Worcester RFC

At the Worcester RFC AGM, held on Wednesday 28^th July, new membership rules were passed by a membership vote. The rule changes and our new membership policy and procedures are aligned with current and planned RFU policies and initiatives to improve the quality of data held in GMS.

In summary our new rules and procedures are

• All members must have and maintain a GMS account (MJ parents must have an account and an account for each child)
• Worcester RFC register of members is defined by the list of members held on GMS. If you are not on GMS then you will not be considered to be a full member of Worcester RFC.
• All members must pay the relevant membership fee, ideally via GMS, or benefits may be withdrawn. i.e. No Pay No Play and/or suspension of membership cards. All membership fees should settled or payment plans in place by 30 September 2021 at the very latest.

Some members may be struggling financially, especially due to the effects of Covid 19. We have a range of options available to support our members, please contact your team manager, DOR, MJ Chair or Membership Secretary to discuss your situation in confidence. As part of our rugby family, we will support you during the hard times.

Our transition to GMS membership last season was hampered by Covid-19, we aim to fully complete the transition GMS this season.

We appreciate that some people may struggle with GMS and online systems in general. We have scheduled multiple drop-in sessions at the club, after training and on matchdays to help you with the transition to GMS. Alternatively, you can request help via:

• Our online help form
• Email Tim Cunliffe, WRFC Membership Secretary, timcunliffe@gmail.com

The intention of our move to a GMS based membership register is to:

• Improve communication with our members
• Have a clear, up to date, single source of the truth of our members information.
• Comply with RFU requirements on player registration and GMS data quality.
• Comply with GDPR legislation, giving visibility and ownership of our members personal information that we hold, to our members
• Increase the efficiency of our membership process, freeing volunteer time to focus on rugby and not administration.
• Ensure all members are paying fees. It is clearly not fair on the members who do pay, that others may not be paying.

We are working hard behind the scenes to contact existing members whose contact information may out of date. If you know someone who considers themselves to be a member of Worcester RFC but is not aware of this process them please encourage them to contact the WRFC membership Secretary, Tim Cunliffe: timcunliffe@gmail.com or 07973906489.

Further information, policy, procedure and help on membership is available from the membership section of our website.

Thank you in advance for your co-operation and understanding. Let’s hope that we can return to a full season of successful rugby this year.