This is the first of our newsletters which we hope will help draw you all closer to the club's aims and goals as we have much to do in the future and cannot fulfill this without a healthy membership of people who have the club’s best interests at heart.

What's Been Going On?

You may not have seen the significant steps taken by the club lately, but the conventional formal rugby club committee has been joined by a team of dedicated ex-players and current players to form a management group which we call the RMG (Rugby Management Group). This group is headed up by the founder of the club, John Hinchliffe and it has the remit to try and improve all things about the club, including backroom match-day support of our team, membership, training facilities and help for Dan Nulty in coaching! I'm sure you will join me in giving him the recognition that he deserves in keeping our team in Yorkshire division 2 amongst many very well-established bigger clubs with long history in the county.

On the coaching front, Andrew Hinchcliffe will shortly be taking over as head coach. Andy is a well-known local man and has been an excellent player in his time and also coached Ilkley for many years and players and back room staff are extremely excited to have Andy join the club. Dan Nulty will be having a well-earned rest but will never be far away and will continue to be part of the coaching team moving forward – he’s going nowhere!

The club managed to obtain sponsorship from some very generous people to purchase 8 new floodlights which have proven to be superb when coupled with our generated tower light. This means for the first time ever in Old Grovians short history we know when and where we will be training on a weekly basis in glorious light. We are incredibly grateful for our sponsors in helping to make this happen.

Next Steps

With an increased membership we are hoping that we can spread the load nice and thinly amongst a greater number of dedicated Grovians followers to help us give a much more solid foundation to what we already have! Our club has been previously described a pub team due to our lack of facilities, but we have an amazing, unique and even enviable position in Yorkshire Rugby that we can now build on over the next few years.

Moving forwards, we are looking for people with some time on their hands to join the back-office team where there are opportunities to help with raising money to volunteering to run the raffle, be a linesman - all the jobs required to make a club successful. We would welcome any assistance and new ideas in raising additional funds in the future. Membership is a mere £40 so if you can find just one additional member each this will be a huge boost to our supporting numbers and you all get a snazzy hat.

To sign up as a non playing member, please complete the following link with your details which will take 30 seconds:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe5PtyQzJNar7Rj0u1YENtaqWq_Igx-s1eudxFqjnjSgK2o1w/viewform?fbclid=IwAR2V17iCScnNUXDyi8-Mwlj3nxrt259xQErhsVxIRGeQFsjUy225BO-9Co8

Finally, there is no bigger boost for a team than to have supporters on the day cheering so please come down and support us as often as you can! We appreciate everyone on this list has decided to become a member and we are so grateful for you all joining us on the start of this exciting journey where we want to push up the leagues and ultimately obtain our own club house at Elm Tree farm in the next couple of years.

I look forward to seeing you all down cheering on the team in the next few weeks with your posh hats on!

We aim to keep in regular contact with our members to keep you up to date with exciting news as we drive the club forwards.

Best Wishes

David Garforth
Chairman