Bay of Plenty Rugby Union announced financial improvements at last night's Annual General Meeting that most other provincial unions can only hope for.
Chief Executive Officer Mike Rogers announced a profit of $185,426 for the 2012 financial year - the fifth consecutive year Bay of Plenty Rugby has released a profit.
"This is a good result achieved in challenging economic times," said Rogers.
"This result should continue to give our supporters, sponsors and stakeholders confidence that the Board is very focused on ensuring rugby in the Bay is well managed and sustainable".
Complimenting the strong financial result were a seven per cent growth in player participation numbers, lifting the number of registered players in the Bay of Plenty from 8924 in 2011 to the new figure of 9524 last season.
Volunteer coaches grew by six per cent from 509 to 541 last year while referee numbers bucked the national trend by increasing by 14 per cent up to 98 volunteer referees.
"The growth in our game at the community level is particularly pleasing," said Rogers.
"We have focused resource in this area of our game and the results show some positive outcomes especially the strong growth in our active referees.
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"However we still have significant work to do in continuing to grow and volunteer referee and coach numbers as these are critical for us to provide opportunities for all those that want to play our game."
Rogers was also proud of the Bay players featuring in national teams and in securing the National Sevens tournament in Rotorua.
"Having two All Blacks in Sam Cane and Brodie Retallick, and the New Zealand Maori captain in Tanerau Latimer, is something we are very proud of. Sam and Tanerau have both come through our development programme so this shows that we can provide a pathway for our talented young players to go on to represent their country.
"Securing the rights to host the National Provincial Sevens tournament in Rotorua for 2014 and 2015 was a key objective for the Union. This will provide a tremendous boost for the Bay, not only from an economic point of view but will also help to encourage Sevens players in the region."
Bay of Plenty Rugby also confirmed there was no change to the Board with Owen Cooney, Malcolm Munro and Tony Defarias retained unopposed.
