Chairman's Statment

Chairman's Statement

New Season Statement – August 2011

Dear Member,

August 2011

Dear Member,

Welcome to the new season.

It is a privilege and a pleasure to continue for another season as your Chairman at the request of the Executive Committee. Given the progress we have made on all fronts in the past few seasons, I am as excited by the coming season as I have been for a long time. National Three League status for the Geese will be a huge challenge but one that the squad is certainly up for and are training hard towards already.
I am delighted to announce the continuing sponsorship of Powerday, the leading waste management company. We are very grateful to Mick Crossan, the company’s Chairman, and to his team for their support. You will notice that Powerday will be the sponsor for the entire London Irish family this season. In addition, Jaguar will continue its sponsorship of the hugely successful Four Nations London Irish Mini Festival at the end of the season. This has been augmented by the sponsorship of the festival by the Irish Government, in the shape of the Emigrants Support Programme, in recognition of the work we do to build and maintain links between the London Irish community and rugby clubs at home in Ireland. We also welcome Woking based Multipulse Electronics as a Wild Geese sponsor. We are grateful to Michael Connolle, Chris Magowan, Andrew Bagley and Jim O Hara for their efforts in securing the support of all these sponsors.

At the outset, let me remind you of our three year plan, put in place two years ago, and update you on progress:

Work closely with the professionals to develop a new centre of excellence within Spelthorne Borough that meets the requirements of all areas of the Club. Subject to approval by members and planning permission, we would expect to move to this new venue by season 2012/13. The process of achieving the requisite planning permission is now subject to appeal. One way or the other, we will know the outcome of the appeal process shortly.

Prepare a plan for the Wild Geese to firstly achieve promotion to London Division One and then seek to develop beyond that to deliver an ever higher standard of rugby for adult players. Achieve this whilst remaining amateur. The adult rugby squad has made marvellous progress. The Wild Geese were promoted to London One at the first attempt and followed that with the momentous events of last season securing promotion to National League 3 in a play-off. We plan to sustain and build on that position this season.

Put in place an Amateur Academy that mirrors the current Professional Academy to help young players who do not make the professional ranks, do not wish to become professional players or who are not yet ready to do so. Without exception, nurturing the talent we produce is the best thing we can do as a rugby club. We are introducing an incredibly exciting initiative this season in this area. A squad has been assembled of players from the Professional and Amateur Clubs to compete in the National Colts Cup. They will start the season with matches against Munster and Leinster and then see how far they can go in the National Competition. They will be coached by Jack Heald and Sam McKinney.

Put in place the right coaching co-ordination and structure to ensure that skills and capabilities learned at older age groups are passed down to the younger players. Phase 1 is already in place under John Flynn.

Maintain the wonderful record we have in Surrey Youth Rugby by putting in place the right coaching and pastoral care structures necessary to support our young players. We will continue to focus on that this season having won at Under 13 and 15 last season. We have great expectations to win four age group leagues in Surrey this season.

Build upon the excellent progress in recent seasons in the development of Ladies and Girls rugby. Winning the National title at Under 18 again was a pretty good start!!

Continue the outstanding success we have had at Mini level by increasing the number of qualified coaches, continually focusing on recruiting new talent whilst remaining a club where every child can find a place to play and have fun. If the demand for places at our Mini Festival and for new kids to join London Irish are measures of success then the goal has been achieved. We are very hopeful of more success at Surrey level this season following the successes of last season’s Under 7s and 11s.

London Irish is unique. We are the only club in the country with a structure that works from the Heineken Cup to the Under 6s. We remain a home from home for Irish men and women who have emigrated from Ireland to seek employment in the UK. At the same time, we are an open club and available for anyone who wishes to enjoy a game of rugby or see their children develop. We are also a club that is embedded in the local community where we have played for eighty years. These points remain at our core and guide us in all we seek to achieve.

Rugby update

Last season we said the previous season’s success would be hard to beat. The Amateur Club’s best ever season saw the Wild Geese win promotion to London 1 as league champions. They then lifted the Surrey Trophy and remained undefeated in all competitions since October 2009; 18 straight victories. However, losing only three games on route to a second successive promotion to National League 3 and retaining the Surrey Trophy last season surpassed all our expectations. Director of rugby Chris Magowan, and his coaching and management team now enter their fourth season together providing the continuity required to build on the structures now in place.

For London Irish to have one side in the Premiership and another in the National leagues is unique in English rugby and is a tribute to those who ensured amateur rugby continued at Sunbury.

We will be fielding six teams this year including the Wolfhound academy and Vets. The Wolfhounds will be the first in action with an U21 match against Richmond followed by an U18 game against Munster Schools and the U19s v Leinster, on consecutive weekends from 21st August. The Wild Geese start their campaign away to Gravesend on 3rd September. Those Wolfhounds games should be exceptional events so please make every effort to support them.

Training resumed on Tuesday 12th July. For our first season in the National Leagues we have assembled a coaching team of unrivalled experience at this level. This team is lead by Jamie Balls MBE, with last season’s coach Paul Dunne back for an assault on National League 3.
The coaching team is being aided by Jon Bates, of Surrey Rugby, and Premiership player Richard Thorpe. We have a dedicated coaching team for each of our top sides, every game will be recorded and analysed and the whole coaching team will monitor our large and experienced squad.

We take player development very seriously, and with this in mind we are offering profiling and mentoring to players. Allied to this we will provide bespoke strength and conditioning programmes from our dedicated S&C coaches.

We have made a commitment to expand the knowledge, skill level, and enjoyment of all our players in this very important year for the club. We all believe in the values of club loyalty and teamwork that have got us to National League level. We will now endeavour to build a club like no other at this level, where players are given a positive environment in which to develop their game whilst retaining our amateur ethos.

At youth level, Richard Smallbone will continue his outstanding work as Chairman of Youth Rugby and alongside his excellent team of coaches will seek to deliver Surrey titles at Under 13 to 16 at least. Our success usually means any number of representative calls that tend to interrupt progress and this will not change this year. Nonetheless, our strength in depth and focus on skills at all levels should continue to ensure success.

Peter Graham will continue in the role of Chairman of Mini Rugby whilst Gavin Wheeler will support him as Mini Fixtures Secretary. With over 50 players at each age group we will continue to balance success in games and festivals with our focus on developing children’s skills at all levels.

Social Events

In addition to the current calendar of the Honours Tie Dinner, Past Players Lunch, Leprechaun Lunch, Ladies Lunch, and the Golf Day this season we will be running:

a Vice-Presidents/Past Presidents Lunch
a Coaches and Managers lunch
some under-age and Vets fixtures under lights on a Friday evening
age group sponsorship of each Wild Geese home game
age group outings to the Madejski for Premiership and Heineken Cup games

We will also be continuing the hugely successful Twickenham Ball on Saturday December 3rd so get your ticket applications in early.

The season will kick off on Saturday September 3rd which is the beginning of club registration weekend and the Wolfhounds Versus Leinster game. Please make every effort to be there.

Membership for season 2011/12

There will be no change in the membership subscriptions for this season. To remind you the fees are as follows

Adult Playing Member (can be paid by Standing Order over 6 months)	£170
General Member (non-playing)	£75
Overseas Member	£50
Students (over 18 and in full time education)	£75
Parent and Child (child in mini/youth up to U17)	£150
Family 1 - Both parents and one mini/youth player	£180
Family 2 – One parent and two or more mini/youth players	£200
Family 3 – Both parents and two or more mini/youth players	£225

We will continue to build closer relationships with the Professional Club. As usual, we have agreed that all family and adult playing membership categories described above will be provided one of the following for free:

A family ticket for 2 adults and 2 children to ANY home Premiership fixture at the Madejski Stadium during the season, or
One Master Class session during the season. These sessions are heavily in demand and run by the Professional Academy coaches.

200 Club

A new, revamped approach to the long running 200 club will be circulated to all members shortly. A real opportunity to win international match tickets or outings to the Madejski and other excellent prizes will be on offer each month. This will become a major contributor to our club finances so please look to support this unique product.

International tickets

As always we have a number of international match tickets available this season. There is a guaranteed match ticket scheme in place. Please contact our International Ticket Secretary, Peter Whiteside, for details.

Code of Conduct

As most of you are aware, the club has a code of conduct for Players, Supporters, Parents and Coaches. I draw your attention to the website and encourage you to refresh your knowledge of this code. London Irish has a long standing reputation of welcoming friend and foe alike, enjoying ourselves and playing hard, uncompromising but fair rugby football. We applaud good play and are supportive when things go wrong. This reputation supersedes everything. We will not allow anything to besmirch it. Please bear this in mind as we prepare for exciting times ahead.

Volunteers

We would like again to formally thank, Bosco McAuliffe, John Gilligan, Terry Long, Ray McLennan, Peter Whiteside, Lynn Carter, John FitzGerald, Michael Anderson, Noel Traynor, Jimmy Reilly, Feargal Coffey, Michael Gibson, Jack Costelloe, Michael Connole, Chris Kane, Peter Graham, Richard Smallbone, John Flynn, Jamie Balls, Chris Magowan, Simon Martinson, Paul Dunne and all of the coaches, captains, team managers and volunteers for their exceptional contribution towards the club last season.

As outlined above we have many rugby and social events going on throughout the year. We would encourage you all to attend and participate in these events and also get involved in helping organise some of them. As always, we need more people to give of their time and energy to continue to make London Irish the successful club it is today. Please check the website for a list of current vacancies.

Enjoy the season.

David FitzGerald John Walsh

Chairman President