Society Bulletin – February 2024

Good afternoon, hope you’ve had a great February in terms of refereeing and watching the six nations.

To kick things off, here are a few shots from social media of our refs in action over the month of Feb. We now have a new Instagram page so if you have any action shots please tag the page and give us a follow.

In this bulletin we have a few items to cover both for awareness, interest and to keep you abreast of what’s coming up across the Society, covering:

• End of Season Meeting
• Match Official Abuse
• Safeguarding Update
• Board vacancy for the Society
• Rosslyn Park 7’s tournament
• Spotlight on 7’s
• New Society Feature

End of Season Meeting

We are looking to hold a Society end of season meeting. We are yet to decide on a location but to aid numbers etc I will put a post on our facebook page with options, to allow us to gauge numbers and venue – the usual choices are clubs in and around the M5/M42 junction but we will also provide an option for other suggestions that, a. can cater for sufficient numbers and b. allow a good spread of referees to attend – please feel free to suggest.

The agenda for the meeting is yet to be finalised but we are hoping to provide food, a special guest speaker and awards on the evening.

Further details to follow…

Match Official Abuse

Unfortunately, we are still seeing an increase in Match Official Abuse. The important part is to report any form of verbal or physical abuse, as whilst some of us across the Society can brush this aside, we need to think of the next referee who officiates the game/team. As a result, I have updated the Match Official Abuse content under ‘Useful Refereeing Documents’ on our website.  

When completing the form please read the information ‘to provide’, as the review process for these incidents follows a similar path to a court of law – it is backed by the evidence presented from both sides. If you require any assistance completing the form, our Disciplinary Sec is more than happy to help. Contact details on the above webpage.

During the latter part of this / off-season we will receive updated material from the RFU to help get the message across. As and when this is received, we will update through the bulletin, pre-season sessions and the website.

Safeguarding Guidance

We received an update from the Safeguarding team relating to speaking with players in their changing rooms. Please read the guidance below, surrounding the Society policy on this.

Match Officials should not visit players or other officials dressing rooms without a clear and obvious invitation. This includes, but not exclusively, rugby players, touch judges, physios and any other relevant person occupying a changing room space.

In the unlikely event that there is a reason to approach the dressing rooms the Match Official must knock the door and wait until called in. They should not enter with the assumption that they will be called/allowed in.

Volunteer Vacancy – Society Secretary

If you are looking to get more involved with the Society and would be willing to volunteer some of your time, then look no further as we have a vacancy. We are recruiting for a new Society Secretary who will be the first point of contact for NMSRFR. The overview of this role is shown below. If you are interested in finding out more, please drop me a note and I can share the full description / set up a chat with the board to discuss further.

Key Tasks:

• Become a Board Member for the North Midlands Referee Society
• To be the first point of contact for:
  • RFU messagesNorth Midlands C.B. and Organisations
  • Other societies
• Arrange Board Meetings / AGM
  • Venue – mix of face to face and online
  • Date / Time
  • Agenda & Notes
  • Circulate follow up actions / decisions
• Attend relevant meetings as the face of the Society
  • North Mids C.B
• Discuss content with other relevant board members for onward communication

To support the role, you will have access to a society email address along with Office 365 suite of products plus other benefits.

If you would like to put your name forward, please drop me an email using this link and we will be in touch.

If you feel this isn’t the right role for you but would be willing to volunteer some of your time to the Society please get in touch as we have a range of roles available to help support our success.

Rosslyn Park 7’s Tournament

Some of our referees have signed up to officiate at the Rosslyn Park 7’s tournament taking place in March 2024. As a society we have agreed to cover the cost of travelling to/from the event for the referees that are taking part.

If you are attending this event, please email our finance team who can discuss the details with you along with the process.

We are also happy to review / support future English based tournaments where our referees are flying the flag for the North Midlands Society. If this applies to you, please get in touch and we can review on a case-by-case basis.

7’s Rugby

This leads on quite nicely as we start to embark on the lovely game of 7’s…now I’m more one for watching than refereeing 7’s these days, but for those that are looking forward to the 7’s season in full flow our Law Expert as kindly provided us with a 7’s briefing document. This is located on our website, which can be found clicking here for those that would like to brush up on their knowledge.

New Feature – Spotlight on our Referees

Over the coming weeks I am looking to run a spotlight on our referees.  I’d like to say this was an original idea, but I saw it following some of the other societies’ social media pages across the UK. If you are happy to participate, please let me know and I can email questions etc across.

The format will be a bunch of questions talking about how you got into refereeing, how you’re doing now, advice for new refs along a couple of quirky questions etc.

Hope you find the above useful and enjoy Refereeing over the coming weeks!