• last year
Transcript
00:00So I'm here to really set the scene about what we're doing today so I'm not
00:07gonna be doing any dancing or singing now I may be doing a bit of singing
00:10later on after a couple of pints okay so so I'm just gonna set the scene around
00:15what we're doing what the purpose of the day is. So what are the recruitment and
00:21retention challenges for us in the community game and it's these three
00:25things so we need more match officials we need more volunteers and we need more
00:31players so how do we do that it's very simple to say it but how do we actually
00:36do it and how do we how do we recruit those people and then actually keep them
00:39in the game as well. So just a couple of thoughts around that. So we want to
00:44develop great environments we want to sorry people to be coming to the
00:51rugby club coming to the hub whatever it is to have a great
00:55time enjoy themselves and really be engaged in what they're doing not just
00:59from a on field point of view but also from an on off field point of view as
01:04well so really important that community spirit etc etc so so we wanted to have
01:08great environment so to get those great environments we need really good
01:12leadership in our clubs so that's really important and we need really good
01:16coaches or people who can engage and keep them in the game and have those
01:21great experiences because that will add a sense of belonging for people.
01:27Today we'll be involved in rugby I'm sure you've been involved in rugby for
01:30you know many years it's coming back it's those friendships you've got it's
01:35all those other things apart from the great game that we've got on the field
01:39as well so behavior is a really important part of how we develop our
01:43game. So what are the opportunities to grow our game? The first one is parents
01:49and Camilla's going to talk about parents in sport later. Parents we've got
01:54hundreds of parents thousands of parents in Wales who are out on a Saturday
01:59afternoon maybe or a Sunday afternoon or a Sunday morning watching supporting
02:04doing everything they can to support their children in the game so there's a
02:09great opportunity there to engage those people as volunteers within the club and
02:14we've got to look at it and go how do we do that so what are the key things we
02:17can do to do that so again going back to those great environments if we've got
02:21a good environment and people want to do something or they're actually asked to
02:24do something or they put their hand up then great let's get them in a tent
02:27let's make sure that they partner what we do so it's really important that we
02:31engage people in terms of parents okay. Promotion and perception so you've only
02:37got to look on some of the media outlets in Wales to see the negativity sometimes
02:41around Welsh rugby actually there's a lot of positivity there's a lot of good
02:46work that goes on in Welsh rugby so we need to promote the positive aspect the
02:50positive narrative that's really important for us so that promotion and
02:54perception so if we get the opportunity to talk about rugby let's be engaged in
02:59it let's be really passionate about it let's sell the game you know we've all
03:03got a responsibility to that and really important that we do that and then
03:08coming back to environment so how do we make our environment safe making sure
03:12that we've got qualified coaches coaches that are vetted coaches that are
03:16competent coaches are engaging coaches that can engage with children coach
03:20children on the field and engage parents and other people within the club off the
03:25field again for those that support and volunteers it might just be putting the
03:29flags out it might be cooking the burgers whatever it is but there's
03:32always a job to do in a rugby club and it's really important that we engage as
03:36many of those parents as volunteers as we can it's a great opportunity for us
03:40and the final one for us is facilities so making sure that our Angharad's
03:45don't she's here yet but Angharad's come in who's head of places and from from a
03:50facilities point of view really important we got good facilities because
03:54people will want to come back to that facility so and we know you know we're
03:58from it in terms of Wales we economically disadvantaged you know we
04:02got some really difficult decisions to make but how do we strategically look at
04:06facilities and and make make the best of that okay so that takes me on to the
04:13purpose of the day okay so these are the four aspects that we're going to talk
04:17about today and people far more qualified than me you can who can talk
04:22about these and we can discuss and debate these through the day so this
04:25suppose of the purpose of the day is how do we support our match officials what
04:30can we do better to support our match officials so we can recruit more we can
04:34retain more how do we support and recruit parents as volunteers so how do
04:39we do that what can we do those great environments let's make sure that they're
04:42engaged they're in the tent with us yeah we're all part of the same we're all
04:46we're all we've got the same philosophy about what we want we want their kids to
04:50have a great great opportunity a great experience but we also want them to have
04:54a great experience and develop that sense of belonging that we've talked
04:57about how do we support players and create a great athlete environment and
05:03going to talk about that later on from our point of view so really important
05:06you know we've seen changes in habits and behaviors of players perhaps
05:11sometimes they want to play as much as they wanted to so you know some weekends
05:14they might say okay I want a couple of weeks off I don't play you know so we've
05:18got to think about that how do we how do we are we agile around that what can we
05:22do to support that and make sure that we make this this great game continue and
05:26we grow it within Wales and then finally how do we develop safe inclusive and
05:32welcoming environments in our game and Simon will talk about that later on
05:36that's really important because if somebody has got that sensibility they
05:40feel part of something that's greater than themselves then we don't know winner
05:44so really important that we get these things and debate these today so what do
05:50I want what we'd like from you today so first thing is listening to the speakers
05:55and they got some we'll have some really good engaging speakers here today we
05:59want discussion and we want debate that's really important but let's be
06:03respectful when we discuss and debate okay we want lots of questions so we've
06:07got a Q&A right at the end so that's really important but in the middle we've
06:11got breakout rooms so people will be will be speaking and discussing the
06:15issues in those breakout rooms and one of the things one of the outcomes we
06:19want we want ideas we want innovation we want solutions so not everything is bad
06:24in our game lots of people sell it and say oh this is going wrong in rugby this
06:28is going wrong in rugby actually we talk about discipline and we cover that
06:33off on a weekly basis and talking about where the issues are where our pinch
06:38points are and one of the things we talk about is 90% of our games happen on a
06:42on a Saturday on a weekend where there is no disciplinary outcome where
06:48actually people are behaving themselves so from our point of view there's a
06:53positive narrative there and not a negative narrative and from for me
06:56that's what we need to be in the positive narrative. Thank you very much.