Hi everyone
No waffle from me today, I’m going to jump straight into it, as I can’t wait to share a very exciting announcement with you!
International Rugby League agrees partnership with Rugby League Record Keepers’ Club
Attached is a press release from International Rugby League (IRL) which has just been released on their website (here) announcing a partnership with the RKC. As you know from earlier updates we have been working closely with IRL and others for some time now to agree a list of which games should be recognised as Full Internationals. With this work completed our focus has shifted to how we can capture the detail of all the games on this list. The RKC is naturally well placed to use our expertise capturing, processing and sharing this information, and I’m delighted that IRL have recognised this and we have been able to agree an official agreement to share this with them, and make the RKC their official statistics supplier.
The partnership fits perfectly with our aims and values: I’ve attached these again for people as a reminder (see https://www.rugbyleaguerecords.com/index.php/rugby-league-record-keepers-club/). This also marks a major step forward in re-establishing the RKC as the go-to source for records of the game, as was the case for the first incarnation of the RKC; it also, for the first time, helps establish ‘one version of the truth’ for the international game, which has so far been lacking. In this regard, I see this announcement as the watershed moment where the international game’s statistics are placed on the same robust footing that the original RKC achieved for the British game decades ago.
We couldn’t have got to this point without the help of a large number of people, and I’m pleased to say that rather than just my words of thanks, we’ll be able to tangibly recognise this support. In exchange for the provision of data to IRL we will receive a significant number of top class tickets for next year’s World Cup. Whilst some of these will be allocated to specific individuals who have gone above and beyond to get us here (and have been notified already), the majority will be made available to RKC members by means of an open draw. I will send a separate note on how this will work in the new year, but the crucial point to note is that to be eligible for the draw members receiving this note must be ‘live members’ at the end of the year! Which leads me nicely on to the second part of my mail…
2022 memberships now due
Thanks to the support of all of our members, we have been able to re-establish the RKC in a very short space of time. We now have well over 200 members, and the subs that people have paid have put us on a sound financial footing, allowing us to focus on our work, and give us the possibility of considering a number of exciting projects in the future – more on this in due course! As last year, I will share our accounts at some point in the next few weeks, so people can see where we stand, in order to be as transparent as possible.
During this year, we have launched the ability to use our website (www.rugbyleaguerecords.com) as the primary way of people paying their subs, and this will go into full swing for all those who are now due to renew. For anybody who paid their 2021 subs to me through PayPal or bank transfer prior to March-21 when the website went live, your membership of RKC expires at the end of December-21. At this point, you’ll lose access to the website and my delightful ‘little’ updates! But don’t despair: renewing is easy!! All you need to do is go to the website, and under the place where you normally log in, just select ‘join now’; on the second screen hit ‘select’ against the only option available (paid membership, £5 per year), and enter the information request, proceeding to make a payment via PayPal; this will make you a member for 12 months from the point of renewing. If anyone has any difficulties, or does not have a PayPal account, please give me a shout.
Hopefully the incentive of continuing to support our work is enough to encourage everyone to renew! But remember, to retain access to the website (which won’t be freely available to the public until some point in 2022) and to be eligible for the draw for World Cup tickets you’ll need to renew before the end of December 🙂 If all that’s not enough, we’re working behind the scenes on other perks for members, but these aren’t quite far enough along yet to add them to my ‘hard sell’ list 😉 Feel free to tell your friends though and encourage them to sign up, but note new members won’t be eligible for the World Cup tickets.
Please note, all members are receiving this mail, so if you signed up via the website (i.e. post-March-21) there is nothing for you to do now. You will continue to be a member until your anniversary of joining, at which point, membership will automatically cease, meaning you won’t be able to access the website. But renewing is as easy as described above.
If anyone’s in any doubt as to whether they need to renew, please just shout – but I will send a reminder in the next week or so just to those that are due to expire.
All the best
Neil
