Pathway to Participation Last week we published our Pathway to Participation for community rugby. This is a detailed plan with an initial focus on a summer of fun formats of the game to help ease players of all ages back into contact rugby. The plan is set to give the national game a much-needed boost following the understandable impact of the COVID pandemic, and to ensure the community game bounces back to full health and strength. Some rugby has already started at U18s level and below, and providing the public health conditions remain favourable, tag and touch rugby fixtures for those players (u18s) could be sanctioned from April 1 within their own districts. Measures around training and matches will remain subject to Welsh Government guidelines but all levels of the game, including youth and senior teams (male and female) can look forward to a phased return of modified, limited contact training from May 1. From mid-June, players of all ages can look forward to a month of summer sevens and tens rugby – under modified laws Community Strategy Our Community Rugby Strategy, which will be officially launched this summer, has produced three current key workstreams: a competitions review; a review of the WRU Hub programme and an increased commitment to ‘volunteer recognition’ in the community game. These are key areas for growth that clubs and stakeholders throughout the game have highlighted to us during extensive consultation over the last 12-18 months and which have been sanctioned at Community Board level. Our Competitions Review will look at the domestic and national leagues of the WRU. As part of the process we will be consulting with member clubs in due course and there will be workshops, meetings and surveys for interested parties to attend over the next few months. The Hub Review, as mentioned in your last WRU Status Update, aims to deliver clear guidance for the next potential phase of the Hub Programme, to ensure that this next phase aligns with the WRU Community Strategy and the needs of Educational and Community landscape in Wales. We believe that since its inception, the innovative Hub Programme has made a huge difference to the lives of the young people in educational settings and in the wider community throughout Wales. The current contractual phase of the Hub Programme is coming to an end, but our ambition remains to grow, develop and enhance the Hub Programme whilst future proofing rugby union participation in Wales and supporting the health of our young people and further updates will follow. We are working hard on volunteer recognition. We know we have so many fantastic people giving up their time to support the club game in many different capacities throughout the country. These individuals are the lifeblood of our game and it is our aim to offer support and engage with all areas of community rugby to best recognise and reward their continuous efforts. This planned support is a particularly important aspect of the Community Strategy which will allow us to continue to grow our game and improve sustainability at this level.
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