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
- Tate
- Martin
- Kurylas
- Wilson
- Dodge
- Hiller
- Regrets
- Roche
- Tomsak
- Regrets
- Forfeits
- 12/11 W Houston vs Woodlands – W Houston played forfeit
- 1/29 Blacks III vs Quins III – Quins unplayed forfeit
- TRU Board fined and it has been paid by the Quins
- 2/19 HARC W vs Quins W – Quins played forfeit
- 2/26 Huns v Little Rock – Little Rock unplayed forfeit
- Young: This is the only one we need to talk about, Little Rock did forfeit but they notified TRRA and TRU in plenty of time.
- Tate: OK, so it’s not a fine situation.
- Young: Correct.
- 2/26 Little Rock W vs DARC – DARC played forfeit
- 3/19 BARC vs Corpus Christi – Corpus played forfeit
- 3/26 San Antonio W vs BARC – BARC played forfeit
- Compliance
- OKC M/W
- Young: We’re going in the right direction, they had 19 as of yesterday. I did email Jess at USAR because while they are showing up on the public roster they aren’t showing in our Sportlomo member report.
- Dodge: Their list looks like it is a mixture of men and women?
- Young: Oh, I didn’t see that! Good catch.
- Dodge: I reached out to Greg and he is working on it. We have a match with them this weekend so I was double checking things.
- OKC M/W
- Championships 4/23-24
- Austin Blacks hosting
- Schedule – TBC
- Referees
- Tate: I’ve heard that it will be a tough weekend due to competing events?
- Martin: TRU/RRRC, Gareth Youth tournament, D1A 7s and another youth tournament.
- Tate: We don’t usually have 7s this time of year?
- Martin: Correct, we don’t usually have 7s around this time. We’re focusing on a few referees that do tend to focus on 7s. Our priority is the TRU/RRRC Championships.
- Streaming
- Tate: Wanted to check on this, we’re providing this again, right?
- Young: Yes, we’re working with Nutmeg Media again and so the pricing will be similar to 2019 since it’s the same number of matches. This does not include the cost of commentators, the TRU usually covers that.
- Staffing
- Match Commissioner
- Tate: I’ll be coming in and happy to take on this role.
- #4s
- Young: Typically we have TRU and RRRC committee members help out with this role. If you’re available, let me know!
- Match Commissioner
- U23s
- Tate: We talked about this one our last call, we were going to see what MARFU was going to approve. I heard back from them on Sunday and they approved $2,250. This is a lower number than we were talking about, we were looking at ~$4,000. I feel awkward about going way over what MARFU committed to because that could cause weird dynamics. I also don’t want to leave this team underfunded. Of course we should always be trying to be fiscally smart. So we can match MARFU or I’d be comfortable going up to $3,000.
- Dodge: We are hoping that this will be an annual event, right? If so, I motion that we approve $3,000 for the Central South U23 Mustangs.
- Tate: Yes, it is a pilot and USAR kind of threw it together without consulting the Club Council or any of the committees. I think there will be more HP for men and women going forward. The trend seems to be to start steering things back towards the early 2000s. I’m not sure this format is the way we would have broken it out if the Unions had been consulted. So I don’t know if MARFU will be a long term partner, maybe they will or maybe they won’t. Some sort of All Star program will go forward and I’d advocate for us to leverage our existing Senior event in the Mary Graham All Stars.
- Young: The good news there is that we’ve been talking about this on the Club Competitions Committee, Gary Lobaugh (Midwest) is the All Star person on our committee. He is looking towards something in June for the men and that they would point women’s teams towards the MG All Stars.
- Tate: We’re unique in the men because we have three MLR teams and they are grabbing D1 players for Academies. We will want to be smart about Men’s All Stars. Are we targeting D1 players or should we revive the old Counties program which looked for D2 and D3 (now we would include D4) players. We need to continue our excellence with MG All Stars and there is no reason why we can’t continue hosting that.
- Tate: Any other discussion?
- Hiller: Second.
- Tate: Excellent, any objections? None. APPROVED.
- Gulf Coast Superregional 5/7-8
- Streaming
- Tate: This event will be in Houston and I wanted to chat about streaming. USAR didn’t budget for streaming Super Regional events. Is this something we can pick up?
- Young: Dodge shared the proposed schedule and so I’ve sent that to Nutmeg Media for a quote.
- Dodge: Yes, we’re working on that. I would like to work with True South and see if they can offer the same service in 2023 and going forward.
- Young: Yes, Nutmeg is national because they have several soccer contracts, so he has teams in many areas of the country. He would prefer to do multi-year contracts.
- Dodge: Excellent, we’ll wait for the quote and share with True South.
- Young: Would we want to stream consolation matches?
- Dodge: I don’t think so, everyone will get at least one match that is streamed.
- Match Commissioner
- Dodge: I can make this one and will take on this role. We’ll be partnering with True South with other administrative parts of the event as well.
- Streaming
- USA Rugby and Club Council
- Club Council
- Elections
- Tate: Al Lucas succeeded me as Council Chair. I was nominated but declined to run again. Erik continues as XVs Competition Chair, Fil was elected as 7s Competition Chair, Tam is continuing as Eligibility Chair, Megan Braun continues as Disciplinary Chair, Holly Abrams is DEI Chair, KJ was elected as Governance Chair and Dodge was elected as Club Council Treasurer. We’re very well represented as I retain my seat as GU President.
- Active Relief Naturals
- Tate: The Club Council approved a partnership with Active Relief Naturals, these are CDB based supplements. Clubs can market it and get a portion of the sales to them, a small kick back also goes back to the TRU and USAR Club Council. 9% goes to the club, 3% to the Union and 1% back to USAR Club Council. This is OPT IN, no cost to the clubs but you would be advertising a product and purchasing through an affiliate link. If we want to take part in this and share it with our members, we would meet with an Active Relief Supplement representative who would share the proposal. The company is created by rugby players and they are based in the Cayman Islands.
- Tate: Are we comfortable setting up a meeting with the Active Relief rep?
- Dodge: Sure, do we see this as a model for other partners?
- Tate: Yes, this is a low risk opportunity with potential upside for everyone. Any objections? None. I’ll organize a meeting with their reps for the TRU Board.
- Tate: The Club Council approved a partnership with Active Relief Naturals, these are CDB based supplements. Clubs can market it and get a portion of the sales to them, a small kick back also goes back to the TRU and USAR Club Council. 9% goes to the club, 3% to the Union and 1% back to USAR Club Council. This is OPT IN, no cost to the clubs but you would be advertising a product and purchasing through an affiliate link. If we want to take part in this and share it with our members, we would meet with an Active Relief Supplement representative who would share the proposal. The company is created by rugby players and they are based in the Cayman Islands.
- Elections
- Request for Championship hosts
- Young: USAR has received very few bids. So the deadline has been extended to Mar 26.
- Tate: We do have bids in hand but always looking for more. We will know soon where Championships will be held.
- Talent ID Camps
- Young: April 3 in Round Rock, TX for men and women between 16 and 25 years of age. No cost to attend.
- Club Council
- New Business
- PR 7s
- Tate: We held a call with PR 7s last week with Shawn, Dodge, Fil, Wendy, Maggie Rouse and myself last week. There will be a PR 7s event in Texas and we’re really excited about that. We’re waiting for the official announcement and we’ll share more. It’s an exciting opportunity and another way that we can keep putting Texas rugby on the map.
- 501c3 Update
- Tate: Wendy and Dodge, did you review the documents and sign?
- Young: Yes and I signed.
- Dodge: I’m still reviewing.
- Tate: I received notice that the window had expired so I’ll ask him to resend to you. Ok, once we’re all signed we’ll begin with rewriting Bylaws. We’ll have to review that with our members and such.
- Young: Thinking we would use Summer AGM for vote?
- Tate: Yes, we still have a few steps to get there but it would line up nicely to use the Summer AGM if we can. If we have to have a special meeting we can do that.
- PR 7s
- Meeting Adjournment (9:20 PM)