Good morning all, I hope you’ve had a great weekend officiating and enjoyed the games!
In this weeks bulletin I’m going to provide updates on 2 main areas across the Society covering firstly the availability across the society and secondly Match Official Abuse. Oh and free merch offer at the end for current referees.
Referee Shortages
This season we have found the availability of referees at an all time low, resulting in some league fixtures being postponed. We have communicated with North Midlands RFU, some of you may’ve seen the communication Kelvin provided but if not please review the post on the North Mids RFU facebook page here along with associated comments.
In the interim we have reviewed how we appoint referees to ensure there is a fair split across all first team games. As a result of this review we have communicated that we will endeavour to provide a referee to all first team league games. This will ensure that lower level clubs will receive a referee and not be missed out, as is currently happening. Of course we would prefer to have enough available referees to cover all league fixtures and some friendly fixtures on top.
A couple of weeks ago I dropped out a survey to support this and I’d like to thank all those that have responded. We hold in the region of 150+ referees on WTR and so far we’ve had 33% respond, it would be great if we could get a few more responses as this will allow us to update WTR with an accurate view of available referees – to aid this we will be contacting people that haven’t updated their availability over the past 3-6 months to cleanse our database.
We are in the process of reviewing the feedback and from this we will look to implement changes to aid availability and more importantly the desire to referee.
In addition to the survey we will soon be running a recruitment drive across our social platforms to bolster referee numbers. This will involve a series of posts being shared highlighting how to become a referee and the courses available. I have provided information on the website which can be seen here detailing everything the need to know to become a referee, this week I’m going to make it more prominent and easier to find. My plan is to share this far and wide to get clubs involved so they can help bolster the number of available referees or at least provide cover during shortages.
If anyone has any ideas surrounding recruitment or is great at creating posters please let me know, all help is greatly appreciated.
Match Official Abuse
Unfortunately this seems to go hand in hand with the shortage of referees we are seeing. In the brief to North Mids RFU, Kelvin provided an update on this. It is something we are seeing on the rise again, in the first 3 weeks of the season we have had 3 instances reported and probably more that haven’t been reported.
If we encounter any form of Match Official Abuse we MUST report it. It could be verbal abuse from players or coaches, spectator abuse or anything that you feel is directly aimed at you when officiating. With spectator abuse please also make this known to the club. It is imperative that we report it as whilst you may feel you can deal with it there and then we need to protect the referee/s that officiate the following weeks. From a personal point I know this applies to me as I will deal with it there and then, I switch off to the people on the side line or on occasions I’ve walked over and took off my whistle and asked ‘Seen as you can clearly see the game stood half a pitch away why don’t you take over’. Certainly in the game deal with it as you would normally through sanctions but please report this afterwards. Due to the shortages seen with referees this will play a part in appointments.
If you are the victim of Match Official Abuse and would like to talk it through please contact David Stowe who is our support officer for the Society.
Free Merch
To finish this weeks’ bulletin on a high you may all remember during the off season we mentioned the offer of a free match shirt / watchers coat. Ian has briefed this out previously but in case you missed it please see details and qualification criteria below:
We moved to Stag Sports late last season and to celebrate this we can offer current referees / observers a free match shirt or watchers coat. The requirements for this are as follows:
Officiated 8 games last season and 1 game this season.
If you are ensure if you meet this criteria please email finance@northmidsrefs.co.uk.
To claim this offer please check you meet the criteria, choose your relevant product on the Stag Sports site and pay for this. Following payment please email Finance above and you will reimbursed for the shirt / coat.