Friday Bulletin 21/10

Personnel changes

Although not quite as many as in politics, there have been a couple of personnel changes within the Society: the duties of some board members have changed whilst others have come forward to help. Here are the current main changes

Membership: Leonie Pryor will now look after the way that the Society deals with new members and their first few months with the Society. Leonie can be contacted on membership@northmidsrefs.co.uk

Young Match Officials: Having already been working hard behind the scenes on mentoring some of our YMOs, Tony Jones will now be the main point of contact for all YMO matters. Tony can be contacted on ymo@northmidsrefs.co.uk

Midlands group (formerly the Federation) Huw Jenkins will continue to be the Society’s representative in Midlands Group. To contact Huw please use the contact form on the website

Red Card policy clarification

Following the Society meeting last week, the position on YC/RC and reporting has been clarified:

If a player is issued with two yellow cards for either two technical offences or a technical offence plus a foul play offence, sending off is sufficient penalty, and the North Mids Disciplinary Team will not be in a position to issue further sanctions. If both YC offences are for foul play, then the player will be banned for one week only. Either of these incidences must still be reported on the standard RC report form (details on our useful documents page), as the offences need to be recorded on the player’s GMS record. It should be made clear at the time that the player is being ‘sent off’, and showing a red card after the second YC will reinforce this information (RFU Regulation 19)

NB: if the second offence would have merited a RC on its own (e.g the player was YC-ed for a deliberate knock on in the first half, but then clearly punches an opponent in the head in the second half), then the RC offence will take precedence and be dealt with in the normal process: again on the RC report form you should make clear that the second offence merited a ‘straight RC’.

Ask the Expert

An Ask the Expert question has been answered, regarding a referee ruling on ‘obvious’ offences which they have not personally seen due to their positioning. Click here to view the question and response

Society Kit

Our reserves of kit have almost run out. We are busy chasing up our potential suppliers and if we remain with them there will be an improved link from our website to them – watch this space. One of the options we are looking at is ordering a more lightweight shirt, probably best for early and late season temperatures with a separate long sleeve base layer  for colder days. If you have any strong thoughts (or ideas) please let Kelvin know. More importantly, if you feel that YOU could become the Society kit person so we do not get in this position again please contact Kelvin on chair@northmidsrefs.co.uk

Next Society Meeting

There will be another Society training and information meeting at Kidderminster Carolians RFC on Thursday 24th November at 730 pm, please make a note in your diaries. Further details will follow