Old Colfeians
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Old
Colfeians
O
ld Colfeians Rugby club is
committed to creating an
atmosphere where people
can enjoy their rugby at a competitive
level that suits them whilst also providing
an active social calendar. Rugby Club
Magazine recently caught up with their
Chairman, Dave Hodgkiss, to find out
more about the good work that they’ve
been doing lately.
Involvement
He told us, “I have been a member for
many years first joining the squash section
at the club. My son then started to play
for the club and my interest grew, having
taken on various roles I am now the
Chairman with a great team of volunteers
making the club a great place to be.”
The Role
“The development of our Youth
teams through into the Senior sides is,
as for many clubs, a challenge, but we
are now seeing a number of last year’s
Colts playing in the Senior sides joining
others who moved across before. This is
a reward for the volunteers in our Minis
and Juniors, plus a great thing for the
whole club to see.
60 Issue 58
Atmosphere
“The club has gone through some
major changes over the past two years,
but the same Ethos has been maintained
which is enabling us to be a family
orientated club with strong links into the
local community and schools.
The off-season has been good for
us with new ideas introduced, plans
for a girls section finalised, All Schools
programme
confirmed,
pre-season
training camp for all senior sides plus
plans made for the World Cup. New
players have been welcomed and our preseason training for senior sides and colts
has been going well. This season we want
to consolidate our position in the leagues
we play in, aiming to finish as high as we
can. Expanding again our Minis, Juniors
and Colts and starting a Girls Section are
our main aims.”
Youth
“We decided some time ago to invest
a lot of our resource into Youth rugby,
we appointed a dedicated resource to our
Youth Section with an aim of reaching
out to more local schools and improving
the quality of the offering we provided
at the club both in Coaching and general
outreach.
This worked very well and it has now
developed into our acceptance on the RFU
All Schools programme. Most importantly
it has brought new members along to the
club at all ages but in particular at the 15
plus age groups.”
Community
“We are very much a community
club, although still having a strong link
to Colfes School we are an open club with
links into many community groups. As
part of the much bigger sporting club at
Horn Park our outreach is even stronger
as we can offer something for most people
to come along and enjoy.”
Challenges
“Our biggest challenges include
professionalism and what it means for a
club such as ours, maintaining a strong
financial model which enables us to be
a community based asset for rugby at
grassroots and working with other clubs
and organisations to get and maintain
young people’s interest in our great
game.”