On Tuesday night over 50 members representing all parts of London Irish met at Hazelwood to discuss our future plans and to learn more about our fresh approach to supporting our members. Recognising the times we live in, the session was also live streamed with numerous participants.

It was a lively and very productive session which marked the start of a club wide initiative called LI2030 to map out a better future for our members, to protect and cherish our 127 year heritage and to leave a viable legacy for our children and grandchildren. As we discussed, this club means a lot to a great deal of people and we need to protect and nurture it. Geese veteran Scott Moore summed it up in the attached video clip. Chris Browne another long standing player/coach rammed home the message that we cannot forget that we’re part of something special at London Irish and we can never take that for granted. We have survived many storms in our long history but we need to recognise that we are facing a number of massive challenges. The coming season is NOT business as usual, we all need to roll up our sleeves to protect and grow our precious club.

We cannot rest on our laurels - we’re a big successful club with fabulous grounds, broad membership and a long heritage. For the last 25 years we have co-existed with the Pros. Now, we have to think long term about what we as London Irish want in the future, how we protect our heritage and how we provide access to rugby for all. To successfully address this challenge we need to act as one voice, we need to be stronger and more unified.

To ensure we can continue to enjoy high-quality amateur rugby for all at Hazelwood, a great social atmosphere and a strong sense of belonging, we need to map out a plan for the future. This session provided an opportunity for members to receive a briefing on LI2030. This is a wide-ranging forward-looking initiative which is on the agenda for approval at next week's AGM.
Having spent the last six months engaging with members, it is clear that we need to not only secure our grounds but we need to set a new rugby vision and we need to refresh and rebuild our off pitch activities. This is a tall order and that’s why we need to spend next season focusing on the future.
As a first step we need to set out our stall by crafting a vision for the next five years and set up a plan to help us achieve it. That is what LI2030 is all about. It has three components:
• Setting a One Club approach for rugby lies at the heart of our plan – we are a rugby club first and foremost and we must craft a gameplan for the entire club from 5’s to 75’s for one and all.
• Strengthen our Club - to be successful on the pitch calls for an efficient and effective support network off the pitch. We need to adapt how we do things to align with the realities of running a rugby club today. As a priority, we need to improve how members interact with the club, how we communicate and how we act in a more transparent manner.
• Securing Hazelwood is pivotal to our existence, it is a big task but we’ve figured out a solution to provide us with long term security, one that is based around sharing with the GAA and others. It also ensures we continue to make an important contribution to the local community by providing easy access to sporting activities. It would be a shame for it to be lost not only to members but to the wider Sunbury community and beyond.

In a practical first step to demonstrate our fresh approach to supporting club members we brainstormed a new concept. With a working title London Irish Business Network (LIBN), ten members agreed to form a working party to develop this proposition for launch by September. At the heart of this proposal is the concept of leveraging the power of our community to create a club wide business networking capability that provides true commercial opportunities for members with businesses or service offerings whilst generating support for rugby activities.

One of the other key outputs from the lively discussion was a desire for greater transparency and improved intra-club communications. This will be treated as a priority agenda item. For example, at next week's AGM the members will receive a briefing on the current status of our efforts to secure Hazelwood.

On reflection, our discussion last night could be seen as the spark that ignited a fresh wave of enthusiasm for improving and securing our club – our rugby, our culture our ways of supporting our game and securing our home at Hazelwood. Having chatted with many delegates afterwards it felt appropriate to have used a quote by Churchill to wrap up the session:-
"To each, there comes a time in their lifetime, a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing."
That time for us is now.

For those that read this post please make every effort to attend next week’s AGM (Tuesday 24th ) at Hazelwood at 8pm.