The 1st XV has only one friendly game at home, and this is against Tring on August 13, ko 13.30, and the Harts have a Friday night game on the 26th August against Billericay with the kick off 19.45. Come along early and have a pint before kick-off.

You should all by now know that our first Nat 2 home game next season is against Westcliff on Saturday September 10, ko 3pm. We have already sold a lot of places for the pre match lunch. We will all meet from 11am onwards for a 12.30 sit down. Due to increased costs for this match our ticket price for this game only is £30 per person. All monies will be due by noon Wednesday September 7, no cash on the day. Alan Gander will again be collecting the money and we will give details on how to pay later in August. If you want to book your place, please email HOSPITALITY@ROCHFORDRUGBY.COM. Stating how many places you want and quote WEST LUNCH please.

We have booked a live band, ULTIMATE 80’s to play after the game from 5.30 till late.

We will have a new chef for next season for the ‘big’ lunches as both Femi and Sarah have ‘retired’ and for the not so big lunches Tracy and Sally will be the main people cooking the food and they are recruiting people to help them. Pip Wright has also come forward to help with the cooking as required, menu preparation and the ordering of the food for each meal. We have met and made some adjustments to the way we do all this, and as a result of this work, I am pleased to say that we can reduce our costs for a pre match meals back down to £25 per person for the rest of the season. (if food and energy costs keep going up though we might need to revisit this). We can’t though reduce the cost for the Westcliff game.

The menu for the Westcliff game is;

STARTER
HOME MADE BROCCOLI & STILTON SOUP

MAIN
BRITISH BRAISED BEEF IN A RED WINE JUS, MUSTARD MASH, CAULIFLOWER CHEESE, BABY CARROTS.

DESSERT
FRUIT CRUMBLE & CUSTARD

VEGETARIAN OPTION
3 BEAN GOULASH & BRAISED RICE.

Anyone with any other special dietary requirements need to tell Alan when reserving your place.

The more observant ones will notice there is no cheese. In most restaurants, cheese always attracts a supplement cost because cheese is so expensive and keeps going up in price.

This is one change we have made to keep the costs down to £25 per person. We will still have 3 courses at every lunch, but cheese will be by exception, not the rule, as the dessert.

I am very confident having looked at the menus for our other lunches that all our lunch food will still be one of the best, if not the best, in our league.

To make this day a success, just like the last time we last played Westcliff at home last December, we need your help and are asking you to give up some time please. We will need some youth/Academy players for car parking and glass collection duties, we will need adults for car parking, money collection, BBQ cooking and other roles. If we just had two adult volunteers from each youth and mini team, we would just about have enough people. We will do our best to ensure no one is working while the game is on so if you think you could give us some of your valuable time to help on the day, please let us know.

Although I am not around early August if you could mail me at CHAIRMAN@ROCHFORDRUGBY.COM in the first instance saying you can help us out then we will have a clearer picture of how many volunteers we have closer to the end of August.

Remember, just two adult volunteers from each youth and mini team will see us possibly reach our volunteer target numbers and once we have recruited some youth/Academy players we hopefully will be ok. Youth/Academy will get paid some money, adult volunteers will get free food and drink and a MASSIVE thank you for helping your Club out.

The new till system and associated ‘back office’ systems should be all installed this week. It provides us with many advantages compared to the old system, one being the issuing of new membership cards which should also be with us next week.

From 1 September your current membership card will not work and you will need to arrange to come to the Club during August to collect your new card from Kevin, who will be at the Club most Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings from 7.30 to 9 and every other Saturday morning from 9 to 12 (best to phone first to check if you are just coming down to renew your membership and collect your new cards just to make sure Kev is there and that he has the new membership cards). When collecting your new membership card, you will also be required to sign up for next season and set up the payment for your next season subscription. If for some reason there are delays in getting all this up and running then your card will still be usable during September. We will keep you all posted.

Breaking news. The Club shop will re -opening soon ready for the start of season. It will stock a range of items including socks and shorts. We will soon announce the Grand Re-opening Date.

More breaking news. Chris Robshaw, ex England captain and great player for Harlequins is coming to the Club on Friday 7 October for an “Evening with Chris Robshaw”. We will have a three-course dinner and Chris will talk to us and have a Q & A for around an hour. More details will follow late August but if you want to reserve any places in advance, please email HOSPITALITY@ROCHFORDRUGBY.COM, telling Alan you want to reserve place for Chris Robshaw. This will be great night out and is open to ALL Club members.

We have said before that we want to invest in our mini and youth coaches, parent helpers etc and I am pleased to say that the following have all registered to take the England Rugby Coaching Award (ERCA).

Mike Clarke, Craig Hinde, Nick cook, Mark Hawker, Tigan Renshaw, Daren Spencer, Rob Overend, Martin Renshaw, Matt Valentine, Simon Field and Paul Goodman. Nick Yelland has just completed the ERCA.

Alan Harvey has completed the RFU Rugby Mentoring Course which means he can now mentor players and coaches and Nick Yelland has just started this course.

Both Danny Cleare and Alan Harvey are taking their RFU level 3 coaching award.

Every youth and mini team should now have at least two qualified First Aiders.

There will be more coaches and parent helpers signing up soon. I think this helps show we are developing a strong culture of personal development and learning for all our coaching teams.

Other recent exciting developments are that we have started the Rochford Hundred Roosters mixed ability ‘team’. Led by Alan Harvey the Roosters meet fortnightly on a Saturday morning from 9.30.

The Rochford Hundred Roosters is for everyone interested in playing rugby whatever their age, experience, and ability.

We are the first mixed ability rugby side in South East Essex and we are now also a Saracens Foundation Squad for mixed ability rugby.

Our players ages range from five to sixteen years of age and take part in non-contact fun rugby sessions twice a month from 9.30a.m. till 11a.m. on Saturday mornings. Our goal this season is to increase our Squad numbers and hold the first mixed ability rugby festival at the club towards the end of the 22/23 season inviting Teams from North Essex, Kent, Hertfordshire and also launch an over 18's Squad.

We are so very proud of The Roosters and their commitment to training sessions, but this success would not have been possible without the support of our volunteers consisting of Club Coaches, Managers and players from across our mini and youth squads who make the sessions that much more fun. Special thanks to Thomas Phillips, Henry Yelland, Lewis Aungier, Henry Warner, Seb, Jack Aungier, Tadgh Walsh, Jamie Hallums and Tom Sams from our youth teams for helping out. We are also probably the only squad with a Team baker namely Andrea who provides homemade cakes and cookies at the end of the sessions.
We have very generous sponsorship from the Rochford Rotary and Essex Freemasons whose donations have supported The Roosters.

Many of you will have had children in the past who have attended Little Scrummers rugby sessions held at the Club for many years. Little Scrummers has just finished for this season, and we have decided that from next season Little Scrummers will NOT be using our facilities anymore.

Again, we are very pleased to announce the formation of the Rochford Hundred Baby Bulls. Well, that was the name, we have now changed it Rochford Hundred Little Rascals. They will be an integral part of our mini’s section. Running sessions outdoors during September and October and again from March to July and inside during the other periods we are catering for young people aged from 2 up to 5, when they become U6’s and join our U6 mini rugby teams.

The Little Rascals will train on a Saturday morning, they will train with the mini’s, not separate to it as Little Scrummers had to be. Stevie Reid, who has coached Little Scrummers for a number of years will continue to lead the team. There will also be opportunities for any Rochford youth players studying at college anything that might include interacting with young people to get involved with the Little Rascals. Initially let me know, CHAIRMAN@ROCHFORDRUGBY.COM. If you are interested in this and I will Stevie know.

The Little Rascals start this coming September, and more news will be forthcoming about how people enlist for Rochford Hundred Little Rascals.

That’s it for now, enjoy your summer holidays

Ray