Any news from last night?

very impressed with what i heard last night and no sign of the knockers who spout off on here.was said that draw results would be in the wakey express and a mega draw for £4000 pound on the 3rd feb.

Good stuff, minor point though, its probably because of the criticism that last night was organised. There seems to be some great things happening with the funds this scheme generates. More information, which includes events such as last night, will ensure that remains so.

Just so - the ST fed back to the club some of the concerns that were expressed on here, and the Q&A was arranged as a direct response.

Very good evening. Three excellent presentations, Davide Longo gave a indepth overvue of the 1873 `club `. Much hard work done to date, they now have two full time staff working on getting new members, £ 4,000 Mega draw in Feb. They want to take the draws on the road, encourage non Rugby fans to join, introduce a friend scheme, company membership, more prizes etc etc.
Tony Dury, head of youth Rugby, gave a very impressive power point display on where we are now, 100 junior players on the books. Explained where we were prior to 1873 club and where we are now and what we are trying to achieve. We are now attracting England quality junior players, we are looking at players from as far afield as Gateshead and Northampton, we have three three Yorkshire RU under 18 players from Qegs on the books and looking at another. We have level 4 coaches in the system, we have top medical and fitness people on board. We have Roy Sampson looking after the under 16/15 ? team. We have many more support staff for the youth sides as a result of 1873. we have more and better players and can accomadate players from outside the area. We now have top technical support for the youth rugby, cameras, computers, specialist testing equipment etc again as a result of 1873.
James Elston then took the opportunity to hightlight what a fantastic job Tony Dury and his team have done in the past with basically no support or equipment including winning the under 18`s, the club know that the youth set up needs support and 1873 has enabled I think he said an extra £ 130,000 to be invested. Players produced by Dury include Walshaw, Davey, Wildie, Trout, Slater, Anakin, Colleran, Spiers etc have put down a marker and impressed Agar. Slater going full time is a result of 1873, Retaining the likes of Anakin etc is a result of 1873. Hudds tried to sign Walshaw 1973 enabled us to give him a three year contract.
Mark Winder then explained his role as Education officer, the importance of ensuring that all the young players are not only educated in Rugby but that are given the opportunity to develop in other areas, college, NVQ, etc etc. He highlighted the many associations the club have developed with other education bodies. His goal is to ensure that each young man that the club has on its books is given every opportunity to succeed in Rugby and in life. They want to ensure that a player will look back and say that during his time at Trinity he was well looked after.
James then confirmed that we are the only club with a full time education officer, Mark Winder is a qualified headmaster and James felt all SL clubs will copy us.
There was then a Q&A. My thoughts having listened to the presentations are that any parent who entrusts their child with our club can rest easy, you will not find a more professional youth set up.

Fantastic, it would be nice to see such development publicised on the SL website, the RL weekly newspapers and the Express. This is great stuff, lets shout about it.

A superb achievement in a very short space of time. Hopefully, the scheme will continue to prosper and we reap the rewards further down the line.

Love this sort of thing. As said by others lets get it shouted on other forums, local news, anyone who will listen.

I have followed Wakefield for a long time. I can't remember ever having as much pride in the work done behind the scenes to support players and build a quality infrastructure.
That might have been because I didn't always know what was going on, but even that is a reason to be positive.

All great news, it is important that the club keep this type of information coming, excellent stuff

Excellent post, thanks very much!!
As others have already pointed out this should be shouted from the rooftops, which was pretty much the only argument anyone had about the 1873 scheme in the first place, tell us how good it is and what is being achieved and you will continue to have and grow support, it sounds like there was zero need to be hiding our light under a bushel.
Well done moaners and well done club!!!!!

Great to hear it has been such a success. We need to get this news plastered everywhere to make people awaren and to enable the scheme to grow.

Was anything said about what happened with the guy who was supposed to be managing the scheme and is he likely to be replaced?

Fantastic news, we all should do our bit to get more people on board and more so the knockers and moaners you have little faith..

Was that a surprise? Why would someone who 'spouts off' on here want to go to a meeting about something they don't want to get involved in?