Social media is a very useful tool to disseminate information to our friends and members quickly. Ratoath RFC supports social media interaction with our members and supporters on our Facebook page, our Twitter feed and on our web site. The openness of our social media requires that we have to be careful about how it is presented.

Usage:
Users of our social media must be approved by our Moderators. Moderators reserve the right to remove and block members from the group. As our social media pages are seen as the opinions of our club, members with their own social media pages (e.g. Facebook) or groups referencing Ratoath RFC teams etc. are prohibited from using our
logo/crest. These unofficial pages should be private and not open to non-team members. The underage teams should have a coach/parent as a Moderator.

Any member can post to the official social media sites. Posts should be informative or inquisitive. Informative post could be for example, informing of times and places of training or games, match results,
congratulating players and teams etc. Inquisitive posts could be looking for information on training times, kick off times or scores etc. We don't want members to have to scroll through reams of non-related information while they look for relevant content, or have member's own page's activity feeds bombarded with non Ratoath RFC content.

For people using our social media to promote their goods or services, their post should have specific discounts/advantages for Ratoath RFC members and should be infrequent. Posts should not be in competition with any major sponsorship interest of the club. Posters should be aware that this leaves them wide open to begging letters during the fundraising season ;)

Moderation:
Posts to the official Ratoath RFC social media sites page should not be:

• contrary to the clubs interests
• derogatory towards match officials, other clubs or players
• derogatory towards Ratoath RFC coaches, players or members
• abusive towards anyone
• containing offensive language
• not rugby related (none of this “click 'like' if you love puppies” type of thing)

Moderators reserve the right to remove any post that they consider appropriate to remove without explanation.

Squad level social media groups (e.g. Facebook, WhatsApp) are also subject to the protocol. It is recommended that squad level groups should have at least one representative from the club (who is not directly involved in the squad) as a member.

Ratoath RFC Match Report Guidelines:

• Reports should be positive and encouraging.
• Accentuate the positives (team effort, perseverance, commitment etc…) if defeated and don’t be critical.
• Refrain from using negative comments regarding any player (of either side) or match officials.
• Focus on the game itself and retain an impartial or neutral bias if possible.
• Remember that opposing teams can also see match reports on our website.
• Keep the report reasonably short - ideally it should fit on one screen when reading.
• If photos are to be taken at match it is polite to ask the opposing manager for consent. Parents of your own players should have signed up to this in principle when registering.
• If photographs are used for age-grade players, individual names should not be linked with the photos.
• For Minis, remember that Mini Rugby is Non-Competitive, and the result should not be the primary focus of the report. Player’s first names only should be used for minis.

Regards,
Executive Committee
Ratoath RFC.