Friday Bulletin

Hope you’ve all had a great week and looking forward to refereeing this weekend and the world cup games.

We’ve got a jam packed bulletin this week covering:

• Celebrations
• Code of Conduct
• Insurance for Referees
• Referee Availability
• Request for Pics
• Scoring Cards

Celebrations

I thought I’d start with some good news for 2 of our YMO’s. Rhys J & William M have been appointed AR’s for this coming Saturday’s game of Warriors Ladies vs Saracens Ladies, supporting our own Neil Chivers as the man in the middle. We hope you enjoy the game.

Match Officials Code of Conduct

This week the RFU & RFRU have published the code of conduct for Match Officials across all levels, please see below brief from the RFU and the link to code of conduct. This will also be on our website moving forward.

We all love our great sport, and the part we play in it is vital to delivering the game. We understand the core values of Teamwork, Respect, Enjoyment, Discipline and Sportspersonship; these make the game special and enable it as a sport for all who enjoy the culture and environment that the core values produce, irrespective of any protected characteristics.

In just the same way that we expect people to treat us fairly, all participants are entitled to feel safe and protected from any form of abuse or neglect and have the right to take part in a safe, respectful, and enjoyable environment. These values lie at the heart of what we do. 

The RFU & RFRU are committed to supporting the culture that lives and breathes the core values, is free of abuse, discrimination, and harm, where everyone feels safe and able to raise any concerns they have and challenge any concerns they see or hear.

It is essential therefore that we apply a Code of Conduct to what we do to promote those high standards. The RFU & RFRU strongly encourages its member Referee Societies (RFRU Federations) and Match Officials at all levels (on field and off field) to accept and adopt the Code of Conduct.

Insurance Information

Please see below information covering off the insurance as provided by the RFU for all Match Officials

Referee Availability Questionnaire

At the start of this season referee availability is lower than in previous years. As a Society we would like to understand what are the driving factors behind this and what we can do to help more referees want to officiate. As a result we’ve created a questionnaire that we would like you to complete, I’ve provided a link below and will also send this out on email. You can choose to complete it with contact details or anonymously if you wish.

To access the questionnaire please click here

If it is a case that you haven’t updated your availability for a while and wondered how to do this please click here for a step by step process on the website.

Referee Pictures

I’m on the drive for new pics of our referees in action, if you have any or know a source to get these please let me know so I can pull them into our website. You can send any you have to: webmaster@northmidsrefs.co.uk

Scoring Cards

We are continuing to use the freepost feedback cards for the coming season. Hopefully you have a stash of these readily available but if you need more please see the post I added on the 08/09/23 on our private facebook page.

We are looking at ways to move these scoring cards electronically which we are hopeful of introducing during this season. Once we have something firm in place we will communicate out allowing refs both options.

That ends the bulletin so I hope you found this weeks edition informative and enjoy the weekend of rugby.

Training Date

The next session is as follows:

19 September @ 7pm

Location – Edwardians Rugby Club,  Streetsbrook Road, Solihull, B90 3PE

Items for discussion are:

• Tackle Height Laws – How these have been implemented and your experiences so far
• Match regulations – for example; how many subs, interchanges and the management of these
• Q&A Sessions