August 3, 2020

The Mid-America Rugby Football Union (MARFU) extends its deepest sympathies to all who have been impacted by COVID-19.
 

The health and safety of our players, coaches, referees, and supporters is our utmost priority. It is with this in mind that the GU Executive Board has decided to suspend the competitive 15’s season for Fall 2020. Please understand that this was not an easy decision. After considering the geographical area and the current situation with the pandemic, it was determined that we could not ensure the health and safety of our members with a competitive schedule.
 

We understand that some areas maybe under lesser restrictions and able to have unrestricted contact rugby. The Exec Board is currently working on a GU Guideline to assist clubs who are able to host practices and potential “friendlies”. That will be published prior to Sept 1.
 

We will continue to monitor the Covid-19 situation and it is our hope that we will be able to return to competitive play in 2021. Your Mens and Womens Competition Directors will be working on this possibility.
 

We thank our membership for your patience, understanding, and support as we navigate through these challenging times.
 

Sincerely,
Sean Cox
President Mid-America GU

Due to COVID-19 the 2020 Mid-America GU AGM meeting will be on July 12th from 12pm-3pm via Zoom.   Please remember that each team, that belongs to the union, will need to have one representative at the meeting. 

Zoom Meeting Information:

 For the zoom meeting each team will only be allowed to join the meeting with one representative.  Each team will need to respond to this email with the email address the team representative will use to join the meeting.   A private invite will be sent to that email address only before the AGM.   There will also be basic etiquette rules sent out for the AGM this year to help the meeting proceed in the most efficient manner possible.

Nominations for the Mid-America GU Executive Board:

 All nominations for the executive board positions will need to be submitted in advance this year.   

The positions on the board are as follows:

President- Currently Sean Cox
Vice President- Currently Andy Wenge
Treasurer- Currently Kj Abel 
Secretary- Currently Nichole Reiske
Women's Club Representative- Currently Jody Lawrence
Men's Club Representative- Currently Alex Antal
Women's College Representative- Currently Rachel Pate
Men's College Representative- Currently Doug McCauley
Members at Large Representative- Currently Matt Finney
Congress Representative (changed to Senior Club Rugby Council)- Currently Sean Cox

If you have any nominations for any of these positions please respond to this email with the name and club of the nominee.

Voting:

This year we will be voting via Google Forms.   The same email address submitted for the Zoom invite will also receive the Google Form. Only the email address submitted will be able to complete the form and the form will only be able to be submitted once per email address.   If the voting form needs to be sent to a different email address please submit a second email address and distinguish which is which.  

In summary what is needed from each team before the AGM is:

1.) Email address that will be used for Zoom (due July 1)

2.) Nominations for Executive Board Members (if applicable, due July 1)

3.) Email address that will be used for voting (if different from Zoom email, due July 1)

Lastly, you will find attached the minutes from last year's meeting. These were sent out following last year's meeting but it's been a whole year so please have whomever will attend the meeting review the minutes before the meeting.

As always please let me know if you have any questions.

Nichole Reiske

Secretary