inprojects kowloon rfc annual report 2007/2008 · dermot kane st1 team assistant aaron smith / jon...

ABACUS KOWLOON RFC ANNUAL REPORT

2012/2013

21 Aug 2013 Annual report for 2012/2013 Season

Abacus Kowloon Rugby Football Club

Established 1976

Abacus Kowloon RFC Annual Report 2012/2013

Page 1

ABACUS Kowloon RFC Annual Report 2012/2013 A MESSAGE FROM ABACUS INTERNATIONAL ................................................................... 2

OFFICERS OF THE CLUB ....................................................................................................... 3

Official Officers of the Club .................................................................................................................. 3

Positions Elected by the Committee....................................................................................................... 3

SPONSORS .......................................................................................................................... 4

Official Sponsors of Kowloon RFC ........................................................................................................ 4

Secondary Sponsors of Kowloon RFC ................................................................................................... 4

Associate Sponsors of Kowloon RFC ..................................................................................................... 4

CHAIRMAN’S REPORT ......................................................................................................... 5

TREASURER REPORT ........................................................................................................... 7

DIRECTOR OF RUGBY REPORT............................................................................................ 8

CHAIRMAN OF THE NETBALL SECTION REPORT ................................................................ 9

MINI AND JUNIOR SECTION REPORT ............................................................................... 10

ABACUS KOWLOON COMMUNITY FUN DAY ................................................................... 11

END OF REPORT ................................................................................................................ 13


Page 2

A MESSAGE FROM ABACUS INTERNATIONAL

Congratulations on an impressive and convincing win in the Hong Kong League Premiership! This was a

testament to the grit and determination of the entire team and players!

We are looking forward to another exciting season as you prepare to defend the championship and are

confident that team captain Tom McColl and experienced veterans Eni and Cadu will help power the club

to success.

As Abacus Kowloon RFC’s sponsor, Abacus is passionate about combining individual talent and skills to

deliver exceptional team performance and strive for even higher goals and results. We wish Abacus

Kowloon Rugby Football Club all the best for the 2013/4 season!

Robert Bailey

President and CEO, Abacus international


Page 3

OFFICERS OF THE CLUB

Official Officers of the Club

Anson Bailey President

Kevin McBarron Chairman

Steven Baynes Secretary and acting Treasurer

Gareth Page Director of Rugby

Ciara Waller Chairman (Netball section)

Clive Hammond Director of Tournaments

Koko Mueller Membership Secretary

Matthew Stockdale Corporate Liaison Officer

Brandon Huang Mini and Youth Development Officer

Lisa Twinley / Alex Hickling Social Secretary

Tom McCall 1st XV Captain

Jason Conlin / Tom Jewers 2nd XV Captain

John Bruce 3rd XV Captain (Stingrays)

Stan Christian 4th XV Captain (Beavers)

Marco Ng 5th XV Captain (Barbarians)

Christine Gordon Ladies Captain (Barbies)

Positions Elected by the Committee

James Brooks Head Coach

Paul Hunt Kit Manager (Elected to Executive committee)

Francis Leung Asset Liaison Officer

Alison Stanbrook-Wallis Administration Assistant

Dermot Kane 1st team Assistant

Aaron Smith / Jon Savage Physiotherapy Manager


Page 4

SPONSORS

Kowloon RFC would like to thank the sponsors for the 2012/13 season.

Official Sponsors of Kowloon RFC

Secondary Sponsors of Kowloon RFC

Associate Sponsors of Kowloon RFC


Page 5

Chairman’s Report

The 2012-13 rugby season for Abacus Kowloon Rugby Club saw a new coach, James Brooks, arrive a few

weeks before the season commenced. The late arrival proved no hindrance as we were crowned League

Champions for the Premiership and Premiership A for the second consecutive season. The Prem A lads

were unbeaten throughout the season until a dispiriting defeat in the grand championship final. We truly

have some very passionate players at Kowloon and we should continue to be a force to be reckoned with

next season as we embark on our next 3 year plan the aim of which is to build a strong club throughout all

divisions

Tragedy cast a pall over our season with the loss of our first team captain, David Tait, but the lads

showed tremendous character, and as a club we appreciate all the support from all of the other clubs in

Hong Kong which illustrates the beauty of our game, especial thanks to Valley RFC for offering to

postpone the game immediately after David’s passing.

We really do appreciate the efforts of our entire coaching team led by our Director of Rugby Gareth

Page who ensured new coach James “Brooksy” Brooks had a squad ready and waiting for him, thanks

also to Brandon Huang, Fei Gai and So Jai, for their outstanding work with development and our women’s

team.

In the community leagues it was more of a struggle this year due to league reorganisation, however we

hope to bounce back in the coming season.

The Kowloon Rugbyfest was the biggest show in town excepting of course the Sevens. This year as we

helped to kick off the festivities leading up to HK Sevens with 24 teams enjoying some old-fashioned

Kowloon hospitality here in Hong Kong and we welcomed a number of new teams to the Rugbyfest

including teams from UK, Laos, Malaysia, Australia plus we welcomed back many of our old friends too

including the PLA, Jakarta Komodos and the Rwandan National team. A special mention must go to Clive

Hammond for allowing himself to be thrown back into the fray as the Rugbyfest Tournament Director!

Kowloon is regarded as one of the best social rugby clubs in Hong Kong and a big thank you must go to

our Social Secretary, Lisa Twinley for helping to arrange a number of mega events including Miss Kowloon

this year won by a Scottish Bird.

At Kowloon Rugby Club, we are passionate about doing the right thing on and off the field of play. That

means supporting local community and also ensuring we reach out to those in need.

All of our members from both the rugby and netball section got together for our end of season "Kowloon

Community Rugby Fun Day" in early May to support a number of charities including Po Leung Kuk,

Changing Young Lives and SoCO.

It was great to see over 220+ underprivileged kids learning about the game of rugby with various ball

drills plus also having a fun time on the bouncy castles and running around King's Park.

We shall continue reaching out to the local community and at the same time, continue to welcome players

and members from all walks of life and of all ages, colours and abilities.

In addition over the years, the club has supported the Christina Noble Children’s Foundation, Ben Kende

Fund, Enlighten, Operation Breakthrough, Help for Heroes, the Laos Development team and the Rwandan

National Rugby team and will continue to focus on this area.

Success was just not on the rugby pitch but also on the netball courts with the Kowloon netball teams

expanding their membership and also winning trophies too.


Page 6

Also, a big thank you to our great sponsors including out Title Sponsor Abacus plus Sabre Travel Networks,

StructureTone, O’Melveny & Myers, UniGroup Worldwide UTS, AMP Control, Kane Tunnelling, Carlsberg

and our official Kowloon watering hole, The Canny Man.

We look forward to the new 2013-14 season ahead and look forward to seeing all of the other clubs

both on and off the field of play.

Kevin McBarron

Chairman

Abacus Kowloon Rugby Club


Page 7

TREASURER REPORT We ended the 2012 /2013 season Cash positive. We operated in most cases to budget apart from Kit

which cost considerable more than we budgeted for. We have also completed the outstanding payments

of past seasons for items like flight tickets. KRFC income continues to be funded largely from our

sponsorship. Our largest expenditure is on professional resources with an average run rate of over

$100,000 per month. The Abacus Kowloon Rugbyfest continues to generate a substantial profit. The

2013 event is now approaching a profit of nearly $300,000. Unfortunately at the time of print we are

still missing August and September statements as the bank deleted them during the upgrade of the

account. This is the reason for some low numbers for Membership and Sevens Tickets.

The 2012 / 2013 season has been one of upgrades and clean-up. We have upgraded the KRFC account

at HSBC and now have access to better tools for payment and administration. The upgrade of the account

also gives us a ‘savings’ and ‘current’ account which for the first time allowed us to track Seven’s Ticket

Payments from a separate bank account. We have also opened a HSBC account for the 9 dragons funds

and have finally been able to bank the 9 Dragons funds..

We continue with our charity donations, making a donation to Enlighten for $30,000. We have over

$100,000 in the KRFC account and over $100,000 in the 9 dragons account set aside for long term

projects

Looking forward to next season the employment of our new Administration assistant will be of great help

and the Treasurer and Secretary position should be back to individual positions. We will also now be

applying for a KRFC credit card. We have introduced a player match fee for all Premier games.

2012 /2013 Accounts are available to Full Members on request.

Steven Baynes

Treasurer and Secretary



Page 8

DIRECTOR OF RUGBY REPORT

A difficult start to the pre-season training as we lost the services of our Head coach Joe Shaw who

decided to join Saracens RFC in the UK. The coaching duties were later taken over by new head coach

James Brooks.

In the 2012 -2013 season proved to be another successful year for the Premier and Premier A teams.

The season started with a tour to the Philippines where the Nomads and Alabang Eagles were easily

defeated by the Prem/Prem A squad

The Kowloon Premier team won the league for the second year running, but were disappointingly knocked

out by Valley in the Semi Finals of the Grand Championship.

The Kowloon Premier A team won the league for the third year running, scoring 96 tries on the way and

getting bonus points in all but one of their league games. Again the Grand Championship was a

disappointment losing to HKFC in the final.

The Kowloon 3rd team and Kowloon Stingrays had a difficult campaign in CL1 due to the strength of the

opposition and inability of the HKRU to form a competitive community league.

Going forward we will need to improve and develop the coaching structure throughout the club. Over the

next two seasons we need to build a 3rd team who can be competitive in the 3rd division (National league

2). And for the long term future of Kowloon RFC it is very important that we fully integrate with a feeder

club (mini/colts).

Overall a good year, but a lot of work to do to advance to the next level.

Gareth Page

Director of Rugby



Page 9

CHAIRMAN OF THE NETBALL SECTION REPORT

The past season saw Kowloon netball section increase from 4 teams to 5 teams competing across division 6

up to division 2. With sapphires winning div 3 last season and moving up to div 2, finishing in 5th place

really shows how the club has grown in spirit and skills on and off the court. Our longest standing team

the diamonds made it to playoffs in div 4 which means we are hoping they will be well positioned to

compete in div 3 this coming season.

The movement of all teams we hope will be huge this coming season as we welcome our very first official

coach. Kirsty has a very colorful netball resume, having been in Hk for 14years now (coming from South

Africa where she competed to club level). She has been a player / coach for valley rfc, and has coach

the HK national team from 6th to 4th place over the last few years.

We hope that the calibre and skills Kirsty brings to the club will lead us into greater things.

Of course we continue to be the social club that we built our reputation on and enjoy many nights out on

the town. A mixture of girls from all teams went to Singapore cricket club's annual tournament in march

and competed against teams from all round Asia. We hope to hold Kowloon's first Asia tournament right

here in Hk next year.

Massive thank you to Ciara Waller who is stepping down as chair lady after 3 years and good luck to

Lisa Twinley who is moving across from Kowloon social secretary to fill Ciara's shoes.

Lisa Twinley

Chairman of the Netball Section



Page 10

MINI AND JUNIOR SECTION REPORT

110 registered players, approx. 85 boys, 25 girls

Boys: three teams U14, U16 and U19

Girls: mainly U19 and U16 players

Four coaches from Kowloon and one from Lions

Trainings once a week, every Sunday at THT pitch all through the year except Christmas and New

Year holidays

Lions went to Shanghai last Nov. first time ever that we had three boys teams U14, U16, U19 and girls

U18 going together

Lions received 6 trophies altogether, not as many trophies as compared to previous years of 10 to 12

trophies. Lions is still regarded as one of the largest and best performed clubs for local Chinese

Cary Tu



Page 11

ABACUS KOWLOON COMMUNITY FUN DAY

The Kowloon Funday this year was held in early May with 200 children from schools throughout Hong

Kong, coming together at Kings Park to join in with the fun and games organised by members of Kowloon

RFC. With almost 20 members of the rugby club and more than 10 members of the netball team turning

out to welcome the Children, the day was set to be a great event.

On Arrival at Kings Park the Children were split in to different groups where they were then allocated

mentors for the day. The mentors were set the task of arranging games and activities within a rugby

setting. With most of the Children having never picked up a rugby ball let alone played the game, this

was a task easier said than done resulting in a number of competitive games played but with a rugby

edge. One such game, British Bull-dog, allowed the Children to use both speed and agility to dodge their

class mates and reach the other side of the pitch. Each of the games was played with a large amount of

energy and keenness, leading to a large number of water breaks for the Children and mentors alike.

A highlight of the Funday was the Fun-zone. With the aid of the HKRFU inflatable, this area where the

Children were able to win prizes through their ability to “hook a duck” or “splat a rat”! Marshalled by the

Kowloon netball girls this was an area which all of the children enjoyed and was an opportunity for them

to have their face’s painted or cool off while playing with the water guns and slippy slide provide by

some of the charitable donations which we received for the day.


Page 12

However wet the Children (and mentors) may have been by the end of the day, the enthusiasm and

eagerness of both the children and all those that were representing Kowloon RFC, was a clear

representation of how enjoyable the day was. Seeing many of the children grow in confidence even when

playing a simple ball game was a pleasure to see, with some of the teachers even being surprised by how

out-going some of the children were being. With the success of the event in only it’s first year, we can see

a larger turnout from both the children involved and the support driven from Kowloon as well.


Page 13

END OF REPORT

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