At the request of our members the TRU Board will be releasing their monthly board call minutes and notes. View all of the TRU archived minutes or read on for the most recent notes:
- Roll Call
- Young
- James
- Yeoman
- Parker
- Tate
- Tomsak
- Turner
- Dodge
- Regrets
- Green (TRRA Regional Meeting)
- Regrets
- Followups
- Budget
- Tate: Still in progress, working with Scott on some travel in regards to Little Rock matches for referees. There are concerns that this would cost more than anticipated, so we are in discussion over that.
- Tate: Some really good news on the referee grant we gave last year, the SoloShots have finally arrived and were in use this past weekend. I watched some of the film from the Reds match and it was very good quality.
- Tate: A takeaway from the last AGM I had was that we could put a graphic on the website that indicates where our members dues goes to. Any issues with this being placed on the website? None.
- Operating Procedures Updates
- Young: I didn’t get any responses to the updates so those were posted to the web: https://texasrugbyunion.com/2017/12/08/updated-tru-operating-policies-december-2017/
- Tate: Great, did anyone have any concerns over those?
- Turner: Looked good!
- Referee Recruitment Budget Update
- Young: 5 individuals have become certified referees and covered at least two matches: Aaron Boan (Austin/4 matches), Wadih Eljuri (Dallas/2), Kat Deck (San Antonio/2), Justin Hale (Austin/4), Rebekkah Portlock (Dallas/2). We paid each of them $75 to cover their referee course costs.
- Tate: This is excellent and am I correct that these are all active players?
- Young: Correct.
- Tate: So they may be able to help us out on non-Saturday matches but we still have a huge issues covering Saturday matches. Scott told me that they have one D1 level active referee each in DFW and Houston and 6 in Austin. So the travel burden for these referees will be high as the majority of the top referees will be traveling outside of Austin to cover matches. We need to continue recruiting referees 24/7, 365 days a year.
- Turner: We have a handful of new referees in Tulsa and I’m curious of what the process is to have them get assignments, etc.
- Young: Once they’ve done a course or indicated that they would like to referee, have them contact Scott. The key will be getting them setup on WTR as everything runs through that.
- RRRC/TRU Championships – Bids
- Young: Posted request for bids last week, applications are due by January 15.
- Tate: We know we are heading into the Holidays, so please reach out to your constituents and encourage your divisional clubs to put in applications. Even if they don’t think they are going to get it it’s a good experience to put a bid together.
- Young: It’s a unique year as well, since we are having two Championship events. The TRU event could be run on one field and we’ve never had that before. It’s a perfect practice round for a smaller club to host an event!
- Tate: Correct, a great opportunity for a club to host an event in either case.
- USA Rugby Western Playoffs – May 19-20
- Tate: USA Rugby is rotating the SF and QF events (Round of 8) and we are next in line to host. Round Rock did put in a bid but the facility already had an event on that weekend so the bid was withdrawn. We don’t want to miss this opportunity to host and we need to submit a bid. Otherwise we would be sending our teams out of the state.
- Tomsak: Any idea on how many teams/games?
- Tate: Yes, every division but D1 will have four teams, so 18 teams. Saturday is semi-finals (9 games) for all divisions and Sunday is quarterfinals (10 games / with consolation matches). In Tucson they did it on three fields but it might be possible to do it on two.
- Young: Here is some more information on the USA event and the bid process: https://www.usarugby.org/2017/12/national-championship-series-opens-application-for-2018-host-venues/
- Budget
- Congress Update (Yeoman)
- Yeoman: A reminder that NDS is next month, a great event that everyone in our Union should send representatives too. Also at the Lost Afternoon we put together an initiative to do a quarterly newsletter, I have a working draft and will share that with the Board. This is focused on Houston but we’d like to expand it out to all of our cities.
- Tate: This is very interesting and definitely something that we’d like to expand to all of our communities.
- Yeoman: The next Congress meeting is February 10 in the DFW area. Also at Lost Luncheon Dan Payne gave us some signs that Texas will host an International in June 2018.
- Yeoman: A reminder that NDS is next month, a great event that everyone in our Union should send representatives too. Also at the Lost Afternoon we put together an initiative to do a quarterly newsletter, I have a working draft and will share that with the Board. This is focused on Houston but we’d like to expand it out to all of our cities.
- Grant Request
- Neariah Persinger – Rugby Barbados World 7s
- Tate: Luke gave us some really great background on Neariah, she is attempting to gain a spot on the Women’s 7s team. She has attended a few events at the OTC and has been asked to clear her schedule for future HSBC events.
- Dodge: I motion that we approve $250 grant.
- Tate: Second.
- Parker: Who did she play for at Barbados?
- Turner: The Titans 7s side, a select side coached by Lindenwood. She is a former All American that played with Lindenwood. She is also CIPP’d with Tulsa (W).
- Tate: Any objections? None. APPROVED.
- Neariah Persinger – Rugby Barbados World 7s
- New Business?
- Abilene 12/6 “forfeit”
- Tate: This came in very late on Saturday?
- Dodge: Yes, it was canceled a few hours before. Referees were already in route…
- Tate: Abilene is going to try and reschedule the match for the Spring. The RRRC will handle that but from a TRU Administrative standpoint this is a fine situation. Even an attempt to reschedule a match within 14 days incurs a change fee. Especially since the assigned referee was in route, this is a fine situation.
- Parker: If they reschedule, it’s not a forfeit?
- Tate: That isn’t our concern, we are worried about the lack of notification, they canceled the day of and the referee was already in route. If the RRRC wants to allow them to reschedule, that is their concern.
- Parker: The way I understand it there were other matches scheduled and so the referee was already scheduled for other games? This was also in Dallas so the travel burden wasn’t as much.
- Tate: TRRA will bill us for three matches regardless.
- Young: I’ve confirmed that TRRA did send three referees so we will be billed by TRRA for three referees.
- Dodge: To me it’s two issues, we have a referee resource issue and so this referee couldn’t cover another match as a result of the late notice. I talked with Tim at Abilene and he understands the consequences and that they will more than likely incur a fine.
- Young: Forfeit policy indicates: 1st offense: $150 plus referee costs; $150 to club, rest goes to cover referee fees.
- Tate: Of course the club can request mercy from the TRU Board and we can act on that as we see fit.
- Dodge: The Reds would like to reschedule the match and so we would be willing to forgo the $150 that would come to us.
- Tate: Ok, so provided that they reschedule the match, it would only be $150. The $150 that would compensate the Reds would be waived. This gives Abilene an incentive to have the match rescheduled. Does anyone have an issue with that?
- Parker: No.
- Shreveport Friendly
- Tomsak: I’m not sure if I need to go directly to TRRA but we had a Deep South referee cover one of our women’s matches. I believe he was paid cash directly at the fields.
- Tate: If he was scheduled through the TRRA than they would bill us. Since you believe he received a cash payment, send the ref’s name and a description to the TRU Board and Scott can review.
- MD4
- Parker: Even D4 teams need to have a L200 coach?
- Tate: Correct.
- Parker: Hypothetical, what if they aren’t compliant?
- Tate: Correct me if I’m wrong but we haven’t created a fine structure around this…We do have general policies around gameday procedures. I would think the first step would be to contact that club and explain that these policies are not optional.
- Corpus Christi Crabs CMS
- Young: We have two outstanding CMS matches for Corpus Crabs, nothing has been input for their matches. I’ve been in contact with them but they haven’t requested the matches to be unlocked etc. I gave them a deadline of today to have this completed and still nothing has been done.
- Tate: So we can fine them but first they would be declared not in good standing and won’t receive referees etc.
- Dodge: They are in D3 South?
- Tate: Right.
- Young: They’ve done their roster for 12/9 but need to go back and do the other two matches. Their next match isn’t until 1/20/2018 so I’m thinking we need to step this up a bit.
- Tate: Ok, forward your last communication to Dodge, Parker, Hughes and I. We can help out.
- Abilene 12/6 “forfeit”
- Adjourned (9:15 pm)