Dear Club member,
I sincerely hope your physical and mental wellbeing remains strong, and that you are all fit, safe and well during these difficult times.

The season to date has been very stop-start in terms of having any meaningful activity down at the club, with the Seniors training every week from the early Summer through to lockdown in November, and the Mini and Juniors training both mid week and on Sunday’s late summer through to November, albeit in a restricted way, in line with The Government and RFU directives, but it was a welcome respite for those players frustrated by the lockdown and COVID rules imposed during these times. The Juniors even got to play some competitive games under the restricted rules in September and October. My thanks to Peppa Saunders and her volunteers for keeping us going under Covid restrictions.

At one point in early November, we had a clear pathway to competitive Rugby returning in January with a round of fixtures in a local cluster, to be played with out scrums or mauls, so everyone was gearing up before we all got placed in Tier 4 and ultimately lockdown. To this end, my sympathies to Club Captain Luke Turner and his squad for the frustration of a season without games to date, the only upside being that Luke may be only the Third Captain in the club’s history to go a complete season un-beaten!!

At the last AGM , I announced that this would be my last season as Club Chairman, John Constable was elected as Co-Chairman on the basis that there would be a transition to enable John to pick up the reigns in the second half of the season. I am now commencing with this hand over to John. Many of you will already know John and his history with the club. For those who do not, John was Club Captain for three seasons in the mid 1980’s and has also served as Club Secretary in the past, as well as a Mini and Junior Coach , he also had a long career on the NLD Referees Society and has been our “Go To” referee for The Juniors over the last few seasons.

Many of you will start to see communications from John in the coming weeks, we will be looking to engage with individual groups within the club over Zoom or Teams in an effort to kick start planning for the end of the season, and most importantly for the new season, where we hope restrictions will be lifted, allowing full participation in both playing and socially.

What we can report to date, is that our Financial position has been extremely challenging, but thanks to careful and prudent financial management, not least by Peter Jullien, we are projecting that we will just get through the season without recourse to requiring any further borrowing, and in a position to continue paying off our debts on the New Ground. We are extremely grateful for the continued support of Club Sponsor Crowland Cranes and the support of sponsor Moore Thompson in these difficult times. However, our finances are extremely tight, and we will be asking members to look at a number of ways of helping through membership of the Club Lotto, to other ways of donating – we will be sending out these requests and options in the coming weeks, and of course welcome any ideas on future fundraising.

Whilst there has been no playing or social activity to date, there has been much going on behind the scenes at The New Ground, our thanks go to Peter Jullien for his continuing commitment to developing the facilities at the new ground. Please read the article regarding the development at the New Ground.

All the best,
Martin Beecham.