Welcome to 2021 and another lockdown. Just as we thought we might be returning to some form of rugby sadly Covid has put a stop to that. We are hopefully that we might get some form of rugby before May but that is currently a long way off. We will continue to monitor the situation and follow the Government and RFU advice so as soon as we can we will but that is out of our hands.

Looking back pre-Xmas we were able to host a great game against Exmouth 2nd XV in which the Topsham team emerged victorious under the hybrid rules. That at least has given us a flavour of what we can aspire to when we get back to playing the game.

In regard to the clubhouse itself some of you will have noticed that we have made some changes to the club. We have removed the internal wall separating the corridor from the members bar this has created a much larger and more user friendly space which we hope to be able to enjoy in the future.

We have put a wood-burner into the main hall which has a very positive effect on the ambience of the room and will hopefully (once we are allowed) encourage people to use the club space more and for longer. I certainly know of plenty of players parents who would prefer to sit in front of a warm fire than be stood on a chilly touchline. All of this has been done at no cost to the club save the generosity of a sponsor who wishes to remain nameless and the sweat of a few members.

In terms of finance the club has 5-6 months cash reserves left and currently few ways of generating an income. The opportunities we have that you can support are as follows:
1. Easyfundraising – This is really easy once you have set it up. The club has gained £746.22 from my business just by buying this way over the last few years.
a. Download the Easy fundraising App from the App store or equivalent or visit the https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/panel/
select Topsham RFC as the charity you want to support and remember to use the app or set up the link on your browser.
It costs you nothing but a little time.

2. Coop – Download the Coop App in the App store , select Topsham RFC as the charity you want to support and remember to use the app whenever you are in the store.

3. Crowdfunder – We will be setting up a crowdfunding site and will send out more information on this in the near future.

Parking at the club: The Building developers next door are keen to use the club car park Monday – Friday once they start to develop the site. Assuming this happens this will give us some income in the near term. More to follow once we have secured the deal.

Communication this is an ongoing bugbear and one we as a management committee have fallen foul of partly through trying to do things quickly and the communication channels not reaching everyone. We are sorry about that and we intend to do a better job in the future. The communication channels we intend to use are the newsletter, whatsapp via for the
representatives of each section and the notice board once we can use the club again. If you don’t receive the newsletter then that is probably because you are not on the mailchimp list which will be because you haven’t allowed us to contact you when you joined.

If you want to get the newsletter and don’t then please contact Sophie Kukor and she will help you sort it out. Finally we plan to host a club zoom call on 2 Feb 21 at 1930 to give you all an update as to where we are our current plans and give you the chance to ask questions of us. I look forward to speaking to you all again soon.

Graham Smith
Chairman