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ORGANIZE, MANAGE, AND COMMUNICATE
15boots, a software development company
dedicated to address the needs of small organizations, is pleased to
announce the launch of “RugbyCIO”,
software for rugby clubs, teams, leagues, and other rugby affiliated
groups. Recognizing a need for simple and efficient management
tools for smaller organizations, the developers, rugby players and
supporters themselves, have created these tools for rugby with
RugbyCIO
software and the 15boots.com website.
The designers of 15boots's products organized the challenges facing
rugby clubs into the following separate, but highly related, three
areas of challenge:
Bodies. In some measure due to the
perception and uniqueness of the sport, an ignorance of the game.
There is heavy competition for players from other more established
sports- baseball, softball, soccer, golf, etc. These established
sports are home grown with the exception of soccer which rapidly
increased its participation rate in youth teams but has made very
slow progress in post-education club structures. Insurance issues
and perception of high injury rates may be negated by injury
studies. Additionally, there is little recognition given to rugby
players, both in the obvious lack of media support as well as a lack
of acknowledgement of efforts within the organization.
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Funding. While funding needs are modest
by comparison to other sports, funding challenges may be considered
greater due to the extremely low profile clubs keep in the
community, as well as the national perception touched upon above.
Along with being a “non-traditional” sport, this severely limits the
sponsorship field, at least those sponsors who look for a little
return on investment (ROI) with their sponsorship dollars.
Acceptance by the Community. Due to
misperception of the sport, the rowdiness of the traditional rugby
player, and inability of clubs to maintain consistent and positive
public relations efforts (including reporting of matches,
fundraisers, community activities, or other club events), most
communities have not fully embraced rugby clubs.
These three challenge areas are inextricably
related. Improvement in any one of these areas means improvement in
another. Consider the outcomes and possibilities under the
imaginary scenario of having a limitless supply of players. Or
having funding that is frequent and generous. What would it be like
to have 100% backing of the all the citizens of your community?
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