Hope you all had a great weekend of fixtures and looking forward to run up to Christmas, I for one certainly felt the cold this weekend with the thermals making a first appearance. In this weeks bulletin we will look to cover off Availability of Refs – yes the callout for availability once more goes out across Saturday, Sunday and Midweek appts. I will also touch on assessors followed by an update on training schedule over the coming months as we enter 2024.

Availability

Coming into this weekend we have a shortage of refs for Saturday, we have circa 32 school and league games with only 20 referees making themselves available. If you fancy a run out on Saturday please update your availability on ‘Who’s the Ref’ or contact Vince from our appointments team – link to the website here for contact details.

We have a mix of L8 – 10, games include – Bridgnorth 2s, Ludlow 2s, Worcester 2s, Droitwich 2s, Evesham 2s, Stourport, Old Hales 2s, Malvern 2s plus some school games in the morning if you availability is open then.

We are also short on Sunday as well with a host of junior, colts and ladies fixtures to fulfil.

Assessors Update

Note to all our members from our Match Development team – If you are assigned an assessor, coach or camera person can you please contact them once the club has confirmed the fixture along with any updates that you feel are relevant, for example your time of arrival etc. If the game is cancelled or postponed please remember to let the assessor know as they don’t receive the same communication as the referee.

Training

Our last training session was held a couple of weeks back at Stourbridge, the session involved Chivs taking us through the Line out which the attendees all found very useful and certainly opened up some great debates between fellow members. One thing we have noticed is the decline in numbers at the training sessions with only a 9 people in attendance.

We’d like to understand if the content is missing the mark or do we to change our approach surrounding training? For our next training event we will hold this online through teams or zoom as we appreciate people can be busy with work and other commitments. We would also welcome any suggestions for areas of training that people would like to see / chivs to cover. I will put a post on our Facebook page allowing people to vote with the front runners being selected.

In the New Year we will look to move face to face training to quarterly with online sessions in-between. We are also looking at bringing in a couple of guest speakers in the New Year so watch this space.

As with all bulletins I hope you find the information useful, and if you can do a game this weekend please let the fixtures team know or update your availability – if its a case of not wanting to travel too far please drop Vince / Alex a whats app and I’m sure they’ll be able to accommodate you a game.

If you have any thoughts on any part of the above happy to receive feedback and enjoy the rest of your week.

Afternoon All, hope it’s been a great couple of weeks. The clocks have gone back so games will be moving to an earlier kick off, although I think GMS is a little slower as I’ve noticed my game this weekend was down for 3pm. Please check with your clubs if this is the case.

A few things to cover off in this bulletin regarding Training, Knowledge sharing and MILEAGE CLAIMS so I hope you all take something from the round up below.

Save the Date – Training Session

The Society will be holding a Training session at Stourbridge RFC on Wednesday 15 November, the session will aim to start for 7pm and we will put a post on our Facebook to get an idea of numbers.

During the session Chivs will look to cover:

• Lineouts
• Red card report forms
• Open Forum – Ask the refs / experts

Within the open forum this will provide an opportunity to ask questions on the season so far, conundrums or issues you’ve had etc.

It will also provide an opportunity to meet fellow referees both new and old along with YMO’s.

Red Card Report Forms

If you issue a red card in any Society officiated game can you please ensure that the report is completed and emailed across to Dave Thomas within 48 hours of the offence.

The form can be found by clicking here or within our website under useful documents.

On receipt Dave will forward to the necessary disciplinary panel.

Feedback Forms

If you are running low on feedback forms and wish to order some new ones please drop an email to John Holland with your address details and these can be sent out.

We have see a few requests come through other channels but to ensure these are received as needed please use the above email address.

Mileage Claims – Deadline 9 Nov 23!

It is that time of year, albeit a month early this season, for you to get your mileage claims in. Ian sent out an email through WTR at the back end of October, if you haven’t received please see the information below. They key part is all mileage submissions must be in before 10 November 2023. Any claims submitted after this date for the period Sept – Oct will not be processed until January 2024.

Please read this carefully to avoid any problems. 

At the beginning of the season, I issued an email explaining that I intended to reimburse match day travel for referees and advisors covering the period 1^st September to 31^st October during November. This email covers the process plus other important information which hopefully will mean the procedure goes smoothly and keeps my workload to a minimum. 

Guidance on how to complete and submit your match day travel claim can be found in the ‘Support Hub’ in WTR. Click ‘Support Hub’ then ‘Organisation Administration’ and then Core Functionality and you will find the information at the bottom of this section. You must follow both sets of instructions. 

Claims should include ALL matches up to the 31^st October. PLEASE do not submit your claim before this date. 

Like last season the society will pay travel at 45p per mile. Please ignore the 40p figure quoted on your submission. Due to technical reasons, I am unable to amend this. The calculation is correct and no amendments are necessary on your part.     

Claims need to be received by me on or before Friday 10^th November. Any received after this date may miss the payment date.

I hope then to be able to reimburse you all sometime after the 15^th November. 

Have you Moved House or Changed Address? 

If you have moved house or changed address, can you please make sure your WTR account reflects the new address. Where you have moved and have or are updating your address you will also need to update your ‘Geo Coordinates’ otherwise your claim will be incorrect. 

Guidelines on how to do this are found in the ‘Support Hub.’ Click ‘Organisation Administration’ then ‘Core Functionality’ where you will find instructions on updating ‘Geo Coordinates.’ 

Exchange Appointments or Joint Membership 

Some referees have undertaken exchange games with other societies or are joint members with another society. 

IF YOU ARE ONE OF THESE REFEREES, PLEASE READ THIS SECTION CAREFULLY AND FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS SET OUT IN THE GUIDELINES ATTACHED. 

In respect of exchange appointments, North Midlands will be responsible for reimbursing your match day travel and NOT the Society of the home club. Changes made by WTR mean that claims for these games need to be managed slightly differently. 

If you are a joint member with another society, please ensure you DO NOT claim expense for games officiated on behalf of that Society from North Midlands. 

The consequences of not following these instructions are set out in red in the guidelines.

Acceptance, Declining and Cancelled Appointments 

It has come to my attention recently that some referees are failing to Accept or Decline their Match Appointments. This causes me additional work. So, if when you are completing your claim, you find that a game you officiated at is missing, or you are unable to claim travel expenses for a particular game, it’s likely that this is the reason. If this applies to any of your games, contact me. 

‘WhosTheRef’ is an integrated system and to help avoid me having to make internal adjustments, when appointed to a game please either Accept or Decline the Appointment. 

Also, a reminder. If after accepting your appointment you are notified that your game has been cancelled can you please remember you must notify the appointments team by email and / or me so that we can update WTR. This ensure that the club invoice I issue is correct and the club are not charged a Match Fee. 

Reimbursement of your Claim 

I refund all expenses claims through the online banking facility the society use. It will also ensure that you receive your money in a timelier manner than if I have to prepare lots of cheques and address individual envelopes and then post them. 

Where I already have your Bank Account information, I will arrange reimbursement to your nominated account. 

HOWEVER: – 

IF YOU HAVE MOVED TO A NEW BANK YOU WILL NEED TO LET ME KNOW YOUR NEW ACCOUNT DETAILS. 

LIKEWISE, IF YOU ARE A NEW MEMBER SUBMITTING YOUR CLAIM FOR THE FIRST TIME AND YOUR HAVE NOT ALREADY SENT THIS INFORMATION TO ME CAN YOU DO SO. 

In both cases, please email me finance@northmidsrefs.co.uk with your account details before you submit your claim. 

If you prefer to receive a cheque, this will be sent to the address that you have registered on WTR hopefully before the end of November. 

Finally 

PLEASE TAKE CARE AND DOUBLE NO TRIPLE CHECK THAT THE INFORMATION ON YOUR CLAIM IS 100% CORRECT. I do audit a percentage of claims. 

Also, please note that for personal reasons I will be unable to reimburse any expenses claims submitted after the 10th November and for the whole of December until January 2024.

Hope you’re all looking forward to a weekend of refereeing along with the semi-finals of the Rugby World Cup…unfortunately it looks like the good weather is firmly behind us and normal service is resumed with a wet weekend.

Society Treasurers Report

At the last Society Board Meeting held in October the accounts up to 31 March 2023 were finalised and approved. If you would like to read the treasurers report, this can be accessed on our website by clicking this link.

As a Society we are in a stable position as can be seen in the report, a copy of the accounts are available on request should you wish to see this information.

Referee Subs

Within the treasurers report we have noticed that membership subs are down from previous years. The cost of annual subs is £25 providing benefits such as:

• RFU Insurance
• Access to RFU International tickets
• Training & Development
• Referee Kit
• +much more

If you require information on how to pay please drop an email to finance@northmidsrefs.co.uk.

We offer concessions on membership subs as follows:

New Members – If you completed the first or second day of the Referee course during the season you will get free membership with the society for the remainder of the current season and the following season.

YMO / Full-time education – If you are a YMO or in full time education membership is free during this period.

Additional Circumstances – We also offer free membership on a case-by-case basis for example unemployed or other situations. If you would like to find out more please contact us.

Free Kit Offer

As we have communicated previously we are offering all referees who have completed 8 games last season and are paid up member for this season, with at least one game under the belt the offer of a free match shirt or watcher coat. The process for this is to choose and pay for the product through our preferred kit supplier – Stag Sports. On completion if you email the invoice to finance@northmidsrefs.co.uk and you will be reimbursed the amount.

Hot Topics

Over the next few bulletins I’d like to focus on Hot Topics as found by our referees; if there is anything you would like us to focus on please let me know by dropping an email – webmaster@northmidsrefs.co.uk

Celebrating one of our ex-referees

Many will remember Andy Wigley as a member with us until university and then work took him to live in Gloucestershire. Nevertheless he has maintained contact with some of his former colleagues and the Society.

Andy has just been promoted to the P.G.M.O.T. (Professional Game Match Official Team) following a successful trial period in the Premiership Cup.

Drive for New Referees

As you will have all seen the number of available referees this season as been at an all time low. As a Society we have been looking at ways to improve this reaching out to the North Mids RFU, Clubs, England RFU along with work within the Society. As a result we will be looking to run ‘Introduction to Refereeing’ courses over the coming months. These are likely to commence from December with potential clubs to help with the management and ownership of the courses.

Have a great weekend all and enjoy the games.

Afternoon All.

This is a quick update sharing the training slides that we ran through during our face to face session last week.

At the session we ran through an update on the new Tackle Height laws asking the attendees how this has impacted games officiated this season. Some of the top points covered were:

• Increased penalty count as a result of the new laws
• More focus on the tackle looking at both the attacker and defender
• Increase in ‘Late & Low’ offences

For those who were unable to attend if you have any thoughts please feel free to drop into comments.

We also covered off game regulations surrounding substitutions and interchanges, which I for one found helpful.

Please review the slides here and if you have any comments or would like further clarity please get in touch.

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.