Welcome to all our members, just a brief message to keep you all updated on current club progress.
As you are all well aware with a club the size of ours there is so much happening that sometimes its hard to keep everybody up to speed on what’s going on.
Hopefully this will help to bring you all up to speed.

• On the playing front our 1st XV are having an excellent season and sitting (as this is written) in 4th place in the RFU Midland 2 (North) league.
We like many other clubs, are finding it difficult to maintain 3 senior sides every week. Covid has taken its toll on players availability on the last 2 years.
However, our playing committee works endlessly week in week out to get games for as many players as possible.

Great efforts from Tim Barker, Richard Byrom, Ben Wells and Rowen Allen.

We now have the bonus of working with the RFU rule change, that allows our 17-year-olds colts to play senior rugby.
Transitioning these young players at the right time is so important. To this end our Senior coaches have been working very closely with our Colts coaching team to make sure that this is done correctly.
Great work guys!

Rugby is well and truly back on the curriculum and being played regularly within Magnus CofE Academy, Newark Academy, Sir William Robertson Academy, The Priory Academy and Tuxford Academy.
Richard Byrom (Local Schools Development Manager) continues to lead our Local Schools programme which has gone from strength to strength in both Secondary and Primary schools.
I'm really pleased to advise that Ben Ennals has joined Richard Byrom and Jed Chapple on the Local Schools coaching team and is delivering coaching in our recently opened Secondary school in Fernwood, Balderton, The Suthers Academy. Weekly Secondary school festivals are being coordinated by Richard at Kelham Road and throughout the season, core skills and capabilities have improved progressing to full contact games now being played in all year group festivals.

In Jan 2022 we started our 5th Primary School cohort - introducing tag rugby, often for for very first time to pupils as young as year 3!
Three additional Primary schools have recently joined the Programme, including Lovers Lane, The Kings CofE Academy (Hawtonville) and the newly opened Christ Church CofE Primary School (Middlebeck).
We are now connected with 14 local primary schools across the Newark & District area with our 3rd festival scheduled on 17th March 2022 at Kelham road.

This significant investment is helping our Mini, Youth and Girls sections to buck the national trend, our membership has seen an 10% increase this season (2021-22) and at an all-time high with over 440 registered members!

Look out on our website to keep up to date with all our young players results and particularly our competitive NLD games currently taking place.

• We are currently working on a new Whole Club Strategic Review that will encompass all aspects of the club to try and plan where we are going in the short, medium and long term.
This is proving to be an arduous task and we hope to have completed review and in place to present to our membership before the start of the 2022/23 season.

• To comply with forthcoming RFU directives we are implementing “a best practice health care provision” for players and all people associated with the club.
A working group has been active, focusing on the overall plan.
We are fortunate to have enlisted the services of Dr Adam Brookes who has volunteered to become the Clubs “Rugby Safe Officer”.
Adam is a father in our Under 13s age group.
I am also pleased to announce that Lizzie Burton-Wareing is now our Health and Wellbeing Administrator, reporting to Adam.
We are still looking to fill the Venue First Aider role. See our website for details (http://alturl.com/ydvcg).
I am also happy to say that we have had donated, a second defibrillator and two advanced first aid kits. The second defibrillator will be placed in or by the score board.

• A club of our size as you are well aware needs to generate income on an ongoing basis. The costs incurred are not getting any smaller. We have managed to generate good streams of income from hiring out our facilities, events such as bonfire night, and taking on extras such as the work we have put into at Newark Showground events.
Massive thanks to all the volunteers who have supported the club.
We cannot stop, our focus is supporting rugby and it comes at a cost.
Please continue to help. Thank you.

• The Facilities team, supported by The Tuesday team, continue to keep our facilities well maintained and presentable for members and visitors.
A big thanks to David Rhodes for his sterling work giving us pitches to play and train on.
We have just started a Green Project which will see us planting trees and placing bird nesting and feeding stations around the grounds.
Thanks to The Sakura Cherry Tree project and The Sherwood Forest trust who have donated 40 trees to us.

Please respect our wonderful facilities and help us by keeping them clean and tidy when visiting.

If any member has any queries/questions regarding club matters pleas do not hesitate to ask either drop an email to chairman@newarkrugby.com or maybe catch me in the bar for a chat!

Dave Duddles
Chairman Newark Rugby Club

________________________

David Pick
Director of Facilities