugby organisation forward for this year’s awards.

Ability on the pitch does not govern who will win the 15 categories for which the £10,500 in prize money will be awarded - clever ideas, big or small, from any quarter which promote and support the game will be recognised and celebrated. With £500 prize money for the 15 winners and £100 for each of the 30 runners up, the PXV Panel is keen to hear about your imaginative ideas and good practice that continue developing our grassroots game.

The RFU recently launched the promotion of its CORE Values, with the focus on Teamwork, Respect, Enjoyment, Discipline and Sportsmanship and to highlight this, the first of this season’s 15 awards will go to the organisation with an initiative which best promotes these values. All categories embrace the key areas which together contribute to a successful, vibrant club and help to deliver opportunities in all areas of the game; from fundraising and improving facilities, to increasing member numbers and linking with the local community:

1. This Is Rugby
2. More Volunteers
3. More Referees
4. More Coaches
5. Better Facilities
6. Girl Power
7. Social Inclusion
8. Community Links
9. School's Development
10. Play On
11. Veterans
12. Technology
13. Fundraising
14. Young Volunteers (vRugby)
15. Seal of Approval Club of the Year

“The brilliant ideas and schemes that organisations come up never cease to amaze me.” says RFU President John Owen: “Entries for this competition have previously underlined not only the quality of the work being done, but also the extraordinary level of creativity and imagination which is being applied.

“The President’s XV Awards give organisations the opportunity to showcase their good ideas, earn recognition for these ideas and, more importantly, help deliver those benefits to a wider audience.”

The judging panel will be:

• RFU President John Owen
• Immediate Past President Brian Williams
• Senior Vice President Richard Appleby
• Junior Vice President Willie Wildash
• Rugby Football Union for Women President Gill Burns
• England’s most-capped player Jason Leonard
• Paul Morgan, editor of Rugby World magazine.

For full details on the President’s XV schemeand the online nomination form, visit www.rfu.com/presidentsxv. Closing date for this season’s awards is February 2, 2010.