Amazing Support for a Thanet Wanderers Lock-down Website

Top Judges have a tough task judging the Club’s Egg Chase Competition

Bill Sweeney (CEO of the RFU), Rachael Burford (England World Cup Winner), Steve Thompson MBE (England World Cup Winner), Bob Smith (General Manager of London Array) and Mark Finnis (RFU Development Officer) all agreed to support our community efforts by judging the results of our Rugby Activity Website.

Cary Wright, Head of the Schools and Community programme at Thanet Wanderers states “The aim of the Schools and Community Programme, delivered by Thanet Wanderers, is to engage, involve and provide opportunities for the children from our local schools and for members of our community. This objective was always going to be difficult to fulfil when schools and sports facilities were put on lock-down, due to Covid-19, but we were determined to find a way to keep our people engaged” 

“We run a programme, based around our sport, which is structured to provide opportunity through our teaching models and is built around certain core values. We always encourage effort, always try to work on character and always try to help people raise their aspirations. Our programme is funded by London Array, Miles and Barr and the Paul Keohane Sports Fund and supported by the England RFU, Kent RFU and Thanet Wanderers. We have done so much hard work over the past two years that we couldn’t let this be put on hold due to Covid-19 restrictions.”

Cary continued, “As soon as the Rugby Football Union announced the government restrictions we started planning and within one week, Broadbiz Web Services, had secured a web domain, and designed and built an activity website for us called www.eggchase.co.uk! 

The website included many links for activities, it included weekly video challenges and competitions and ran 5 prize winning quizzes. Competitions concluded on 30th June 2020 with prizes for the best three competition responses and prizes for the top Primary School and top Senior School.” 

“The website was a tremendous success and helped many people remain involved during isolation. We had such a great response to our website, with over 600 entries, we knew we had to enrol a distiguished judging panel and I was absolutely delighted when five out of five requests were answered positively. This shows the calibre of people involved in our sport and community!”

The many responses from the Quiz Competitions were shortlisted to the best 26 answers and the judging panel were each provided with an opportunity to select their favourite for each question.

After further shortlisting, selection processes and much deliberation, the best answers were judged to come from: Kloe Parker, who when asked what does Rugby’s Core Values mean to you, said: 

“Teamwork means to me that the whole team needs to work together because if they don’t then we won’t succeed. Respect means to me that we should all show gratitude to each other so we have a good relationship on and off the field. Enjoyment means to always have fun whilst playing and make friends, but always have respect for each other to have a good relationship. Discipline means that there are certain rules without these rules cheating would take place and there would be no enjoyment in playing. Sportsmanship means that we should always be respectful to the other team and always shake hands at the end of the game whether you win or lose and that you always congratulate the other team no matter what the result”.

In judging this question, Bill Sweeney said “It is a very succinct answer and encapsulates the definitions of the 5 values well, the tone came from somebody clearly knowledgeable about the game and its unique character”.

Kloe was also selected for her answer to a question regarding our supporters and role models. Kloe was asked to select her favourite comment from our supporters and role models and explain why. She selected International Rugby Coach Mike Friday’s comments, as her favourite, “because he believes in giving everyone from every walk of life a chance to succeed. He also believes that having a diverse team makes a strong team with good ethics”. When picking this answer as her winner, Rachael Burford, said that this answer is true for her too as a female in the game, and for her friends that she grew up playing with and met across all her times playing the game.

Bob Smith from Club main sponsor London Array was delighted to be involved in our judging panel and selected Archie Hussey’s answer as his favourite. Archie was asked to explain what our core values mean to him:

Attitude: being respectful to your teammates and coaches and how you approach all learning 

Effort: always give your best and try as hard as you can, all the time

Inspiration: helping others who aren’t as developed as you and to learn from others that are better Opportunity: taking the opportunities given to you and using them to the best of your ability 

Up-growth: helping yourself and others to develop and to keep doing it

Steve Thompson MBE, selected a video from Giotto Welsh, throwing a rugby ball, as his favourite video and even sent Giotto a video message back! He commented on Giotto’s technique and gave him some pointers: Steve said “You absolutely nailed that throw and are already better than I was! Good Luck, keep going!”

Mark Finnis, the RFU Rugby Development Officer for Rural Kent, selected Reece Merrifield’s answer about England’s Principles of Play, where Reece answered “If you go forward you are more likely to gain ground than if you go backwards you are losing ground. When you go forward you are more likely to score tries and keep continuity of attack along with forward momentum. When you are going backwards you are not gaining any momentum.” Mark thought that this answer perfectly demonstrated Reece’s understanding of ‘Go Forward’ in Rugby.

The Senior School with the most correct responses was Dane Court Grammar School who win a set of 20 pairs of rugby shorts and socks, provided by Akuma Sports. The Primary School with the most correct responses was St. Georges C of E Primary School who win a set of training balls, provided by Roe Timber Frame.

In summarising, Cary Wright said that he was so pleased with the support that this part of the programme has received, both from participants and judges. He was most pleased with the answers that came in showing how worthwhile the whole programme is. “We know we are doing a good thing when our school children are writing answers of this calibre, answers that clearly show that they understand and are embracing values that will help them throughout their journeys. It’s all very rewarding for everyone involved in running this programme.”

Bill Sweeney, left us with some valuable comments too, “I’d like to thank Cary for getting in touch and offer congratulations on the website and competition, a great idea to keep young players engaged in the game over this difficult period.

Ambition, hard work, attitude and motivation, when combined, enables you to achieve anything. Eddie (Jones) often talks about the fact that we know what to do and how, but the why (reason) and want (motivation) are critical.

All the very best and hopefully we can return to playing rugby fairly soon”

We all agree with those sentiments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

07 July 2020