Well, following some serious ball dropping from the ‘stand ins’ on the communication front last week, you are hopefully now appreciative (if you weren’t before) of what a sterling job I do for you :-)

This Sunday 28th February. Teddington are hosting the Annual Development Festival at Bushy Park. Squad selection (2 teams) for the festival will be made via the website. It is imperative that each child’s availability is marked on the website in order to be selected to play. Please arrive by 9.00am latest. Please visit the website to access all the relevant detail.

All other players will be AWAY at Pinner for joint training (www.pinnerrugby.com) for a 9.30 am start. Address: Shaftesbury Playing Fields, Grimsdyke Road, Pinner, Middlesex. All details available on the fixtures section of the website.

As we know from last year, a lot of effort is required to ensure the smooth running of a festival – not least from volunteers on the day. The U10 parents will be required to assist with the provision of refreshments (teas, coffees, BBQ) and we need to be prepared to offer sufficient volunteers to complete a 1.5 hour shift between 11.30am-1.00pm. What would greatly assist the festival organisers would be for a parent to be the ‘go-to’ representative for the age group on the day and round up the necessary volunteers – please let me know if you are willing to be that person. Remember, all volunteers will need to come from the parents of those participating in the festival as all other players are away that day.

In addition to the refreshment duties, each age group will be responsible for setting up and running the age group control tent and will need to nominate someone to take responsibility for:

Age Group Control
Keeping track of age group scores, have a couple of runners to update main control tent
Handling disputes
Distributing medals and trophies
First Aider
2 x Referees – try and have a spare if you can
2 x Pitch Marshalls – this may change when we get the final pitch layout
Time keeping, score keeping & submission of score sheets to age group control tent

So, a busy yet rugby packed weekend in store. Good luck everyone!