November 19, 2025

Call to order – Al – 8:03 PM CST

Roll Call – Michael

• Meeting Attendance – 2025 _ 2026 Season – Council.pdf and Conflict of Interest statements 
• Reminder on time management
  • Periodic announcement of running time 
  • Off topic items tabled to end of call

Approval of past SCC minutes – Michael

• Last Meeting Minutes – SCC 25 10 15 Agenda and Minutes – USA Club Rugby 
  • Motion: Midwest. Second: RMR. Approved

Chairs’/Officers’ Reports

USAR Liaison – Elaine

• Oct 2025 SCC.png
• Union All Star team fee waiving for actual union managed rep side- form for completion to be shared by EV
• Office staffing changes
• RX 
• Sanctioning (Jan board meet will be the point of approval)

Secretary – Michael

• Tracking action Items 
  • Completed items are there just filtered out
• Tracking website updates 
  • As above, completed items are there just filtered out
• Action Item from Other 25 07 27: Track potential changes to Community Agreement
  • David Dodge (Counsel) presented a draft on call last night. See below.
• Action Item from EXCO 25 01 06: Looking at potentially sharing via Website and Social Media a list of USAR sanctioned club events.
  • This is on hold until after the sanctioning process is complete. 
  • Will work with Elaine to move forward when ready
• Club Competition Recaps
  • MD1 – Men’s Division 1 – October 2025 Recap – USA Club Rugby 
  • WD1 – Women’s Division 1 – October 2025 Recap – USA Club Rugby 
  • MD2 – Men’s Division 2 – October 2025 Recap – USA Club Rugby 
  • WD2 – Women’s Division 2 – October 2025 Recap – USA Club Rugby 
  • MD3 – Men’s Division 3 – October 2025 Recap – USA Club Rugby 

Admin – Nick

• Refund processing
  • Refund policy in SCC 24 12 18 Agenda and Minutes – USA Club Rugby 
• Web Contact form responses
• Outstanding Club Pays Invoices
  • USAR/RX is working toward a solution to allow GUs better control
  • Club Pays Invoice Policy in SCC 25 09 17 Agenda and Minutes – USA Club Rugby 

15’s Comp – David McPhail

• Action Item from SCC 24 02 19: 15s committee to create document with minimum Super Regional standards to go with budget increase
  • Draft mentioned below. Will have for next SCC call
• Bids for National Championships – list narrowed down to top 3 bids. More to come.  Goal to announce mid to late December.
• SCC Task – Super Regional Guidelines drafted and being reviewed and cleaned up by Committee.
• The 15s committee rec’d a grievance related to last year’s SR’s.  Resolved.
• Technical Zone Policy – David Chapman submitted a minor modification.  Approved.
• Empire submitted a 3.4.3 waiver request.  To be discussed further with Eligibility.
• Sub-committee formed to draft SCC Promotion & Relegation policy.
• Chair to start work on finding new committee members over the holidays to replace members that are inactive / resigned.

7’s Comp – David Fee

• Wrapping up Eligibility – Discussion around wording of professional
• Wrapping up Committee Search
• Have selected 7s Venue

Eligibility – Tam

• Full report Eligibility.19-Nov-2025.pdf
• Highlights
  • Informational: U18 Participation in Senior Club Rugby.
  • Informational: RX Emails – Club Pays Invoices.
    • Additional notes about the Club Pays Invoice email reminders:
    • Initial email notifications will be sent out by RX on the 19th of the month to the pertinent parties, basically a notice and reminder to pay.
    • Email notifications will be resent on a regular basis each seventh day following the previous reminder.
    • USAR said that these notifications have resulted in the majority of issues being resolved.
  • 2026 Club Sevens Championship: SCC Discussion.
    • There is a need to fundamentally define the SCC championship: an event of/for our community clubs, or a Division 1/higher level event that is part of our national teams’ pathway, or a hybrid of the two. Unlike the fifteens national championships which has three divisions for Men and two divisions for Women, club sevens currently is played as one division each for Men and Women.

Treasurer – Tim

• 2025 10 Oct USA Club Rugby Assoc Statement of Financial Position
• 2025 10 Oct USA Club Rugby Assoc Statement of Activity
• 2025-26 – SCC Proposed Budget (to SCC)

• • Motion: NorCal Second: Texas  Approved
    • Approval of Budget
    • Vote for Approval of Budget.pdf
• 990 was filed

Discipline – Megan

• Now have 3 regulation 18s under investigation 
• Working with 15s on Superregionals
• 2026 JO courses. GUs interested in hosting please contact Megan

Governance – KJ

• Committee Member Nominations: Governance_Committee_Slate November 2025
  • Re-appointment – Leila Halay (Midwest – Ohio)
  • New – Jeffrey R. Barnhill (Rocky Mountain Rugby Union)
  • Re-appointment – Rob Theriot (True South)
  • New – Jennifer Bennallak (Northern California)
  • New – Michael Shepherd (Midwest – Indiana)
  • New – Justin Smith (Capital Rugby Union)
  • Motion:    MA      Second:      NorCal        Approved
    • Approval of slate

DEI – Robert

• Will be presenting a slate of committee candidates on next call

Vice Chair – Wes

• Action Item from EXCO 25 11 03: Wes to confirm with Jamie sanctioning process complete/approved
  • Sent to Jamie. Will have response by next ExCo
• No Report

Board Report – Rick

• Eagles National Teams:
  • Womxn’s Head Coach search in interview stage. 
• Board Meeting.
  • No Regular meeting since October report
  • Special meeting 11/13 to create USA Rugby subsidiary foundation
    • Outlined World Rugby approval of funding mechanism for USA Grow The Game efforts.
  • Governance and Nominations Committee presented candidates to fill vacant ‘at-large’ – Tom Kelley and (to be announced). Filled affiliated competitions Director seat with Koma Gandy-Fischbein.
• USAR “Grow the Game’ Planning
  • World Rugby Council met and approved funding process for USAR Grow the Game programming
    • The level of funding appears to shrink with each report.
  • USAR and WR Growth plans distributed September (see minutes)
  • USAR “Growing the Game” stretch goals: build from current 100,000 members to 250,000 in three years – 500,000 in 2033.
  • SCC Club Rugby goal: increase the current 30,000 members to 75,000 in three years. 150,000 in 2033.
  • Ambitious, aggressive goals: key to successful hosting of Rugby World Cups in 2031 and 2033.
• Senior Club Council contribution to Growth?
  • SCC Chair is assembling a working group to lead the effort toward SCC “Reach “Goal. See prior reports for possible Strong Club initiatives

USAR Referee and Laws Committee (RLC) – David Chapman

• Nothing to Report

Chair report – Al

• Community Agreement. ETC before Christmas
• Will be getting a new admin
• Important to use CMS

New Business

• Senior Club Council Administrator Job Opportunity 
  • Posted to website and Social Media
  • Elaine also posted to Teamworks
  • Good number of responses thus far
• Community Agreement Discussion
  • The draft is still a work in progress. 
  • Action Item: All SCC reps review KPI form and respond
    • Due by December 8th 

Adjourned

• Motion: __NorCal___. Second: __MA___
  • Meeting adjourned at _9:39___ PM CST