October 21, 2026

Call to order – Al – 8:00 PM CST

Roll Call – Michaela

• Meeting Attendance – 2026 10 21.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 26 09 16 Agenda and Minutes
  • Motion: __MidWest___. Second: __Rocky Mountain___. Approved

Chairs’/Officers’ Reports

Secretary – Michael

• Tracking action Items here Action Item Tracker and Website here Website Issue Tracker
  • Completed items are there. Just filtered out
• USACR Event setup in RX and Promotion
  • A number of tournaments are in process
  • USA Club Rugby Tournament Schedule – USA Club Rugby
  • USA Club Rugby Tournament Marketing Process.pdf
• Nominations for Referee and Laws Representative
  • Call for Applications was May 6, Initial application closed June 3. 
  • Megan confirmed nominees are in good standing
  • Currently on hold for USAR and USOPC R&L restructuring 
• Club Competition Recaps
  • Men’s D1 – Men’s Division 1 – September 2026 Recap – USA Club Rugby 
  • Women’s D1 – Women’s Division 1 – September 2026 Recap – USA Club Rugby 
  • Men’s D2 – Men’s Division 2 – September 2026 Recap – USA Club Rugby 
  • Women’s D2 – Women’s Division 2 – September 2026 Recap – USA Club Rugby 
  • Men’s D3 – Men’s Division 3 – September 2026 Recap – USA Club Rugby 

  • 

Admin – Nicole

• NDA signing status? 
  • 1
  • NDA Tracker
• Refund processing
  • 12
  • Refund policy USA Club Rugby Refund Policy 
• Web Contact form responses
  • 2
• Outstanding Club Pays Invoices
  • Life University Men
  • USAR/RX has provided a partial solution to allow GUs better control
    • GU GU configuration of Club or Player Pays Registration 
      • Note: Club Pays Invoice Policy
• Outstanding Clearances
  • 7

USAR Liaison – Elaine

• 2026 Sept SCC Report.png
• Practical application of the open policy
  • Updates will be coming to RX to register players in labeled open events
  • Will include player acknowledgements per event

15’s Comp – David McPhail

• • Action Item from SCC 26 03 18: 15s to add addendum of national vs. regional designation guidance into the promotion policy document
    • Pending / Ongoing
  • Reminder:  All regions (4x SR’s) need to be reviewing the existing MOU’s with its respective members to address upcoming playoffs, league structural changes, etc.
    • MOU document should be reviewed and modified annually; as needed.
    • Please send a copy of 2026-27 updated policy to David McPhail (15s@usaclub.rugby) once approved by respective GU Presidents.
    • Super Regionals – Once location and host has been finalized, please email David McPhail (15s@usaclub.rugby) with all available event details.  This will allow us to centrally publish and begin working with the USA Referee leadership and hosting budgets for this competition cycle.
  • Reminder: All NCS leagues to have a 4 team league format per Eligibility Regulations = 3.2-(a)(i)
    • Any variations (hybrid or competition formats) need to be approved, in advance of competition, by the 15s Committee.

• SCC Club Declarations:2027 NCS 15s Divisional Declarations
  • Still need following to review and/or complete the above worksheet:
    • Florida / Georgia / Mid-America / PNW
    • Not Applicable: Alaska / Hawaii
• 15s Committee working on early 3.4.3. Match requests are being emailed and confirmed.
  • Form Link: Form to request 3.4.3 match approval
• David to work with KJ on Posting for Open Committee Members.  Initial emails have gone out to a small number of folks.   

7’s Comp – David Fee

• Reviewing committee member status

Eligibility – Tam

• Compliance Review 
  • Eligibility completed a compliance review in early October to check on the use of CMS by clubs/unions with Fall competitions. Union administrators were notified of outstanding issues (missing club rosters, substitutions, open matches) noted. Two unions had no CMS issues! 
  • The next review will be conducted in the second/third week of November, with a focus on the required CMS data entry (substitutions, scoring, cards, matches closed: Result, Forfeit, Postponed), and with player (name withheld) eligibility. 
• Updated Regulations
  • The Eligibility and Sevens Competitions committees met to review and to update the sevens’ sections of the Regulations (player eligibility guidelines and competition policies). The final documents (redlined, updated clean, summary of key changes) will be distributed to the SCC ahead of the November call for its review.

Treasurer – Tim

• 2026 09 Sept USA Club Rugby Assoc Statement of Activity
• 2026 09 Sept USA Club Rugby Assoc Statement of Financial Position

Discipline – Megan

• Regulation 18 overview to come after final review
• An increase in appeals, including red card hearings
  • Discussion of introducing a fee at the SCC level (refundable pending outcome)
• Reach out to Megan if there are outstanding GU admins/panel members for education

Governance – KJ

• Committee member form to come now
  • Nominations for USA Rugby Senior Club Council Committee Members 
• Review New Club Formation Workflow 

DEI – Robert

• Committee revising Inclusive Club doc to flow with Governance’s doc
• Committee updates to come

Vice Chair – David C

• I’ve been looking at historical and current data. Here is some relevant info about Aug-Sep registration so far.
  • Historically, Aug-Sep has between 55-60% of total yearly registrations mostly due to the Midwest and East Coast seasons, with other areas coming in later in the year as well as 7s.
  • Basically, we’ve had yearly changes in Aug-Sep player registration of 4.6%, 12.9%, -2.9%, and -6.8% (earliest Aug-Sep year-to-year period (2022-2023) to current year-to-year (2026-2027)). I should note that the early year changes don’t track with the final year end figures and are a bit smaller at EOY for each of the above.
  • Given the four periods of 2022-2023 to 2025-2026:
    • The average yearly churn rate was 41%.
    • 14% of all players registered across this period registered for all four years; these players were 29% of all players registered in 2025-2026.
    • 37% only registered for 1 year out of the 4 year cycle.
    • In 2025-2026, 67% had registered at least once in the prior three years.
  • So, what does this say? 
    • The loss rate is comparable to other adult contact organizations and is better than it was 20-25 years ago.
    • The solution? Could be as simple as increasing the volume of new players into the system (new players, ex-college players). Indirectly, this speaks to needing the project on the “club-in-a-box” to assist all clubs with their operations and recruiting, plus other strategic plan initiatives.
• If you experience RX downtime, please send me a quick note so I can track; need details (RX Admin, RX app, RX Matchday, time, and so on). I’ve been looking at sporadic outages, but (so far) most reported have been related to user error except for unexplained (but short) downtime.
• GUs need to take a look at Team names. There’s some chaos out there.

USAR Director – Rick

• World Rugby organizers reached out for comments on the finalist venues for the Rugby World Cup
  • Several unions provided comment which has been submitted
  • Venues under consideration as outlined here:

• • 
•  September 24 Board meeting
  • Chair and CEO reported on Rugby World Cup discussions
  • USOPC audit successfully completed – discussion about sport betting restrictions
  • SafeSport audit completed with minor remediation requirements
  • CEO reported on CRAA/College council reorganization
  • Financial report continues to be positive
• Elaine Vassie’s role expanded to manage membership while continuing to support SCC activities
• In Person Board meeting planned for October 30 in conjunction with USAR M&W doubleheader in New Jersey.
• R&L committee – Discussions about committee structure continue

USAR Referee and Laws Committee (RLC) – David Chapman

• Attended the 9/21/2026 RLC meeting. Decent attendance, and Bill Goren sat in. The RLC’s Governance Committee is looking at the LROs to see how they operate and what public information they provide (websites, bylaws, policies, etc.); the end goal is to develop minimum standards and best practices. The Laws Committee will be working on a separate site from USAR; while they maintain information in the USAR Resources section, they need to expand content for their working groups and have more control over layout.
• The next RLC meeting will be on 11/16/2026.

Chair report – Al

• Action Item from EXCO 26 02 02: Finalize Community Agreement 
  • With David Dodge
• Tech Working Group
  • Tech group is currently being formed with people who specialize in multiple areas of technology, not just RX.
    • Led by Scott Conway
    • Referee assignment process is working
    • Evaluation of registration types/roles
    • Revision/Addition of RX Union Admin website pages on USAclub.rugby
  • RX update (from Community Users quarterly meeting 10/13)
    • $5 Registration solution seems to be working. No negative responses so far.
    • New release of the RX app.  Better filtering of what an individual follows.  Still some bugs and preferences being fed back to developers.  Next project is to merge Matchday and RX apps into one.  Matchday is still to be used by Team Admins for results (scoring/cards/subs).
    • Revision of the Club Pays Invoices process (mostly affects school institutions.  Ability to pay invoice without registration (i.e. school official).
    • Progress on Rugby Events dev – pre-populate finals in events.
    • Progress on products and Supportership category
    • Progress on referee reporting and payment functionality
    • Referee: Send off report linked to Comp case; yellow card reporting to be added estimated for 2028 season
    • Upcoming: Intl clearances, ACH payments. Supportership functionality, sanctioning forms
    • Development of Judicial Admin role; ability to contain all hearing info within RX incl doc and video upload.
      • Assist Discipline, not a “Discipline” role
    • Call for Android users to test – Southern California
• Committee member terms are coming due, encouraged to share with your networks 

New Business

• • 7s Competition Chair – Now unopposed
    • Vote by Acclamation
    • Vote: Approved
  • Budget for 2026-27 
    • 2024-10-16 – 2024-25 – SCC Proposed Budget (26,500 Members) (to SCC)
    • Inclusion of line item for legacy competitions/tournaments
    • Inclusion of Director of Growth
    • Motion to Vote: AL  Second: MidWest
      • Vote: Approved
      • 26 10 21_SCC Meeting Voting – 2026-27 Budget.pdf

Adjourned

• Motion: __New England___. Second: _NorCal____
  • Meeting adjourned at _9:27__ PM CST