Search Engage

Proposed by: Lillie Keith
Seconded by: Olivia Lambe

If someone had asked me all those 4 years ago back when I was a young cocky freshers if I could see myself running for club captain in my final year, I would’ve laughed in their face and told them to see off their pint. LUUWRUFC has been many things for me over the years, what other club can say they have 90 girls as on call therapists whenever you need them as well as constant supplies of hugs, singing and laughter. I know now that I have experienced and seen everything there is to know about the club (whether I liked it or not).

Not only have I been an engaged and keen committee member over my time here, I have also had the wonderful experience of being a part of exec. This means I know all of the background activity going on in the club and can prepare myself for anything that can be thrown at the club (apart from if Lizzy Choong told me she’d decided she wanted to be straight). I believe being a part of exec is a key step in taking up the role of club captain. You see the club with a completely different set of specs and this is a role I can proudly say I’ve thrown myself into at 100%.

Being treasurer has also shown the amount of work that I actively love putting into LUUWRFUC from organising the Christmas dinner to ensuring we have transport paid every week for matches even to the small things like organising match pints, I have shown I am reliable and will always produce a result.

I think it is fair to say that Covid was not the easiest time for everyone. I have experienced luuwrufc life through it’s highest highs where we won varsity pre-covid and through our lows during covid where we were all separated for way too long and were unable to play for the season. Through this time, I was lucky enough to gain an insight of what the club did to get through these tough times and it has truly prepared me for this role post-covid. It gives me a chance to keep the traditions that we all know and love but to also accept that LUUWRUFC is in a different time now and to create new traditions.

I have an endless amount of experience in leadership roles from captaining my rugby squad at home, being a sixth form prefect, dental society aesthetics leader, dental school mentoring, working as a sports leader in David Lloyd gym and so on. The skills. I’ve picked up from these experiences are definitely vital but I believe it isn’t the only thing I need to show that I would make a good club captain for LUUWRUFC. I believe there are a number of factors that makes someone a good club captain for LUUWRUFC in particular and it isn’t about barking orders and making decisions all by yourself. The beauty of LUUWRUFC is that we are a big happy dysfunctional family. This means you have everyone by your side supporting you and wanting to make the club better too. So, I believe the skills involved are:

1) Being able to listen to everyone and take into account opinions when making a decision rather than personal preference
2) Be available not just physically in person but emotionally for every member
3) Be open and happy to take on new ideas and traditions
4) Make decisions even when they are tough and back it
5) Don’t lose the passion and love that LUUWRUFC brings


So here are the main things I want to get out of the club:

Firstly Grow the club as much as possible! Which is done by making sure every member enjoys their time within the club and wants to stay as well as wanting to recommend it to others!


Secondly (and possibly most importantly) I want to put LUUWRUFC on the university map as a club that everyone knows and is talking about (in a good way ). This means having training sessions that people don’t want to miss, being recognised by other societies and respected, have aspects of the club that aren’t at other societies (e.g. restarting our LUUWRUFC podcast), give all our teams (whether they are firsts, seconds or thirds) the same amount of time and training opportunities as each other and having a set of skilled girls whose talents cannot be forgotten.

That’s all the kind of stuff that will make us stand out as proud girls of an amazing LUUWRUFC.

This year has been phenomenal. For one of the first times in our club history both of our BUCS teams have won the league. Let me repeat that: BOTH OF OUR BUCS TEAMS HAVE WON THE LEAGUE. This means we have no choice but to just get better and better which I have no doubt that we will. The standard this year has been the highest LUUWRUFC has seen. If this standard stays high and we input different training aspects into the club to improve, we will be UNSTOPPABLE.

I have a lot of ideas on how we can improve our already club and training but I will keep it to 3 main ideas on here:

1) OPTIONAL WEEKEND S&C/ KICK ABOUT. We all know the S&C numbers are quite limited and are not at times that everyone is able to attend. I would like to input the idea of meeting at Hyde Park or Roundhay (depending on the availability of lifts) and practicing skills that people feel less confident in e.g., kicking and improving general fitness together such as circuit training, sprints etc. It will make our team bonding skyrocket and it means people of every ability will be welcome as everyone has the space and time to work at their own pace. It also gives people the chance to have social plans on the weekends especially when exams swallow up everyone’s social lives.

2) IMPROVING ENGAGEMENT AT FRIDAY TRAINING. Currently Friday training is seen as a muck about before pub club. I want it to be an opportunity for maybe the third’s team to get specialised training time and help from the firsts and seconds for the first half and then in the second half have weekly tournaments of kick tennis, rugby rounder, obstacle courses etc. It means the developing members will improve confidence and the firsts and seconds can improve their own skills by discussing it and showing it to others. I think if people see a reason to go to Friday training instead of just going to Mondays as its pre-match training, then we will have more attendance and it’ll be more fun in general!


3) MONTHLY FEEDBACK SURVEYS. As the club grows we have more lovely people with more and more ideas and bits of feedback flooding through the doors. To keep on top of this to make sure it is not forgotten and to make sure everyone feels listened to, I will send out a survey each month that is optional to fill out where people to input any feedback about anything they are unhappy with or anything that they are currently loving within the club and want to keep. This will help me make sure everyone in the club is listened to and satisfied and it gives people the opportunity to express their feelings and opinions anonymously.


This is an opportunity I would welcome with open arms if you all let me and I know that I can make the club the best it can be with the help of a lovely committee and dedicated members. This club has been my life for the past 4 years and I want the opportunity to show how much I truly care and help change the lives of other women’s experiences in university like LUUWRUFC has changed mine.

Club Captain Manifesto – Grace Dyke
Proposed by: Ellie Turner
Seconded by: Lizzy Choong



It is without a doubt that luuwrufc has made my time at uni so far and I would love to be given the chance to be your club captain next year. Having been on committee this year, I feel I have a good grasp on the responsibilities a club captain would need to take on and am very ready for the challenge of being in charge of you lot! Throughout the season, I have responded promptly to sponsorship queries and committee related tasks so I know I could keep up with the number of questions and messages a club captain gets. Having played rugby for almost seven years now, I have a lot of ideas to make the club as beneficial as possible for its members, here are a few of them:



Injury Prevention:
• CONTACT TRAINING
I would implement contact training either by having a contact session every two weeks or doing 15-20mins of contact in each training session. This will help us as a club maintain our tackle technique throughout the season and will take the “fear” out of contact games for people who haven’t played rugby before as they will be able to build confidence in training and be able to take that confidence into games.
• Pre-match injury prevention sessions
The day before a game we would do a 20-30mins session (this could be online or in-person depending on what our members would prefer) to make sure we don’t wake up on game day with tight calves/hammies and also build strength in the muscles around our ankles and in our necks particularly.
• Concussion awareness & reducing risk
I would like to hold a concussion awareness presentation that we would do for half an hour before a training session which would include spotting the symptoms of concussion and what our members should do if they think they are concussed. We’ll also be introducing neck exercises into every warm-up on match day and at training because if you came to S&C this year then you’ll know that for every pound of muscle mass gained in your neck, you reduce your risk of concussion by 5%.



Rebooting “You Play Rugby?” Podcast:
For those of you who don’t know, throughout lockdown our 20/21 committee started a podcast to talk about all thing’s rugby! Especially focusing on our experience as women and as students playing rugby. I would love to continue expanding the LUUWRUFC brand by exploring the podcasting space. I think we could create some quality content especially as we have now had a full year of BUCS matches (and we can flex about the fact that WE WON BOTH OUR BUCS LEAGUES!!!).



Summary of other ideas I would like to implement next year:
• Having most of the same calls and moves within our firsts and seconds to make moving up from seconds to firsts easier and less intimidating
• Implementing more position specific training especially when we have training sessions with lower numbers
Please ask me if you want to hear any more detail on these points!



Why I think I would make a good club capt:

I’m literally here all the time. I have been to every training session, every match, and the majority of socials this year – I can very confidently say I have spent more time at Weetwood than I have on campus for my actual degree. AND, I’ll be moving into Hyde Park very soon so no more hour-long commutes on trains and buses for me! (Well, probably still buses… if you know you know 🚩). This will allow me to be a friendly face to everyone at the club which I think is vital within this role.



One of the things I am proudest of as sponsorship sec this year is securing ten sub-jackets for the club free of charge (that would have otherwise cost the club over £600!) after hearing several members wondering if it would be possible to get them. This is the energy I want to bring to the club captain role: I’m here all the time because I actually adore spending time with you crazy bunch and I want to be able to put the things our members want into action as I have done this year as a sponsorship sec.



Gorgeous gorgeous girls get the whole way through this long-ass manifesto, thank you so much for sticking with me up to this point. If you couldn’t tell yet, I care so deeply about this club and the community we have built here, and I would be honoured if you would allow me to be a significant part of continuing to build this community next season as your club captain. Big rugby love xx