Marist Albion RFC

Introduction

Marist Albion Rugby Football Club has a long and proud history in the northwest are of Christchurch. In recent years, New Zealand Rugby and Canterbury Rugby have updated their strategic documents and have Community Rugby Strategies in place. These new areas of focus, along with continued decline in playing numbers, challenges around obtaining volunteers, and the intense focus on safety and wellbeing in rugby, provides our club with the opportunity to address our future. It is our desire, that our club continues to remain relevant and provide a more meaningful experience to our current and future players, coaches, referees, volunteers and whanau across the community in which we serve.

Through our process to internal review, we have proposed a vision for our club of living our values by uniting our community through rugby which we feel, provides connection to our history and value system, as well as focusing on bringing our community together – regardless of faith or religion, to provide an awesome rugby experience. This vision is aligned to both Canterbury Rugby, and New Zealand Rugby’s vision for the future of the community game.

Our Values

A commitment to our values, across all parts of the rugby community in our region, will be vital if we are to succeed in achieving our vision. It will be important for everyone in our club to live by our values if we are to achieve our vision for the future of our club. The values we commit to are:

• Unity – As a club we strive to be united in our goals and values and committed to the belief rugby can improve lives, and to create a real sense of belonging.
• Inclusiveness – together we want the faces in our club to represent our community, regardless of religious faith, gender, age or ethnicity.
• Innovative – as a club we want to make rugby exciting to our community, we will provide new and exciting opportunities to connect with our club and community.
• Respect – to respect our heritage and those that have come before us, and to instil a culture and values that future generations will be proud of.

Our Leadership Shifts and Opportunities

We recognise that we will not achieve change, or our game will not continue to grow if we continue to do what we have always done and expect a different outcome. We know that society is changing and that we will need to work with our stakeholders to ensure that we continue to provide an exciting, accessible, and enjoyable club and rugby experience. If we are to be successful in achieving our vision we recognise that we need to shift from:

We recognise that we have an amazing opportunity to work alongside our rugby community and partners (Metro Rugby and Canterbury Rugby) to challenge what we provide and how we deliver this. We will look to do this by acting on the opportunities we see, based on the gaps and challenges we have identified which include:

• Providing a culture and environment where girls and women in our club community can thrive;
• Retaining and living by our values and reconnecting to our traditional community, while also acknowledging that our faith doesn’t preclude anyone being a member of our club and having a sense of belonging, as long as they uphold our values;
• Not being afraid to experiment with new ways of delivering rugby or trying new things that give our members and participants what they want, provides great experience and keeps them retained and engaged in our club community;
• Reimagining how we approach volunteering, what we ask of our community and how we ignite a sense of belonging by giving service to our club.

Our Areas of Focus

In reviewing our priorities and consulting with our community, we have identified the following priorities for our club over the next five years. We are confident that if we move forward in these areas, we can prove to be living by our values and contributing to the survival and growth of our club for generations to come.

Our initial areas of focus are:

1. Unifying our Club – finding and retaining quality volunteers is increasingly challenging, and there are now a number of requirements on committees that go beyond administering rugby. Historically, clubs have been organised into junior and senior clubs, with separate committees, dealing with similar issues. This has created some inefficiencies within our club and how we use volunteers. It has also resulted in the member experience being different, and our club being somewhat fragmented in our communication, culture and priorities. Legally we are required to review our constitution prior to 2026, in line with changes to the Incorporated Societies Act. These changes will be significant and we will need to consult with our members as part of this process. This process gives us the perfect opportunity to review how our club is structured and run, to ensure that we are structured and managed in a way that reflects the future needs of our club and community.
2. Women and Girls – the profile of women’s rugby has increased exponentially in recent years, with increased attention and focus on the high performance areas of the women’s game. While we have increased awareness and exposure to women’s rugby, this is yet to be translated into sustainable increased participation by girls at all levels of our game, across any club or union. It is our intention to look at the culture and approach within our club to continue to encourage and welcome girls and their whanau into our club as well as provide a safe environment for young women and women to belong. We aspire to have more women and girls involved in and stay with our club across all junior grades and at U17 women’s. We aspire to support these young women into senior rugby opportunities and sustain a women’s team into the future. We seek to grow the involvement and recognition of women in all within our club – this includes attracting and supporting more women coaches as well as better supporting and celebrating women in volunteer administration, management, and committee across our club.
3. Future Facility Requirements – we face a number of challenges with our current facilities and continue to struggle with access to quality toilets, changing facilities and lighting. Facilities are an important contributing factor to the level of enjoyment experienced but they are also increasingly expensive to maintain and place a huge burden on clubs and volunteers. If our club continues to grow as we hope, we will further have the challenge of meeting the ongoing needs and expectations of our community. Future facility provision is moving more towards a model of shared facilities, community ‘hubs’ and multi-purpose facilities to create efficiencies for Council’s, sporting codes and clubs. We will continue to build and develop our relationship with the NorWest Sports and Community Hub Board and with our codes, as a founding partner, to agree a future strategy for our club and our community.
   
4. School and Community Engagement – we want our club to reflect the community in which we operate. We want our members, volunteers, and administrators to represent the people in our neighbourhood – whether aligned to the Catholic faith or aligned to our geographical community. For us to achieve this, we need to be more visible, people need to know we are here and that we are an inclusive club, welcoming to everyone regardless of faith, gender or ethnicity. We believe that an effective way of doing this is to be more visible in our community and have greater visibility in the local schools within our community, as well as continuing to focus on our traditional school alliances.
5. Providing a Positive Experience for all – As a club we seek to foster a sense of belonging and inclusivity for all and we deliver this through the vehicle of rugby. If we are to continue to retain members, grow volunteers, and create meaningful connection, we need to be providing an experience that is valued by our members. What rugby ‘offers’ has remained reasonably unchanged for generations, but we do little to assess whether this is still what our community desires. Working with our members, community, and stakeholders to provide rugby products and experiences that give them a great experience and keep them coming back is a key priority for us.

Our Measures of Success

It is vital that we measure our progress against our strategic priorities and as a club we have set five key areas we want to achieve success. These measures are directly linked to our strategic priority areas and we will seek to implement a range of new or revised activities to move us forward.

Our strategic measures of success by the end 2028 are:

    1. Unifying our Club
      - We will have undertaken the constitutional changes required in line with the new Incorporated Societies Act
      - We will undertake consultation with our community and investigate options to formally align our senior and junior committees/clubs
    2. Women and Girls
      - Provide a pathway within our club to transition U17 girls players into Senior Women’s players over the next three years
      - Put the necessary structures and support in place to field and sustain a Women’s team from 2026 onwards
    3. Future Facilities Requirements
      - We will work with CRFU and Metro Sub-Union, as well as Christchurch City Council, to have a clear strategy and plan in place in regard to Marist Albion’s involvement in and          commitment to the Northwest Community Hub Project
      - We will have a Facilities Plan in place for the next ten years with our stakeholders by 2025
    4. School and Community Engagement
      - We will develop and implement one initiative across the Catholic Primary Schools network to support the transition of young people into our club
    5. Provide a Positive Experience for All
      - Independent review of sub-committee structures completed
      - Process of joint/collaboration planning and evaluation in place which includes board, staff and key stakeholders, with next strategic plan to be jointly developed across the                wider rugby system in South Canterbury

Our Operational Planning and Delivery

We will work alongside Canterbury Rugby Football Union and Metro Rugby Sub-Union to formulate an operational plan of how we will implement new activities to achieve our priority areas. This will allow us to try some new things, pilot new initiatives, and help us fill gaps in our capability or knowledge (we don’t know what we don’t know). We will be accountable and transparent to our members for all that we do, clearly communicating what we will be doing and why. We will look for additional funding to support some of these initiatives and as a committee, will be responsible for reporting back to our members (and funders) on how we are tracking towards achieving the measures of success we have set for ourselves.