RRRC Competitions Committee Notes – 9/11/23

9/11/23

  1. Roll Call
    1. Young
    2. Hunter
    3. Robinson
    4. Kurylas
    5. Hiller
    6. McPhail
    7. Hansel
    8. Hughes
    9. Ozzie
    10. Hiller
    11. Dale
    12. Curl
    13. Wegman
      1. Regrets
        1. Norton
        2. Hanlon
        3. Horn
        4. Keuppens
  2. Joint Meeting
    1. McPhail: Please note that we combined the RRRC and Board calls as several members are either at the RWC or will be on their way soon. We opened up both calls to all members and so the attendance may look a bit different than normal.
  3. Welcome & Congratulations to new members
    1. McPhail: First off we want to welcome all of our newest members! We also want to thank everyone who has served for their time and dedication. I did want to note that as Chair I am appointing John Kurylas to the second At Large position. So welcome back John!
  4. Chair discussion
    1. McPhail: As this group knows I was elected TRU President and so I am serving in both roles. I know we have a few folks away and not available this week but did want to put it out there that I do want to have this discussion but it doesn’t have to be tonight. I’m happy to serve in both roles, step down from RRR Chair, etc, I want to know what the members want. So we will leave this until the October call unless there are any comments now?
    2. Dale: I think waiting until October is smart as we know lots of folks are indulging in the RWC. I’m curious to see if you think you have the bandwidth for both.
    3. McPhail: My bandwidth will be tight when I go to the RWC but I’ll be back in a few weeks. My thought is that both committees are running well as I have been sitting in on the Board calls. I am happy to serve as how the members feel.
    4. Hughes: My feeling is that we move forward as is until we believe we need to make any changes. I don’t see a big reason to change it up right now.
  5. 2023-24 Season
    1. Women’s structures
      1. Curl: As far as the WD2 structure that is set and the teams have seen their schedules. I know there have been some requested match changes that they are handling between themselves. WD1 is going to be very different this year as Frontier has decided that they would like to go in a different direction. We had talked through a few proposals with them but when the other party doesn’t want to participate you can’t force them. So for this year the Valks and HARC will play each other home and away and both sets are actively working to build out their schedules with matches against other teams across the nation. With all of that being said we know that we need to look at the women’s structure for D1 and D2 and there will be changes for next year that focus on growing and developing women’s rugby in the TRU. I also wanted to mention that I’m excited that Haley has joined the Board and I would have been excited to work with either herself or the other nominee. We’ve already been chatting about next season but we will be focused on this year for now.
      2. Young: I’ve been talking with Andrew and Kristin on the USAR CCC about this situation and there is a wrinkle about jurisdiction where the CCC has influence vs declaration. The opinion of the women’s reps on the CCC is that Frontier and Red River should have to meet in the postseason. I’ll keep this group updated.
      3. McPhail: Great, thanks.
    2. Approval of Roster Movement discussion (Norton email)
      1. McPhail: We’ve had lots of email discussions about this topic but we weren’t able to get to a vote as there were multiple topics that were confusing. We are only able to vote on the roster movement and any other eligibility pieces are dictated by USAR Eligibility. I did call for a vote and we received a few agreements but not much input. As far as I’m concerned we called for a vote and it does appear to have passed.
      2. Hughes: I think we got sidetracked on what the intent was. I think the first vote was to maintain the rule and then we could determine if we wanted to change it.
      3. McPhail: Correct, this would be to affirm and then we can look at making changes if desired by the committee.
      4. Young: I don’t think the folks that had most of the questions are on this call…should we bump to the agenda next month?
      5. Dale: It looked to me that there was a request to modify the eligibility criteria which we don’t control.
      6. McPhail: Ok, there was enough confusion and lack of votes that we can discuss on our October call.
    3. Request for “position paper” on Hanlon/Horn Multi-side Eligibility proposal for review & circulation
      1. McPhail: We’ll also move this to next month’s agenda.
    4. D4 North – Diablos withdrawal
      1. Kurylas: We got notice that Diablos won’t have enough for MD4 so they are dropping. Travis was able to rework the schedule.
      2. McPhail: OK, easy enough fix, Travis?
      3. Hughes: Yep, no big deal. We sent out the new MD4 schedule and I wnat to make sure everyone has seen it?
      4. Kurylas: Yes, they’ve seen it.
      5. McPhail: Have we included Jeff in these emails?
      6. Kurylas: Not yet but will start bringing him in.
    5. D4 South – Chupacabra’s request for social status only
      1. McPhail: We received an email from this team asking for social only status as well. Looks like they want 7s or 10s this year as they grow.
      2. Hughes: Ok.
      3. Young: The difference here is do you want a schedule or not?
      4. Hansel: I responded to this and that was my argument that D4 will give them a schedule. 
      5. Wegman: Isn’t that the point of D4? If you have 10, you play with 10…right?
      6. Hughes: Yes, that is the point.
      7. Young: The only caveat is that if teams are going to play 10s we need to let referees know so they can adjust as needed. It doesn’t mean that they won’t get a referee but it may be a newer developing referee.
      8. Hansel: I will check in with them later this week and if we don’t hear back we can drop them from the schedule.
    6. Schedule
      1. Loading into RX and WTR
        1. Hansel: I’ve been working with Jamie at USAR about RX and WTR and how we can more easily load the schedules. There are templates available for both of these and RX is a bit easier. WTR is kind of a mess so it won’t be as easy. I understand that TRRA manages WTR so they may need to do some cleanup there.
        2. McPhail: I talked with Ozzie and he mentioned that they have renewed WTR.
        3. Ozzie: Yes, we have renewed our contract with WTR. We know that RX offers some of these services but we need to do some testing before we jump in full throttle.
        4. Hansel: Yes, if we could have everything in RX that would be beneficial but we will be doing some testing this year.
        5. Young: When do we think the schedule is finalized so that Hansel can load it into RX? And work out who is loading it into WTR?
        6. Hughes: I believe we are ready but will confirm with Diablos and Chupacabras before we send it over to Hansel.
        7. Young: Great, can we put some deadlines on these things? RX by September 24 that seems like a reasonable date? Then Ozzie can figure out WTR by Oct 1?
        8. Hansel: That works for me.
        9. Ozzie: I believe there is a mass upload option but I need to figure that out.
        10. Hansel: I have both templates and can help with that. We’ll figure it out!
        11. Young: Awesome, thanks to you both!
    7. Disciplinary
      1. FYI on new form
        1. Young: We are adjusting how the referees report disciplinary sanctions and teams that use the manual form. Instead of using our current provider we are switching over to Google Forms. So be on the lookout for new forms!
        2. Hansel: This will also give us the ability to do some automated things like masking players that are under 18 (Rugby Texas) and some other things to make it more efficient.
        3. Ozzie: This is a no brainer for us, we’ll get referees trained up on the new forms. No problem!
    8. Reminder to Clubs regarding use of “Name Withheld” is not permitted without RRRC/TRU approval
      1. McPhail: We want to start the season on the right foot and so we wanted to remind teams that ‘Name Withheld’ will not be accepted this year. As a reminder this is a feature that cannot be turned off in RX at this time. This is part of the European privacy laws and is a feature set with RX. 
      2. Hansel: I came in late to the conversation on this when I joined as an admin. Is this about making sure teams know who has played?
      3. McPhail: Yes, and we want to support it because it makes it clear who is playing for what team.
      4. Hansel: We do have the ability to see this on the backend and I can build a dashboard that would show these regardless of that feature? Do we want to do something like that?
      5. McPhail: Let’s talk about this in the October meeting. We want to head off problems before they come ahead?
      6. Wegman: Do we want to share guidance on how clubs can stop this from happening? I don’t think it was on purpose but clubs didn’t know how to undo it.
      7. McPhail: I know Wendy sent a few posts on it and we can do reminders. 
      8. Young: Yes, and I think Kurylas gave us screenshots that we shared.
      9. McPhail: Let’s find what we shared last year and share it again.
  6. New Business
    1. None.
  7. Meeting Adjournment (8:35PM)