THERE have been some real ding-dong battles played out at the Scottish Rugby Union’s AGM over the years, but the 2016 get-together at BT Murrayfield in three weeks’ time looks like being a rather sedate affair with no contentious motions on the agenda. It could, however, still prove to be an historic occasion in which the first female vice-president of the governing body is elected.
Dee Bradbury of Oban Lorne is hoping to be that ground-breaker. She will, however, have to see off challenges from Ian Barr of Lasswade and John Davidson of Jed-Forrest.
Bradbury – who is the mother of Edinburgh number eight Magnus and Scotland age-grade prop Fergus – already sits on the Scottish Rugby council and represents the organisation on the Rugby Europe Board.
Barr – who was narrowly defeated by Flockhart in last year’s election – has vowed to champion the clubs as key stakeholders in Scottish Rugby in the on-going governance review. He is a current Council member and served as its representative on the Board between 2013 and 2015.
Davidson is also a former Board and Council member, and was a director of the Celtic League between 2011 and 2013.
Meanwhile, current vice-president Rob Flockhart of Boroughmuir is due to be confirmed as president for a two year term at the AGM, after the shelf-life of this role was doubled from one year at last August’s meeting.
Four motions have been put in front of the meeting. The first three are being proposed on behalf of Scottish Rugby’s Governance Working Party and appear to be pretty straightforward cases of procedural housekeeping. They advocate rewriting the organisation’s bye-laws to reflect the lengthened tenures served by presidents and vice-presidents, introducing contingency plans for the possibility that either of these positions could become vacant mid-term.
The fourth motion deals with the restructuring of Caledonia Regional League One to reflect the vast distances junior clubs north of the central belt must travel. Proposed by Grangemouth Stags and seconded by Glenrothes, the motion looks to split the region into two distinct areas – the ‘North’ and the ‘Midlands’.
The argument supporting the proposal is that time and money can be saved by reducing travelling distances, and that standards will be pushed up because players will be more likely to commit to their team on a weekly basis if they are not required to take on round-trips of several hundred miles.
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