Scottish Rugby AGM arrangements

Sent on behalf of Scottish Rugby President, Colin Rigby

I look forward to welcoming you on Saturday to the Annual General Meeting. In order to extend our reach to our stakeholders there are now three ways that your club can participate and ensure your views are heard, in particular I wish to draw your attention to the Proxy Service which is a new option.

Meeting Arrangements & Attendance 

The AGM is being held in the President’s Suite at Scottish Gas Murrayfield and online. Please note that your representatives for the AGM do not need to be office bearers but must be current members of the Club/Associate Body they are representing. 

Representatives can attend in person at Scottish Gas Murrayfield or online, using the electronic platform being hosted by Lumi. If you are unable to attend by either of these methods, please use the proxy voting service (see further below). 

If your representatives are attending the AGM, please provide the following information to Angela McCracken (E: angela.mccracken@sru.org.uk) as soon as possible and by 12 Noon on Wednesday 15 November 2023 at the latest: 

(i) the names of your representatives; 
(ii) whether they will be attending in person, or online; and
(iii) if they are attending online, an email address for each individual and a contact telephone number (in case of any technical issues). 

Log-in details and instructions will be circulated on Wednesday 15 November to those attending online, so that they are readily to hand ahead of the Meeting. 

If you have not confirmed attendance in advance of the Meeting, we will assume that online attendance remains a possibility and will issue log-in details ahead of the Meeting to your nominated contacts on SCRUMS to ensure that the opportunity to attend remains available. 

Your assistance in making sure that the details on SCRUMs for your Club/Society are up to date, would be appreciated. 

Proxy Voting Service 
A proxy voting service is available via Lumi, our electronic meeting platform host. If your representatives are unable to attend the Meeting either in person or using the online platform, please use the proxy voting service to ensure that your votes can be recognised and contribute to the quorum requirement for the Meeting.

You can appoint a proxy or amend the details until 48 hours before the Meeting. Details of how to access this service have been circulated separately, from SRU@lumiengage.com using contact details that you have provided on SCRUMs. Please make sure to check your spam / junk folders.

Further AGM Information and Details can be found via the link below.

Nominations are open for the Girls Regional Game Series, Scottish Rugby’s entry point to the female performance pathway.

The Series provides a competitive development environment for the best young players in Scotland, regardless of geography or local environment, whilst supporting talent identification and selection for National Age Grade programmes.

This year’s Series will see three teams created at U18 level and four at U16 level.

Coaches can now nominate U18 and U16 players via SCRUMS*, and are encouraged to nominate those players they believe are ready to take the next step into a heightened performance environment. 

 
Nominations close Sunday 26 November.

For more information about the programme click on the link below.

Coaches are also invited to watch the webinar linked below, delivered by Robbie Lavery - Scottish Rugby's Performance Pathway Programme Manager - on the GASPS Nomination Guide.

 
*Player Eligibility applies: Girls U18 must be born between 1 Sep 2005 – 31 Aug 2007 and Girls U16 must be born between 1 Sep 2007 – 31 Aug 2009. 

We wish to remind clubs that applications remain open for Growth & Particiation funding alongside the Revenue, Capital and Major Capital Investment strands of the Club Sustainability Fund.

Applications for the funding streams close on Sunday 26 November.

More information plus supporting documents can be found via the links below.
 
Growth & Participation

This funding stream was established from the £6.5M Scottish Government funding announced in April 2021.

The funding is linked directly to Scottish Rugby’s Strategy and will embrace our strategic priorities Wellbeing, Winning and Women and the following drivers:

• Rugby Performance – Achieving sustainable and ever improving progress on the field.
• Financial Performance – Ensure a solid and sustainable foundation, a focus on commercial and financial performance.
• Transformation – Acting with a mindset of transformation in our leadership, engagement, communication, and approach to a post pandemic future.
• People – Creating a working and playing environment that encourages all our people to perform at their best.

This fund is supported by the Scottish Government, therefore all payments will be subject to the Scottish Government review and monitoring processes including freedom of information requests.

A total of £424,044.34 was awarded last season for Women & Girls, State School and the Development Environments streams.

The Revenue strand of the CSF provides funding of up to £10,000 to support new projects designed to increase club revenue.

The Capital strand of the CSF provides up to £50,000 of funding to support clubs to upgrade their facilities and improve the quality, capacity and longevity of rugby participation.

The Major Capital Investment strand is part of our Growth and Participation fund subsidised by the Scottish Government. It is designed to support clubs with developments to their physical infrastructure including the purchase, upgrade or construction of an asset. This financial support programme is a £500K fund, which will award up to £250K for one or two capital investment projects per year over the five-year lifespan of the Growth and Participation Fund. This means up to 10 projects across Scotland could receive up to £250K* for facility development.

*Scottish Rugby reserve the right to change the number and value of awards in any year based on the suitability or lack of application in any year.

£401,399 was awarded to clubs last season (excluding Major Capital, which is still to be awarded).

Scottish Rugby is pleased to announce that the Blueprint Roadshows will be returning for the 2023/24 season.

The roadshows will see the launch of the Blueprint Curriculum for the youth boys and girls games – as well as details around early pathway opportunities for youth players.

We strongly recommend that coaches of U14-U18 players attend the Roadshows, but mini and adult coaches are also welcome to see what to build up to/what skills players will be working on in their learning journey. 

The Roadshows will be delivered by the Game Development department, along with coaches from the FOSROC Academies, these roadshows offer the opportunity for coaches to engage in sessions to develop Blueprint principles within their coaching. 

We have created a Blueprint Bitesize Module for more information – access via SCRUMS > Browse Courses > E-Learning > Blueprint Bitesize 

Roadshow Dates 

Monday 20 November - Glasgow North - Dalziel 
Wednesday 22 November - Edinburgh - Scottish Gas Murrayfield 
Monday 27 November - Borders – Borders College/Gala RFC 
Wednesday 29 November - Caledonia North - Highland RFC

Sign up via SCRUMS.

Further roadshow will be confirmed for Aberdeen, Glasgow South and Caledonia Midlands for February 2024.