£23m in Debt

The financial state of Scottish Rugby has been clearly spelled out today. Following nearly a decade of losses, the SRU has raked up £23m in debts and have now decided that radical steps are required to amend the situation.

Without external funding, the pro teams maybe cut, whilst the U19 and U21 squads are going as is the 7's squad.

This is pretty radical stuff and will cause an outcry amongst the Scottish rugby community - but I suppose someone had to have the balls at some point to make the tough decision.

In addition to these cuts though, the SRU must find new ways of increasing their revenue, little is mentioned about this for the timebeing though.

More details at the SRU.

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Big Night Success

Friday night was a big night for rugby in Cumbernauld, with the 25th Anniversary Dinner being held in a big tent.

Now pulling off this event was going to take plenty of hard work, as there were two hundred guests expected, and within this number there were former coaches and team members to track down, there were corporate guests to invite and then there was selling the additional seats that weren't taken by the previous numbers.

Plenty of hard work went in, and a fair amount of stress and sweat was expended, but on the night it was absolutely outstanding. A large marquee filled with 200 people, including current youth team members as well as guest speakers, the main one being John Beattie.

And at the end of the day, the hard work that goes in usually does not get enough appreciation, but in this mornings Scotsman, John Beattie has done us proud with an article that suggests to Scottish Rugby that we have plenty to offer.

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/sport.cfm?id=612942006

A big thank-you to everyone who helped make this happen, especially Davie and Stevie with-out whose vision this would never have taken place.

Whilst Cumbernauld may have reached the climax of a successful league season (the 1st XV finishing 3rd, and the 2nds as joint winners), there is still a great deal to look forward to at Auchenkilns over the next few weeks.

Over the Easter weekend, a Touring Party are again be making the trip to our French Twin Town, Bron.

The Under 18's Anniversary Dinner is 21st April. I believe there may be a couple of tickets left, but you had better be quick if you intend going to this special celebration of Rugby.

5th May sees the Club Dinner, whilst the Club AGM is in the Clubhouse on 11th May.

The Minis tournament is the 7th May, the Midis the 14th May, whilst this years Tartan International Softball Tournament is running over the weekend of 27th May.

So the Rugby season may be over, but don't let that fool you into thinking the Club has gone into hibernation.

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Good stuff this article from Steve Pavlina.

In fact, I had a discussion the other week about point 9 - failing to focus on value creation.

The discussion was about whether to focus on profit margin or not.

Fear in Business

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