Honorary Secretary's Report 2007/08 Page 4
Although their season was at times interrupted by bad weather, the Mini-Maxi Section had another very successful year, with 180 boys, from P3 to Maxi, turning out on Saturday mornings with no fewer than 26 active coaches, all overseen by Paul Archer, and with at least 10 others assisting with administration, catering etc. This year they decided to follow the IRFU recommendation of holding blitzes rather than tournaments, and this proved very successful with good feed-back received from other clubs and from the Branch. Quite a number of the coaches attended courses on First Aid, Child Protection and the use of a defibrillator. I would like to congratulate and thank Paul Archer, assisted by his wife Julie and all their other helpers, who have done a great job this season, expertly organising the Section and gleaning all the required information in order to have all boys properly registered and issued with ID Cards. As for the Youth Section, we are one of the very few clubs to have done so. This season, Rascal Rugby was started for P1 and P2 kids. This was organised by Alastair McKay, and around 40 boys attended.
Our next goal must be to have Ladies Rugby up and running in the Club, as stipulated by Sport Northern Ireland when they gave us the Grant for the recent Drainage Scheme. Neil Patton is still driving this, and Tom Wiggins has agreed to attempt to get this underway this summer. If Tom’s efforts in this initiative achieve any success, then more help will be required to sustain it.
The hard-working Jacques Benade strove tirelessly in his second year in the post of Director of Rugby. Although he did not achieve the success his hard work deserved, we thank him for his efforts. As expected, Jacques had his critics, but we must remember he is doing virtually a full-time job for a part-time wage. We also thank the sadly too-few other coaches for the adult teams. Peter Millar, and David Smyth offered Jacques invaluable assistance. Peter is taking a year out due to family commitments but, he will be replaced by Andy Graham, who has finally hung up his boots. Ken Campbell and Glen Boyd worked hard with the Seconds and Thirds squad. Unfortunately, after his success with the Seconds, Ken is moving on to CIYMS. He will be replaced next season as Seconds’ coach by former player Johnnie Wells. But there were simply no other regular coaches, so the other sides again had to rely on their more experienced players for tuition, only some of whom were suitably qualified. Glen Boyd and Ollie Smith worked hard with the U-20, but the situation did not allow them the opportunity for much success.
Glen Boyd was the Manager of the Seconds, and Ray Buchanan and Noel Crabbe enthusiastically looked after the Thirds. Trevor Gillen handled the Under-20, but the other adult sides had to rely solely upon their captains to do all the administration. We still urgently require managers to look after these lower teams. read more
