Establishing a Women's Section
If your club would like to create a link with an existing women’s side, set up a new women’s side, establish age group sides for girls, or ensure girls are incorporated into an existing or new minis section, the RFUW can help.
The following should provide a useful start point:
- Contact your RFU Rugby Development Officer and/or RFUW Regional Manager and discuss your intentions. Contact the RFU to find your local RFUW representative
- Think about the sustainability of the new section, and decide how your club might cope with issues such as players leaving the area to go to university, or whether your club has the playing facilities and volunteer capacity to accommodate additional teams
- Ensure that the new section is completely integrated into all aspects of the club, and that the women have access to equipment, coaching, the clubhouse, the bar, the Committee meetings and other services
There are also some general areas of club development to consider when establishing a women’s section. These include:
- Finding more people to help (which particular new roles will need filling)
- Junior girls, age group sides and minis
- Coaching requirements
- Safety, risk assessment, first aid, emergency procedures
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Child protection, criminal records bureau and codes of conduct - are all coaches aware of appropriate conduct at sessions for girls and women? (training is available – contact your Regional Development Officer)
- Promotion and publicity
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Links with schools, local organisations and the community: you may need to promote girls only sessions to the girls PE department of the local schools
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Facility development to support new programmes – for example, are your changing rooms appropriate; can women always have access?
Affiliation with the RFUW
Women and Girls sections must be affiliated to the RFUW. Here are the necessary documents clubs will need to complete before being affiliated to the RFUW:
