In a ground-breaking move for New Zealand rugby, the charity's fundraising efforts and partnerships have allowed it to initiate a club co-ordinator programme that places a dedicated club co-ordinator in partner rugby clubs around the region.
Co-ordinators help each club connect to the personal, career and sporting development programmes Rugby for Life can access through its network of volunteers and partners. Their role is to help match the club, individual club members and their whānau with whatever programmes they may need to help support them better.
The club co-ordinators will also help grow the game locally and build a healthy rugby community, provide administrative and logistical support to their clubs and help reduce the burden on club volunteers. The charity's goal is ultimately to have a co-ordinator in each of Northland's 42 active community rugby clubs.
The first eight club co-ordinators started their roles on June 1 in the rugby clubs of Kāeo, Kaihu, Ōkaihau, Ōhaeawai, Onerahi, Southern, Te Rarawa, Western Sharks and Whangaruru.
Rugby for Life trustee and Northland Rugby Union Board member Riki Kinnaird said Northland has 42 active rugby clubs with more than 2000 adult players and tournaments with more than 5000 kids taking part.
"They provide unparalleled reach into some of our most remote and difficult to engage communities... as we discovered during the Covid-19 vaccination campaign, this is hugely valuable," Kinnaird said.
During the drive to vaccinate Northlanders, Rugby for Life partnered with the region's Māori health providers and 60 clubs across many different sporting codes to generate more than 11,000 vaccinations.
Covid aside, the charity earlier this year used its access to digital marketing expertise to help Northland rugby clubs achieve the greatest single boost in new memberships to date.
According to Rugby for Life, this made Northland New Zealand's only region to post a growth in the number of registered players this season, especially within junior programmes.
The charity also worked with Queenstown Resort College (QRC) to promote opportunities for young Northlanders to train at the college's Bay of Islands campus - highlighting potential pathways to study, live and work in Northland.
"We see ourselves as the engine that will help make things happen," Kinnaird said.
"Clubs or communities will come to us with a problem or a challenge and we will use our network of benefactors, experts and corporate contacts to engineer a solution.
"Basically, we are a press-button solution for clubs and communities who otherwise wouldn't even know where to begin to look for the help they need in any given situation."
Rugby for Life will work closely with the Northland Rugby Union (NRU) to achieve its objectives and the NRU has already appointed a communities pathways manager within the union to bring it closer to clubs and communities.
Apart from funding the club co-ordinators, Rugby for Life's support for clubs and their communities will be largely process- and assistance-driven rather than financial.
Equally, Rugby for Life will become the go-to point for organisations wanting to access the tremendous community reach of Northland's many remote rugby-playing communities. This will create opportunities for rugby clubs that they previously wouldn't have been able to access.
