Hereford
Community
“I would definitely consider our Club to be a huge
part of our community and we have strong links with
all the local schools and leisure centres, utilising some of
their facilities when Mother Nature throws her hat in the
ring with bad weather or floods, and then returning the
favour where we can.”
Challenges
“Our biggest ongoing challenge at the moment is that
we are located on the banks of the beautiful River Wye,
which unfortunately floods quite regularly throughout
the year. Each season we lose several weekends to
flooded or unplayable pitches.
I also think the biggest challenge facing not only our
Club but clubs like ours up and down the country is the
need to keep the lines of revenue open and varied. What
we don’t want to do is keep asking the same parents,
supporters and patrons of the Club for money for this
and money for that, we would rather invite them to join
with us in the activities that we host throughout the
season. Thus again, cementing and extending our rugby
family.
Clearly the RFU need to ensure local clubs respond
appropriately on changes to rules, regulations and
importantly legislation, whilst we can see sense in some
of them the assumption on the part of the RFU that local
clubs have the resilience to cope with these increasing
pressures is not grounded in reality, society not just
rugby clubs rely heavily on volunteers and so the pool
is rapidly being eroded. We are seriously concerned
that the potential financial implications are a threat to
community level rugby.”
Ambitions
“Our immediate plans are to focus on our whole club
on field successes and to conclude our preparations for
our 150th anniversary in 2020-21. Our mid-term activity
is to support our longer-term strategic aim of relocating
our club to a purpose-built facility, an opportunity
presented through local development plans. Whilst this
has been ongoing for a number of years with its obstacles
along the way we are confident that we will see further
progress during the next year.”
www.rugbyclubmag.com
23