Hope you are enjoying the heatwave and training hard! Rugby seems a long time away but it’s only a few weeks before the warm-up games commence!! No pun intended!

The 2018 season ﬁnished with a fabulous Annual Dinner & Presentation evening: well supported, well organised (thank you Lou Goodall), a great speaker in Geordan Murphy and celebrating 20 years of Ladies Rugby at Newbury. Congratulations to all the Awards winners and thanks to those who’ve helped and all who’ve volunteered at the Club over the year. A special thanks to Lee Goodall and Bob Ward for all their eﬀorts over the last 5 years in rebuilding rugby belief and player depth after diﬃcult times.

Apart from the huge disappointment that the ﬁrst team was relegated despite winning half their games and twice beating three of the top four teams, overall the Club has had a good year and stands in a superb position to move on next season and cement itself as the premier community rugby facility in West Berkshire. The ﬁrst team are a good group of guys and are keen to stick together, build on last season’s experiences and continue to entertain 350 supporters every Saturday - we look forward to cheering them on. A big welcome to our new head coach Paul Archer who will be heading up the coaching team with a brief to expand and support all the senior sides and secure the highest standard of rugby we can attain. We also welcome and thank Mick Futcher for becoming the 1st team manager; and Brian Lee who will assist the 2nd and 3rd teams as manager.

So to the AGM at the end of June. The elections were held without too many changes to the Officers, Committee and Trustees; Adam Prickett has been co-opted by the Committee to the Treasurer’s role; and Trevor Coles became Vice President. Also at the AGM, Members received a presentation on “The 5-year Plan”; so titled but really the long-term future of the Club which the Trustees were charged with coordinating and Steve Gibbs, Chairman of Trustees, put forward a very concise report. Brieﬂy the sale of the last piece of land has allowed to Club to invest a sum of money which will be an untouchable nest egg and not used to bail out the day-to-day running of the Club. The future of the Club is that it MUST live within its means.

Letting of part of the building surplus to our needs will raise additional income and a new lease being signed with West Berkshire Council (which will restrict some car parking space but is a compromise we have taken) will produce long-term revenue. Barnaby Atkinson, a Newbury rugby man, has been employed to target Sponsorship. These two factors will help ensure that we break even: the letting income will be used to secure the running of the building; and the Sponsorship used to develop and strengthen Rugby at the Club. The conference facility produces 80% of our income (great eﬀort by the way over recent years from Steve and his team), so a number of improvements are being carried out to the entrance hall, Kickers bar and Wickens Suite to further enhance the potential Club facilities. Of course, Rugby is what we are about and no-one will lose sight of that; but it has to pay to support itself which is why new Sponsorship and your Membership support is key.

On the pitches, two new Mini pitch areas east of the Clubhouse are under construction and will be completed in September 2019 as part of the land deal. Pitch 5 has been drained and will be operational from September and funds have also been allocated for Pitch 1, although work will be deferred until next summer.

So the plan will improve playing facilities; will improve income levels through conferencing; will improve the integrity of the building; and will allow coaching investment to improve playing standards for the whole Club. There is a springboard to move forward but we must live within our means so that we have the best rugby we can provide for our family and friends and guests. A Club without debt should be a fun place to spend some time. Training has started. New players are very welcome on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Finally, a Golf Day with the players and members is planned for mid-August (please let me know if you might be interested on dwsjones@hotmail.co.uk).

Just six weeks to the start of the league matches!

Come on you Blues!!

David Jones
President

(July 2018)