Recap of the half season
With close on 900 games appointed to this season, big respect to the appointments and re-appointments teams for Exchange, Sat, Sun and Mid week games. Much of the effort goes entirely under noticed and without these key roles working well we simply would not exist as a society.
Many refs are over 20 games + so far, with Garry Williams getting the special achievement award on Monday night. An Easter bunny seemed fitting at this festive time of the year. Billy "Bin Bag" Coulter had a lot of success also and walked away with the recognition he deserved.
We are now fully fledged members of the RFRU, our constitution has changed and been adopted. We have received funding from the RFU as part of our tender and will continue to be supported by them for the rest of the season.
Training events have been a great mix of the new RFU C-MODs and great wisdom from our referee coaches. Many thanks to Ben D and Fred Howard for their time and impact so far this season. We look forward to more great sessions in 2019.
Our focus on developing young referees and bringing more ladies into the referee side of the game will be focus areas in 2019 and beyond. You help and support will be much appreciated.
We also intend to do more facilitated mid week sessions with clubs in our areas to engage better with coaches/players and to allow referees at all levels to learn and develop using a mixture of events and interventions.
Congratulations to those moving up the grades as announced on Monday night, well done. If you could not attend and if your grade has moved then WTR will be changed to reflect this after the December Appointments and Grading meeting.
2019 will also see a new look end of year Dinner where referees will be provided a free ticket subject to them bringing a paying guest. More details to follow, but our aim is not only to have a great event in May but also to broaden our membership and bring more people into the society.
Finally we are doing a re write on the e-handbook and an electronic version will be available in the New Year to reflect change sin some processes, updates on club contacts and to correct a few typos in the original version.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year