Today Whitehaven RLFC have announced their plans on how the club is to move forward.
The club have appointed Lauren Allan as a director of the clubs and she is the first female board member for quite some time. Lauren has been working with the club now for several months and brings with her skills and qualities that are currently lacking after this past couple of weeks. On her appointment Lauren had the following to say “I am excited to take up my new position on the board of directors after having a role in the club for the last nine months looking after their health and safety requirements and setting up the new Junior Fanclub. Whilst I will continue to carry out these roles, I will also be focusing on working with the many community groups and grassroots clubs in the area, involving them in what we do at the club and building on our family friendly ethos. I am a trained adult and youth mental health first aider and have already started working on initiatives to promote positive mental health and wellbeing, something I am extremely passionate about. I look forward to the challenge and thank the board of directors for inviting me to be a part of the journey as the club continues to grow and move forward.”
Alongside Lauren joining the Board, Amanda Hewer, the club’s former general manager, has joined in an advisory role and will assist the club in meeting its obligations in compliance with the RFL and other bodies. Amanda is well respected throughout the rugby league fraternity and the Board are delighted that she has offered to assist the club where she can. On this Amanda stated “After two and a half years away from the club I am really happy to be back helping. I am looking forward to working alongside the remaining directors, staff, players, volunteers and helping Lauren settle into her new role, it’s really good to see the Board having a female presence. I have already seen a lot of new and exciting things planned and I hope everyone can get behind us as we move this great club forward.
As part of the reorganisation, Andrew Canavan will be stepping down as a director of the club and will now take up the new role of Chief Executive Officer. Two further appointments have been made, Grant Taylor is joining the club as a non-Executive Officer and this role will see Grant oversee and advise on boardroom governance.
The club are also delighted to announce that club legend, Craig Calvert, is joining the club as an ambassador. The Board feel that Craig will be an invaluable asset at the club, and he will focus on working in the community. The LEL Arena also has a new Bar Manager, with Ingrid Eilbeck stepping into this vacant position.
Last but no means least, the club are hopeful of appointing a number of fans to work alongside the board in a liaison capacity. We feel this would assist the club in showing our supporters that we are trying to be as open and transparent as is possible.A lot of work has gone on behind the scenes by the Board recently to firstly identify how we intend on moving forward and secondly, ensuring that we recruit what we believe to be the right people to take us on that journey. Saying that, the club are still headhunting for further roles that have been identified during this process.The Board would like to take this opportunity to thank the Covid team, Coaching team, backroom staff, players, ground stafff and all other volunteers, who have worked tirelessly to ensure that the club was ready for the return of spectators. We also wish to extend our personal thanks to all our loyal fans for their continuous support and we sincerely hope that they all get behind our new direction.