Recently Elected Recruitment Chair.... How do I get women to play rugby in South East USA?

Question

Rugby seems to be very popular in the North East. But anything South of the Mason-Dixon Line seems to be to fickle to hold on to a strong club. Our club is currently at 25 players. This may seem like alot but when It comes time for a tournament we're scraping to find 15 to go. We have the talent... we recently won a tournament with only 15 girls no subs and we played the last half of the championship down by two points with only 14 players and still came back and won. I want to double our numbers so that going to tournaments is not so stressfull... Any suggestions?

Answer 1

keggers seem to have worked in the usa for many years now...

Answer 2

I'm in charleston, SC... i know your pain.  I went to the development camp/ south select side try outs in early march- supposed to be 60 women there and 17 showed!   Where are you?  We have to combine with Savannah and Augusta, Ga to make a team.  Its really frustrating.  We've been trying to grow our teams so we have each other to compete against for about 5 years now.  Still not there!  We've recently had a lot of rookies- we're just getting out there in the community- we put ads in the paper and have a website.  we go to baseball games and hockey games wearing our jerseys, doing community service, trying to get as much press as possible.  its rough!

Answer 3

I know how it is.  Our men's club has been struggling since 2003. We have recently started to see some real growth - up to around 30 players now.  (Last year we only had about 7 regular players)  It all comes down to communication.  Use everything you can think of.  We meet with the local county parks & rec folks (they donated a home field), boy scouts, salvation army, schools, etc...  I also make sure we always put blurbs in the paper about practices, fund raising events, game results, etc....

We work with local businesses - promote them at our annual 7s tournament, and they promote the club locally.

A huge success was MySpace. One of our players swept MySpace for all local guys in the right age group and sent out a message inviting them to practice.... we got a half a dozen from that.

Local University press, radio stations, etc... can help.

We also made up some 'Play Rugby' roadside signs with the phone number on it for the club.  (I got the signs donated by one of the local politicians after the recent elections - just had to repaint them)

We are based in Gastonia NC, if there is anything we can do to help please let me know.  Our web page is www.gastoniarfc.com

(By the way - we are highlighting women's 7s rugby in an exhibition series of matches at our tournament on June 2nd. We want to expand to youth and women's rugby over the next couple of years.)

Dan

Answer 4

i'll play!  i live in FL.  my brother plays rugby, and he always said i might be good.  of course, that statement might have been said after a kick in the eye by a teammate....oh well.  let me know where you are.