Chris presented the following report at the AGM held at the club on Wednesday, July 10th.
Once again, it is my privilege to give you this year’s report for 2023/2024. As normal, I would want to start by looking back, but I do want to spend most of my report looking ahead.
On the Field
It would be fair to say that last year, we saw some of the best rugby we have seen from all our teams for years. Our first team beat all the teams that finished above us, including great games against Services, Barnstaple and Chew Valley at home. We also saw some fantastic performances away from home. The one disappointment was the two losses at home to Exmouth in the league and also the Devon Cup, which resulted in a 4th place finish in a very competitive league with the team scoring really well, resulting in over 800 points.
Well done to all players and our coaches, Adam Thomas, Joe Lovell, Nathan Gosling, Jon Ellery, Barry Thomas and Pete Boyce, who have done a fantastic job once again this year. This year Joe is stepping down and we wish him all the best.
Our Crusaders had a good year scoring more than 630 points and finishing 4th (but 3rd in reality). This young team has done the club proud. We have seen many of them representing the first team during the year and they have all stepped up as needed. This has then led to a number of our Colts appearing for the Crusaders and a few for the first team.
Many thanks to Dan Stead, Adam Mudge, Derrick Piper, Nigel Daniels and the rest of the Crusader team. Derrick will also be stepping away this year and we do thank him for his work over many years.
I would also want to pay tribute to all the players who have represented Devon at all levels, including the South West and other services teams.
It is great to see that our youth, Colts, ladies’ teams and walking rugby teams have also had a good year with some really good performances, and we look forward to seeing more of them this year. Once again, many thanks to Mike Coyle and all the Youth coaching teams, Gavin Webber for the Colts, Jennie Moss with the Ladies, and James Onslow and Bryan Pitman for walking rugby, and all the teams that work with them.
Well done to the players at all levels that put on a Brixham shirt this last year and to all our coaches, managers, physios, administrators etc., we want to say a “huge thank you”. As we look forward, we do so with great expectations of the Brixham teams to come, especially with the younger teams progressing. I also wish to thank John Lovell, our DOR; I would also say that Steve Alexander has done a great job for us in organising fixtures and working with Devon and other clubs so well once again. Please continue to support all our ‘Fisherman & Sirens’ at all ages.
Off the Field
Once again, this year, we have also had some good success off the field with some great improvements here at the club, and from a sales and financial point of view, we have had another very successful year. Our staff team, led by Peter Cox have continued to make good progress on increasing sales and they are to be congratulated for this. We have also been able to host some very good events that have helped us to increase sales such as the recent Devon semi-final, and other community events.
As a club, we are fortunate to have a ‘bank of fantastic sponsors’ who continue to support us in many ways. We are very grateful to all of them, whether they are large or small. They are all important and vital to our success.
Our financial performance has been significantly improved and helped by the great work completed by Neil Rodgers, a new addition to the team, and we look forward to welcoming him onto the exec as our financial officer. Ken Rudge has also done a great job as our Treasurer leading the team. I would also want to pay tribute to Julie Sparks and Bryan Pitman, who have spent many hours every week at the club working on finance and their other duties as volunteers with us. We will see the positive results from this later in the meeting.
I would like to thank our President Keith Gardner, first of all in his formal role and say how well he has adapted to this, but also for the vast amount of time that he spends at the club working to improve the facilities we have and in addition, for the work on the grounds where he has been amiably supported by Andy Caunter and by a number of great volunteers on Saturday mornings and to all we say a huge thank you.
It is without doubt that our club could not survive without the work of all our fantastic volunteers; they are in so many places, some you will see as they work in and around the club, be it on match days at the gate or selling raffle tickets, during the week in and outside the club, on Sundays with the youth, plus our coaches and volunteers, and many others including our Executive Committee and Club Directors, all who do so much work behind the scenes in so many different ways which in turn saves the club a fortune.
Last year we acknowledged that our website and communications were not as good as they should have been and committed to improving them. Whilst I would say that we still have some way to go, we have made good progress with a new website, better internal communications with better signage, and improved use of the screens, once again our thanks to the two Steves and to David Gledhill.
Moving Forward
Because of better financial performance and planning, this has enabled us to make some real investments and improvements into our already great facilities. We have upgraded the gent’s toilets downstairs and you will have seen that we have already redecorated both function rooms upstairs and the staircases. We are replacing the furniture in the Danny Irvine room with new tables and have already purchased new chairs, so they are now all the same. Plus, we have had the carpets and seats cleaned. We have been able to lay a new floor in the BTA room (for the first time for well over 40 years) and are also looking at changing the tables as well. Volunteers are redecorating the changing rooms, both up and down and we will be tidying up the lounges downstairs.
Because of the fantastic support of our sponsors, we have been able to replace our flood lights with new LED, and we are so grateful to Pump Technology and to others for this. One of the improvements I have wanted to do for a number of years is to install air conditioning in both function rooms upstairs; this will also improve the opportunities for hiring these rooms, especially in the summer months. Once again, due to the incredible generosity and work of a group of supporters, including James Irvine, Brothwell Irvine, Peter Chart and Ian Onslow, we have been able to install air conditioning and heat recovery ventilation to each room that will be separately controlled. A huge thank you to all.
The one area of ‘moaning’ that we have heard most over the last year is the audio and visual system when showing sports. Once again because of the improved financial position, we have agreed to significantly improve this with a new sound system and we will change the projector and screens with large TVs and a number of other smaller ones around both sides, which will make the Rugby Club the place to come and watch sport in Brixham. This will have an impact on the large wall that includes all the pictures of teams, however they are NOT disappearing, but will be moved into the corridor in a way that you will be actually see all of them and so that we can keep them up to date. We would ask for your patience on this as it will take time, and we will do this as quickly as we can.
One of my requests is that we all pull together to ensure that, before the start of the new season, we have a REALLY good tidy up all around the club, this will mean us clearing a lot of ‘rubbish’ that we have accumulated. To this end, we would like to have a club wide volunteers’ day/ weekend so that we all come up and work together; this will take place once the caravans have left and will be in early August. Please help in any way you can.
At the Dinner & Dance, I put MY colours to the mast and said that NOW is the time that we should be pressing forward on the field and I believe we should be doing all that we can to see our teams promoted to the next levels above. The priority must be our Crusaders to go up by at least one, but ideally two leagues and our first team to move up to level 4 into National 2 South division. This will not be easy and will cost us, and these are the reasons to drive the income and profitability of the club upwards.
150th Season
We are now at the start of this very exciting year, many of you were around and will remember our 125th and our 100th. We want to make this occasion a year of celebrations, looking back but most of all pushing forward for our next 150 years, building on our younger players and developing our club to continue to be the best in the South West.
I would like to pay tribute to Bryan Pitman and the team who have put together a really great calendar of activities for the year to come and we will be sharing these with you next week when we formally launch on Thursday the 18th July here at the club with our new kit launch that will give a clear nod to our heritage in its designs as well as looking to the future. We have invited all our sponsors and volunteers and would love to see as many of our club members as possible to help celebrate with us. We will have a BBQ, welcome drink and entertainment along with the more formal parts of the evening. There will also be an opportunity for all to purchase new 150th clothing including the new replica shirts. You will also be able to order other items from VX-3 with special discounts on the night, so please do come and join us from 6.30pm.
Finally, I would like to thank all our members for their continued support to me and all that work on behalf of Brixham Rugby Club.
Chris Forster
Chairman – July 2024.
