Monthly Archives: June 2007

AFRC Board Meeting & New Board Election

All France Rugby Club 2007 Board Meeting Notes
8:30pm Café Renoir Ginza

Minutes by Simon Hollander
Edited by Matthieu Rosenberg

Attendees:

Thomas Mennesson (President & Treasurer)
Yuji Takaku (Vice President)
Matthieu Rosenberg (Coach)
Pierre Le Bidois (Asst. Coach)
William Pitlewski (Social Manager)
Simon Hollander (Shuto League Rep)
Alex Miroux (Shuto League Rep)
Benoit Rengade
Raphael Atayi

 

Agenda:

1) Recruitment

2) Sponsorship

3) 20th Anniversary Activities

4) Miscellaneous

5) Board Elections

1) Recruitment

AFRC faces a recruitment crisis for the upcoming Shuto League with players injured and leaving, so we need to recruit new players. Also we get 5-10 players to training, but we need to focus on getting more players to training. We always covered for players in the past by working with Japanese clubs and inviting their players to join us. We should look to get things back closer to Shinjuku Jack and work more with Zenkai Beers. Also we need to have some Japanese team members in the club to help with running things.

Ways of recruiting: It’s every player duty to try to enlist some more players. We could put an advertisement in Metropolis: most clubs do this and recruit their players this way, and the advertisement is free. We can use the web page more for recruitment. Japanese clubs (like Jack) advertise in the main Japanese Rugby Magazine, and this could be a way to recruit Japanese members. Monthly parties like we used to have are also a good way to introduce recruits to the club. We can also reconnect with the French School, as the high school players we received from them turned out very well, so we should look to continue that.

2) Sponsorship

AFRC has always tried to avoid asking the players for membership fees. In order to face the expenses (league fees, ground and referee costs…), it is essential to have some sponsors with us. Last year, France Travel and BNP Paribas agreed to help us very generously. While willing to keep excellent relations with France Travel and BNP Paribas, AFRC, and especially Benoit, may have find a new sponsor who would be willing to pay for another set of jerseys. We are actually in talks and you will be informed as soon as possible.

3) 20th Anniversary

In order to celebrate All France 20th anniversary, on the September 8th (Saturday), we should do an event involving a game, BBQ and night on the town. Ideally, thinking of a four way competition involving hopefully Shinjuku Jack, Zenkai Beers, and French Asian Barbarians, at a ground like Tatsumi. We could have a BBQ right there in the park afterwards, and arrange to go out on the town together afterwards.
We need to get Marc and Bruno back involved with organization.

4) Miscellaneous Matters

We haven’t been so good at keeping up with people leaving and didn’t give Nicolas or Kenji a proper send off or a jersey. We need to send them jerseys.

 

5) Elections

New President: Matthieu Rosenberg

Thomas was thanked by the Board for his role as president for the last year, before he announced his resignation. Matthieu was nominated as president and elected by unanimous vote.

New Treasurer: Laurent Serena

Nicolas’ departure left the position filled by Thomas, who announced his resignation from the post. Laurent Serena was contacted by telephone and nominated as new Treasurer. Laurent accepted the nomination and was elected by unanimous vote.

New Coach: Pierre Le Bidois

It was agreed that Matthieu was doing an excellent job of managing the club and leading on the pitch, and that Pierre had done an excellent and much needed role of running pre-match preparation and coaching/substituting during the games. Pierre was nominated and elected coach by unanimous vote.

New Captain: Matthieu Rosenberg Vice Captain: Graham Creighton

Everyone again felt Tonio and Clem were great for the club as captain and vice captain, and their absence through injury was missed, and it was good to have back and forward captains. Therefore Matthieu was nominated to be the on the field captain and forward leader, and suggested that Graham Creighton would be a great vice-captain and backs leader. Graham accepted his nomination by telephone with the understanding that he cannot participate year-round, and both were elected by unanimous vote.

Social Manager: William Pitlewski

William Pitlewski expressed his frustration at not being well enough informed at times of team news and who was leaving and such, which meant he felt he had not been able to fulfill this role as he would have liked. He made his continuation of this position contingent on better support and information from Board Members, and the Board Members agreed to do this. William was reelected by unanimous vote.

New Shuto League Representative: Alex Miroux, Yuji Takaku and Pierre Le Bidois

Simon expressed his intent to step down from this position having fulfilled it for more than two years, pointing out that originally the burden was to be split between three people but had fallen for the most part on one person in practice, and that recently Alex Miroux, Matthieu Rosenberg and others had to be called in to attend Shuto meetings. It was agreed that three people should fulfill the role of Shuto League Representative, and Alex Miroux, Yuji Takaku, and Pierre Le Bidois were elected by unanimous vote.

Construction League Representative: Taro Hosozawa and Tohru Higashi

The Board expressed its ongoing appreciation for the efforts of Taro Hosozawa and Tohru Higashi representing the club in the Construction League. Taro and Higashi were both reelected by unanimous vote.

 

Meeting ends at 9:30pm, everybody is drunk at 11:30

Aside

On Sunday 1st, we have the Shuto 10s Tournament which is, you guessed, the tournament organised by the Shuto League with rugby teams of 10 players. Depending our results, we might stay for the whole day. ************************************************************** Meeting is Shin-Urayasu … Continue reading

Aside

Jacks are in the need of players for their game on Sunday, here are the details: Meeting at Tobu Dobutsu Koen Eki (Saitama) at 11:00 (watch out, it’s pretty far…) KO at 13:30 on the “Kizoochi Field” Mail Taroo or … Continue reading

“Elle aime à rire, elle aime à boire…”

You know the tune, right?

Anybody’s up for a karaoke version?

AFRC vs Ando – Game report

A late report for a game that we’d like to forget.

For our last game in the Construction League, AFRC managed to have a good turnout, with 22-23 players showing on time at the Misato Station. Weather was good, the pitch (Asahi Shimbun ground) was as always isolated but in good condition. Under Graham’s supervision, we warmed up really seriously, getting into the game little by little. When the show started, AFRC put up a strong defense line, aggressive, maybe too aggressive sometimes because the ref gave Ando 5 or 6 penalties for trespassing the offside line or diving in the ruck. I sincerely think that he was a bit harsh with that and too sweet with keeping the ball in hands after a tackle, and I tried to discuss about it with him but it’s never easy… Anyway, after 5 or 6 minutes defending our line, Ando did get through and scored.

When we resumed, it was the same thing, Ando did get the ball, attacked and kept the ball on and on. We tried to defend as long as possible but on the third or fourth move, Ando was stronger and went again to the try line. As time went by, we could not keep Ando’s pace and we were falling apart quicker than before. First half was balanced, I’m sure that if we had managed to score this f**** try before half-time, game wouldn’t have been the same.

Indeed, Ando was a really strong team, properly fit and aggressive, with some good players, especially the number 10. They were always on the move and quick to change pace. On the other hand, we had our moments, stealing some balls in scrums, running on the wings, but it was not enough. So we ended up losing 41 to 0, with 30 points in the second half.

As we discussed with Graham, we need to refocus for our next goal, the Shuto League in autumn. Since we lack some team play ( and fitness, but that’s everybody’s own burden), we were thinking about meet one or two days before the game to practice formations and so on, maybe during evening training in Yotsuya or some place on Saturday. I know that some of you have families or other obligations but it would be just for 6 Fridays or Saturdays in 4 months (we have 6 games in the Shuto). Is it to much to ask to get some victories on Sundays?

In the meantime, that was the last game for a lot of players that will be missed: Robin, Mathieu Decaix, Alex Cordier, and Kenji. Thanks guys and see you soon.

 

Matt R.