On Friday, I saw emails flying around by all and sundry regarding the allocation of referees and the changing of an allocation already published.
It has been resolved.
Billy Wells has taken on the job of Appointing Referees for the CRHR, having been away from Roller Hockey for some time, and is doing the best job that he can do with the resources that he has at his disposal.
Those resources are the number of referees that bother to respond to him when he asks for their availability for a specific weekend.
Those referees who do not respond are not helping their sport or Billy to do his job.
We are all human and some have other things in their lives apart from roller hockey but we need to help Billy do his job by responding to him in a reasonable timeframe.
We are all aware that there are not enough referees in England to cover the amount of Roller Hockey that takes place.
We, therefore, need to progress the standard of those that we have and to recruit more.
This cannot be done overnight or by one man.
Some of the concerns raised in some of the emails on Friday are shared by me.
They are real concerns.
The allocation of referees has been addressed and will never be influenced by the Clubs.
The issue of the rule interpretation, we knew, would be difficult for a while this season and I have had several comments about differing interpretations being used.
I have responded to this by offering to attend any meeting of referees to discuss and agree a consistent interpretation for all.
I put this offer to those raising concerns in the South, the North and the East.
Thus far only the East has taken me up on my offer.
The offer is still open.
If anybody wants to organise a meeting of referees in their area, I am more than willing to attend that meeting to help resolve any refereeing problems caused by the new rules or, in fact, any of the original rules still in place.
The CRHR has now been taken over by the NRHA Executive.
For personal reasons, the previously elected Chairman of the CRHR has been unable to apply the time to drive the organisation forward.
The Chair of the CRHR is now the NRHA Executive.
I am now in the process of formulating a structure for the CRHR which will include the recruitment of new referees, the progression of existing referees and the fast tracking of potential International referees.
It will be a compilation of input from senior members of our sport, Referees, Coaches and Players.
I hope to get it all finalised for presentation by the end of February.
To launch it, I would request that all the referees in the Country meet at The Bushfields Sports Centre, Peterborough on Saturday 20th March at 10am, where we can discuss the proposed structure and put it into practise.
Why Bushfields?
Because it is reasonably central for everybody, is being used for the National Training Weekend on both Saturday and Sunday and, probably, most importantly, there is a room available that we can use without cost.
Without Referees, we have no sport.
Without the introduction of a properly thought out structure for the recruitment and progression of Referees, we may end up with no Referees.
Keith Allen
