In League TogeTher newsletterfiles.pitchero.com/clubs/2534/in league together.pdfCeltic Crusaders...
Transcript of In League TogeTher newsletterfiles.pitchero.com/clubs/2534/in league together.pdfCeltic Crusaders...
A very successful Rugby league launch of the Stonewall Diversity Champions programme took place at the Bradford Bulls vs. Hull FC match on Sunday 15th March. The event was attended by Richard Lewis and Sarah Williams (RFL), Peter Hood (Bradford Bulls), Gerry Sutcliffe (MP and Minister of Sport) and Dave Small (Stonewall) (pictured above) as well as representatives from local Lesbian Gay Bisexual (LGB) organisations and statutory and voluntary organisations such as Bradford and Leeds Councils and West Yorkshire Police. The launch was also an opportunity to showcase work taking place in the game which involves and includes LGB people both as employees, players, coaches, fans, club staff and volunteers;
•LGBTemployeesforumopentoallRFLandclubemployees and volunteers, players, coaches, match officials and other support staff
•LGBTfansforumrunbyBradfordMesmac
•Stonewallchartersignedbyall13oftheBritishSuperLeague clubs
•InformationpacksprovidedbyStonewallsenttoall34professional clubs - there are still some more packs available if any community clubs would like them
As a result of this early work several clubs have made a commitment to work with the LGB communities - Salford City Reds have further strengthened their links to the local LGBT community and Pride Sports and will be attending the Manchester Pride games as well as other planned activities and Halifax RLFC will be attending the first Calderdale Pride event, other clubs are in the early stages of setting up partnerships with their local LGBT communities.
IfyourclubwouldliketoengagewithyourlocalLGBTcommunity please contact Sarah Williams who will be happy to facilitate links, partnerships and support plans to work together.
RFL Launch stonewall Diversity Champions programme
issue 5 | may 09
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In League TogeThernewsletter
stonewall charterWe, the undersigned Rugby Football League club, have
agreed to work with the RFL and Stonewall to challenge
homophobia and work together to create an inclusive and
welcoming environment for lesbian, gay and bisexual people
at matches and all aspects of club life.
Bradford Bulls Peter Hood (Chairman) Ryan Duckett (General Manager)
Castleford Tigers Richard Wright (CEO)
Celtic Crusaders Anthony Seibold (Football Manager)
Harlequins RL Petra Walsh (Operations Manager)
Huddersfield Giants Richard Thewlis (Managing Director)
Hull FC James Rule (Chief Executive)
Hull KR Neil M Hudgell (Chairman)
Leeds Rhinos Gary Hetherington (CEO)
Salford City Reds David Tarry (CEO)
St Helens Tony Colquitt (Chief Executive)
Wakefield Trinity Wildcats Francis Stephenson (General Manager) John Kear (Coach)
Warrington Wolves Andrew Gatcliffe (CEO)
Wigan Warriors IanLenagan(Chairman)
Mick Hogan (Chief Executive)
Statements from Clubs:
Salford “We are working in this area via community teams.”
Wakefield “The Wildcats are happy to support The
Stonewall Diveristy Champions Project and look forward
to being involved in achieving this initiatives aims. This
partnership complements our existing community activity
whilst reinforcing our established social inclusion policy.”
Warrington “As always we are happy to support projects
of this nature. The project will interface with Equality and
Diversity Policy already in place at Warrington Wolves.”
Celtic Crusaders
have ventured
into a partnership
with two Special
Educational
Needs schools
in Bridgend by
offering Rugby League coaching sessions for forty children.
The disability pilot project has been put together as a
new drive in partnership with the Disability Sport Wales
programme within the Local Authority.
Three weekly sessions have been put together at both
Ysgol Bryn Castell and Heronsbridge schools, with twenty
pupils from each school being put through their paces
by the Celtic Crusaders community coaching staff. The
sessions will enable the students to experience the different
elements of Rugby League as well as being offered an
insight into one of the most popular competitions in the UK.
Disability Sport Wales Development Officer, Huw Griffiths
said “This is a great chance for all the pupils to experience
a new sport and join in the excitement of the Super League
coming to South Wales, in particular Bridgend. The Celtic
Crusaders have been extremely supportive in providing
these opportunities and it is hoped that it is a partnership
that will continue to flourish”.
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Federation of Disability sports Organisations awards evening
issue 5 | may 09
Celtic Crusaders coaching disabled children
newsletter
Following our search for audio
commentators the RFL are delighted
to say that on Sunday 19th April
twelve volunteers attended a full day
RoyalNationalInstitutefortheBlind
(RNIB)trainingtobecomeaudio
commentators. The session was
facilitated by Harvey Wiles, pictured
above, who said the day was hugely
successful with a very high standard of audio commentary
already achieved. Those who attended are now able to
offer their services to local clubs and centrally organised
matches such as Magic Weekend.
Ifyourclubwouldliketoknowmoreaboutaudio
commentary equipment or would like the contact details
of the audio commentators, who are based throughout
the UK, including South Wales and London please contact
Sarah Williams. At club level in the last few days we have
linked audio commentators to Halifax, Hull and Warrington
clubs and look forward to offering this service across many
more clubs in the near future.
RFL now has 12 trained audio commentators!
Rugby League swept the board at the Federation of Disability
Sports Yorkshire awards on Friday 20th March winning five
awards. At the celebratory evening held at Elland Road, Gill
Johnson spoke about the incredible hard work and dedication
from players, coaches, match officials and other team support
which led to the Wheelchair Tag Rugby Team winning the
World Cup in Australia. At the awards evening the RFL were
awarded the Cyril Villiers governing body award for the second
year running in recognition of the work the governing body is
doing to make the game more accessible to disabled people.
14yearoldHarrisonBrown,akeymemberofthewheelchair
team as well as other wheelchair sports, won the award for
Young Achiever (boy category) . Andy Atkinson won a Special
Award to recognise his hard work in promoting and playing the
sport. The Regan Cooper Team of the Year award went to the
England Wheelchair team and finally the Baroness Masham
Excellence in Wheelchair Sport went to the player of the World
Cup tournament Andrew Wharton. Well done to everyone
involved in wheelchair tag rugby!
Bme History project moving forward!
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RFL working to include deaf and hearing impaired communities
RFL coach Tom Allen attended
the National Deaf Children’s
Sports (NDCS) event at John
Charles Centre for Sport to
coach rugby skills to young
deafchildren.Itwasahugely
successful event with the
young people particularly
enjoying the rugby league
element to the day. We hope to take part in further events and to
work with NDCS on further projects.
NDCS also completed filming the top 50 rugby terms in British
Sign Language at the Harlequins featuring players Tony Clubb,
Will Sharp, Luke May and Ben Kaye. This resource will be
available to download shortly. We hope more people who are
deaf or have a hearing impairment will consider getting involved
in Rugby League and the RFL will support clubs to meet the
communication needs of deaf players, coaches and staff.
Finally the RFL coaching department plan to offer one signed
Level 1 coaching course per year, if you know anyone from the
deaf community that would like to train as a Rugby League
coach please contact Arvinder at RFL [email protected]
issue 5 | may 09
OnFridaythe24th
April Eccles College
in association with
Folly Lane ARLFC
and Salford City Reds
Foundation hosted
a rugby league
festival. The festival,
organised by Val Wakefield of Folly Lane, was an extremely
inclusive day of workshops and demonstrations. With students
from Chatsworth High School a special educational needs
school playing alongside students from St John’s RC Primary
in Chorlton as well as students from Eccles College.
The students were also given the chance to try their hand
at Wheelchair rugby league as England Wheelchair Rugby
League players and coach Phil Roberts were on hand to
coach and demonstrate their sport to all the students who
attended, even players from Salford City Reds academy and
Reds stars Phil Leuluai, Jack Spencer and Lewis Palfrey had
a go. The festival was a great success and gave coaches and
students alike the opportunity to see how inclusive a sport
rugby league really is.
The coaching delivered by Tony Griffin, Folly Lane, and
demonstrations from young Folly players and Reds academy
players where a great showcase of the skill needed to play
rugbyleague.Itwasalsogreattoseestudentsofmixed
abilities working together and even better still, rugby league
was the sport being used to bring people together that
normally wouldn’t cross paths.
Bringing people together in salford
newsletter
We are delighted to say that a number of individual clubs as well
as Playing for Success centres at Wakefield Wildcats, Halifax
RLFC and Huddersfield Giants have taken the lead in this exciting
initiative and are working together to create profiles of past and
present BME players, coaches, match officials, club staff and
volunteers of both professional and community clubs. We plan
to launch this project in time for Black History Month in October
2009 offering web based resources covering each individuals
personal and family biography, their Rugby League biography as
well as reasons why they got involved in the sport in the
first instance.
We still need clubs to get involved so that we can put together
a comprehensive collection of resources celebrating BME
involvementacrossthegame.Ifyourclubwouldliketoget
involved please contact Sarah Williams who will put you in touch
with other clubs and researchers that could help and support
your work.
picture from Huddersfield
The RFL is working alongside local Rugby League clubs
to develop links with faith forums and those community
workers engaging with BME communities as part of its
equalities agenda to overcome barriers to participation and
create a welcoming environment for everyone whatever
their race, religion, faith or belief.
As part of this scheme a number of religious and
community leaders were invited to watch the recent
Carnegie World Club Challenge match at Elland Road.
Inordertoencourageguestsfromfaithcommunitieswe
provided hospitality with a vegetarian buffet, no alcohol and
the room was converted into a prayer room ten minutes
prior to the match kicking off. These efforts resulted in an
excellent response from religious leaders as for many it was
their first match and proved to be a huge success.
Such an enjoyable experience has sparked a real
enthusiasm for the game with guests now keen to work
with their local clubs to introduce Rugby League into their
communities. Significant developments and partnerships
are beginning to happen in Batley, Bradford, Leeds,
Keighley and Oldham with work in other areas planned.
IfyourclubisbasedinanareawithahighBMEpopulation
which does not currently access your club as players,
coaches or spectators then contact Sarah Williams who
will be delighted to support the club and work to develop
partnershipswithlocalBMEandfaithgroups.Inthewords
of Beeston Broncos chair Phil Goodfield “We want all our
rugby clubs to strive towards becoming genuine community
clubs not just clubs within the community”
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Rugby League developments in europe
issue 5 | may 09newsletter
Links with Bme & Faith communities
alternative formats The RFL has a commitment to providing information in alternate formats. To date we have copies of the RFL Laws of the Game - theofficialrulebook-onaudiotape.IfyouwouldlikeanfurtherRFL documents or information in an audio format please contact Sarah Williams and we will endeavour to meet your needs.
Dorcol vs. Belgrade University
Super League has made history in Central, Eastern and South
Eastern Europe. On 20th February Super League was broadcast
on Sport Klub TV regional sport TV for Central, Eastern and
South Eastern Europe. This was start just start of broadcasting
Super League games in Poland, Hungary, Romania, Serbia,
Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia and Montenegro. This will help raise
the profile of the game in Central Europe which may then have
benefits to Rugby League clubs working to engage with Eastern
European communities in their area. For more information on
developments in Europe and beyond please see
www.rlef.eu.com
Contact
For information on any of the articles or projects included
pleasecontactSarahWilliamson01132375037oremail
For more information on any of the articles in this newsletter please contact Sarah Williams at: RFL,RedHall,RedHallLane,Leeds,LS178NB tel 0113 2375037 or email [email protected]