TRU Board Notes – 6/17/2019 – Texas Rugby Union

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:

1. Roll Call
  1. Kurylas
  2. Tate
  3. Dodge
  4. Young
  5. Yeoman
  6. Roche
  7. Tomsak
  8. James
  9. Hiller
2. Follow ups
  1. New Clubs
    1. New Club Requirements
      1. Tate: We discussed last month about beefing up our new club requirements. John sent us the doc that the RRRC was working on to use as a starting place. The main difference between that document and what we’ve been doing are some specific milestones as you get closer to the season. Essentially it surrounds # of players by specific dates instead of relying on the USAR minimums (15 for 15s and 7 for 7s). For discussion is if we want to adopt this or refine it. We want to be sure we’re not setting up our competitions for failure because we set the recommendations to lenient.
        Dodge: This is a proposal?
        Tate: Yes, this is for our discussion and it’s something we’re going to deal with over the next 30 days. I would expect us to have to call for a vote on admission of potential new clubs in the next 30 days or so.
        Dodge: Kirk, you’ve done analysis on CIPP’d players in the past. You found that between 25-30 is the sweet spot.
        Tate: Yes, anyone that has less than 25 players will often forfeit. If they have over 30 players, they don’t typically forfeit a first side match. Basically if a club has 25-30 players they are pretty solid.
        Dodge: Do we put anything in here that new clubs have to start at the lowest division?
        Tate: We’ve done that in the past but my only concern is that a club could be a mismatch if they’re reforming or have a great deal of experience.
        Dodge: Right, I see that. I don’t know that we’d often have mismatches like a MD1 caliber side in MD4 but it could happen.
        Tate: I think the presumption is that you start in MD4 or WD3 and if RRRC wants to make an exception, it would be up to that club to prove an exception is warranted. We can put the burden on the club to demonstrate that.
        Dodge: Do we require a CIPP list?
        Tate: No, because of the August CIPP cycle. We’ve asked for a list of prospective players. We can’t wait until August 31 to vote on new clubs as the schedule would already be done. Instead we’re asking for a list of prospective players, they can be added to the schedule and then by August 31 we expect that they have at least 15 CIPP’d players.
        Kurylas: That makes sense, I like that we’re requiring these milestones.
        Tomsak: What about allowing teams to CIPP at large and then they can transfer to the new club?
        Tate: It’s an idea but it would require an administrator or each player to actually fill out the transfer form. Would CIPPing at large really indicate a growing club? We are looking for evidence that a club is the real deal and registering with USA Rugby is the first step.
        Dodge: They would also need to pay the TRU dues as those aren’t collected with CIPPing at large.
        Young: I have sent the proposed new club requirements to the three new clubs already, so they have an idea of what may be required of them.
        Tate: How do we feel about taking a vote on the new club requirement proposal? If we need more discussion, I‘m inclined to recommend an electronic vote.
        Dodge: What if we admit a club, add them to the schedule but they miss a deadline? Who’s checking that and what do we do?
        Tate: Wendy would be checking that and repercussions could start with verbal warnings and then recommending to the RRRC that they be removed from competition. Removing a club messes up everyone’s schedule in that division.
        Dodge: Right, if we’re going to pull the plug on a team, we want to do it before a match is played. I think the Oct 1 deadline will suffice to cover that. We can also keep doing the Jamboree or early fall tournaments to help clubs satisfy those friendly requirements.
        Tate: Yes, I agree with hosting the fall tournaments again.
        Hiller: I’m OK with voting on these new club requirements, have we thought about adding in a referee certification? Especially for the North clubs?
        Dodge: I like that.
        Tate: Yes, that is good.
        Hiller: What if there isn’t a course?
        Tate: With the Summit every summer we’re offering the admin course, Coaching L200 and match official. So a club could and should knock those out in one weekend.
        Young: Ok, I’ve added in the match official requirement by October 1st.
        Tate: Do we have any objections to modifying our new club requirements to provide more guidance and requirements on new clubs to ensure their viability? NONE. APPROVED.
        UPDATE 6/24 Young: I’ve let the below 3 clubs know of the updated club requirements and gave them an extended deadline of July 10. We’ll expedite their requests once we receive all required information.
    2. North Texas Barbarians (Celina, TX)
    3. Other Rugby Club (Austin, TX)
    4. Euless (Dallas, TX)
      1. Tate: Ok, so we have 3 clubs that have asked for admission. Euless is re-forming while North Texas and Other Rugby are new. All three of these could be pulling from existing teams but I’m not concerned with the Other Rugby Club as they would potentially be pulling from very large clubs. I’m a bit concerned with Euless reforming and North Texas as they could be pulling from single side clubs in DFW.
      2. Kurylas: As far as Euless goes, it’s probably a few guys from the Quins, Reds and Ft Worth. I do know that the North Texas Barbarians have been doing a lot of youth rugby over the past few years. Maybe that has helped grow their club from the ground up.
      3. Tate: Yes, that’s the kind of growth we want to see.
      4. Kurylas: Has TD been contacting you Wendy?
      5. Young: Yes
      6. Dodge: If TD is heading it up, he may be pulling players from all of the DFW clubs to reform his club. Celina is pretty far away and I don’t think they will be pulling that many players.
      7. Young: If we’re expecting these clubs to follow our new proposed club requirements then we need to officially send it to them ASAP.
  2. Fines
    1. Woodlands ineligible players ($100)
      1. PAID 5/22
    2. San Antonio unplayed forfeits ($300)
      1. PAID 5/28
  3. USAR Championships
    1. Austin Blacks D1 lost by one point, 2nd overall
    2. Austin Valkyries lost by two points, 2nd overall
    3. Austin Blacks D3 WON!
      1. Tate: We had a fantastic showing at the 2019 USAR National Club Championships. The Austin Blacks D3 took the trophy home while Blacks D1 and Valkyries D1 came very close in competitive matches. Social media blew up about the Blacks D3 victory and that was fun!
  4. Grants
    1. Jordan Heller, Britt McGee and Geri Thomas of the Austin Valkyries / all invited to USA Rugby D1 All stars camp in Denver July 30-Aug 3rd.
      1. Tate: We already electronically voted to approve Jordan’s grant ($250). We haven’t used our full grant budget so I’m recommending that we do the same for McGee and Thomas. Do we have any objections to approving the standard $250 grant amount? NONE. APPROVED.
        Tomsak: I doubt anyone would have objections to these grants, I say we approve.
        Tate: Excellent, Wendy please let Pfleger know where to send those grants.
        Young: Will do.
  5. Summit
    1. Tate: If you haven’t seen the social media or multiple press releases, you may be living under a rock. We’ve confirmed the dates, locations and all the beautiful details. Wendy, how are we looking for registrations? We know that rugby players can be a bit slow at registering for these things.
    2. Young: We have 6 registrations for Coaching L300 (only 4 left) and 1 for Coaching L200 and the admin course.
      1. UPDATE 6/26 Young: Coaching L300 only has 2 spots left!
    3. Tate: Great, we released everything very early this year so we’ll continue to push it and we should all be doing that.
    4. Young: The only recommendation I would make is about the hotel, as always there are multiple events on the weekend and they expect the hotel to sell out. We’re also sharing this hotel with the HOF attendees.
  6. HOF
    1. Tate: Thank the lord for Paul Mabry, he has taken the reins of the HOF and life has been so much easier.
    2. Young: DITTO!!!!
    3. Tate: We’re progressing and it’s looking like it will be quite well attended. The combination of being in Dallas and honoring the 1984 Quins is looking to be very exciting. It’s a smaller class this year and that is by design as the “backlog” has been taken care of. We’re moving into a new ear of the HOF and they anticipate smaller classes going forward. For those that don’t know, we’re going to honor one TRU National Championships per year, the 1984 Quins are the first
    4. Young: We already have 25 RSVPs, which is very good and ahead of schedule.
    5. Tate: We’re also looking to move the HOF and Summit to revenue neutral and that will be a big achievement for us.
  7. Summer AGM Date
    1. Tate: On the last call we decided to do a virtual AGM as we already have a packed schedule. Ideally we’d like to do that before Sept 1 when our fiscal and CIPP year rolls over. Dates to avoid:
      1. Aug 10-11: USAR 7s
      2. Aug 23-25: TRU Summit
        Tate: What about Sunday, Aug 18?
        Young: Yes, that works for me.
        Tate: Good, you and Kat are the most important to that event! Any objections? NONE. APPROVED.
  8. Board Nominations
    1. President – Sep 2020 (3 year term)
    2. Vice President – Sep 2019 (3 year term)
    3. DI M Rep – Sep 2019 (3 year term)
    4. W Rep – Sep 2019 (3 year term)
    5. DII M Rep – Sep 2021 (3 year term)
    6. DIII M Rep – Sep 2021 (3 year term)
    7. Congress – Sep 2020 Watson (2 year term)
    8. Congress – Sep 2019 Yeoman (2 year term)
      1. Young: Congress was posted 6/11.
      2. Tate: Ok, so we have Vice President (Tomsak), MD1 (Dodge), WD1 (James) and Congress opening this summer. We’ve already posted the call for Congress but we need to post the other three. Any opposition to posting the call for nominations?
        Tate: Let’s talk about dates for these, in a perfect place we would like to have the nominees able to speak at the TRU Summit AGM (virtual). Then we could have voting and such all by Aug 31. This does strain Wendy and Kat as elections would be during the TRU Summit.
        Young: Yes, I think we can do that. It would be tight but I think we can post call for nominations on Wed, close on July 15 and voting before the virtual AGM.
    9. RRRC Promotion & Relegation Update
      1. Tate: I understand you have a motion from the RRRC in regards to promotion and relegation.
      2. Dodge: As most of you know, the RRRC typically does promotion and relegation during the summer months. We also work on the schedule once that is finalized. This year an issue came up as to what level of jurisdiction the RRRC has over promotion and relegation in regards to TRU MD4 and WD3. There has been a disagreement within the RRRC on how we should skin that cat. I think the easiest way to solve the problem is that the TRU allow the RRRC to do that. This would be an arrangement by agreement and the TRU could rescind at any time. It’s really about administrative convenience for the RRRC as we go about our policies in regards to promotion and relegation.
        Dodge: I motion that the TRU delegate to the Red River Conference Competitions Committee the authority to determine automatic promotion / relegation from / to MD4 and WD3 as part of the RRRC annual promotion / relegation process, and that TRU will accept into the MD4 / WD3 competitions teams relegated from RRRC MD3 / WD2. All such promotions / relegations will follow the RRRC Promotion / Relegation policy in effect at the time of the decision, and be subject to a thumbs up / thumbs down decision by the TRU Board. This agreement between the RRRC and TRU will be memorialized in a more formal agreement which may also memorialize the existing practice of the RRRC making the schedule for MD4 / WD3 divisions, subject to TRU Board approval. The agreement can be revoked by TRU should RRRC materially change its Promotion / Relegation Policy from the policy in effect at the time the agreement is entered into.
        Tate: Dodge called me before we added this to the agenda. My one concern was that I don’t want to do anything that would be interpreted by some at the National level that the TRU is seceding jurisdiction to the RRRC. I have no problem with the RRRC as constituted nor that they are taking on that charge. I just don’t want anyone at USAR to think that they can dictate eligibility rules etc. So Dodge and I agreed that a written memorandum that sets out the terms and limits on this would be prudent. Thoughts?
        Tate: Ok, no thoughts or concerns. I’ll ask Dodge to construct the memorandum and we can do an electronic review.
        Dodge: Ok, will do.
    10. New Business
      1. CIPP Dues
        Tate: We’ve already had a discussion and a vote to raise TRU dues, specifically we had talked about $5. What I intend to do is go ahead and notify USA Rugby in the next couple of weeks so that we can make the window for the new CIPP registration cycle. Unless there is a strong objection we’re going to act on our previous vote and raise TRU dues to $50 (USAR is $50). Previously the TRU was at $45.
      2. Prorated TRU dues (for 7s)
        Dodge: I was approved by a new club in the DFW, the Gorillas. They are all college players and it is essentially a team of transferred in players. They’ve asked for a reduction of TRU dues that are required when they transfer into the new TRU club. I know they aren’t the only college team nor are they unique in having players transfer in from out of the region.
        Tate: This isn’t the first time we’ve had this request, so far we’ve declined to have any reductions. USAR can’t change the transfer costs but rather the TRU would have to do a rebate. We’d have a hard time making an equitable policy that is fair for everyone in my opinion.
        Dodge: Yes, that seems like a slippery slope.
        Tate: I’m not inclined to do a reduction nor a rebate. Really the CIPP fees are pretty reasonable in my opinion.
        Dodge: Ok, I don’t have a motion on this as I thought it had been dealt with before.
        Tate: Yes, I’d love to get to a place where we could have a blanket policy for HS or college players to join the Union in the summer. But, we’re in that place yet.
        Dodge: Agreed.
    11. Meeting adjourned (9:21 PM)

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