Three ECRU young volunteers were among the twenty-three young men and women aged between 17 and 24 years old that descended on Bassingbourn Barracks, near Royston, Cambridgeshire for 48-hours last weekend (Sept 2/4) as part of the England RFU’s vRugby programme.

The vRugby programme - the v stands for Volunteer - has been running as a joint venture previously but has now been totally integrated into the RFU mainstream framework.

It aims to provide quality experiences for young people aged between 14 and 24 and to give them the opportunity to get involved in events, projects, placements and roles that exist at local, county and national level within the sport and for them themselves to become lifelong rugby participants.

Volunteer Executive and National lead for vRugby and its Youth Volunteering programme Rachel Brown says simply: “It’s a youth strategy for young people. The 23 who came last weekend - and there’s 41 in all across the country – were trained to be Youth Activators and to work with the various Regional Development Staff and CB Volunteers and to pull together the Youth Volunteering scheme across the country helping out with such things as coaching, refereeing, funding, writing web-sites or being on club committees.”      

Last weekend’s young candidates were put through their paces with a team building session by the Army along with `Apprentice’ style timed exercises that involved putting forward their own proposals on how to run a Touch Rugby Festival and including such things as project management, safe-guarding and mentoring skills.

And the young volunteers certainly rose to the challenge over the two days surprising even the organisers with some great ideas and proposals.

“It really showed what potential we have in our game,” summed up Brown. “Some of the proposals they were coming up with provided some real forward thinking and they were able to share their thoughts and ideas to take away. Based on the feedback, they all got a lot out of it.

“They can now go away with RFU and Constituent Body support and organise their Volunteer Days within their counties and other youth activities.”

The three ECRU youth activators will now begin the process of recruiting club activators across Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk. ERCU will be holding a training camp for those selected on the 26th and 27th of October. This camp will provide the county activators the opportuinity to inspire and motivate those young people to go out into clubs acros the region and deliver vrugby projects.

The ECRU county Activators that attended this event  were:-

 Norfolk : Robert Pugh - Great Yarmouth College & Lowestoft & Yarmouth RFC

 Norfolk/Suffolk : Thomas Knight - Lowestoft & Yarmouth RUFC/East Norfolk 6th Form College

 Cambridgeshire : Kasey Allen - Anglia Ruskin Women’s Rugby Team

If you would like to know more about these opportuinities for the young people at your club make sure that you contact your Club Volunteer Coordinator for details of how to apply