One of the major hurdles on the way to forming the new Youth & HS Council was safely cleared Wednesday night as the Terms of Reference were passed by a unanimous vote.

While not every State Governing Body was represented at the meeting, 39 out of the 45 were in attendance and every one voted to approve the TORs.

States Unanimous For New Youth & HS Terms of Reference

Why is this significant? Well it basically gets things back on track. The process shifted, from going for bylaws first and forming a governing 501c3 through the existing organization American Youth Rugby, to creating and approving TORs first. Then after that will come a Youth & HS Board, voting on bylaws, and the finalization of the formation of a new 501c3: USA Youth and High School Rugby.

In the end people had to trust the process and trust that the people involved care about the game more than anything else. It’s been a bit of a rocky road, but calls for finding common ground started to get heard, with some SGB leaders getting on the phone with others, trying to make sure everyone knew what was going on, and giving people more information all helped.

And the result was pretty astonishing. Very few times in the American rugby world do we see any unanimity on any topic. Wednesday call, according to sources, was tightly run, provided a powerpoint presentation on how the youth game will be run going forward, and the reason for the vote was clear.

The TORs map out how the Youth & HS Board will be elected, what organization officers there will be, and how the Youth & HS representative to the USA Rugby Board will be selected.

All of these things are hugely important, because it’s how Youth & HS will have its say in what happens at the national level. it also maps out how Youth & HS states run their own affairs on the national level. 

Mapping all of that out was crucial. SGBs wanted to know how it would all work, and many within the game were just unsure how it would all work. They just needed to be told; they just needed the roadmap. Once it was there, everyone was on board.

So What’s Next?

Friday each SGB will put forward a nominee to run for the Youth & HS Council Board. Each region will then vote on its regional representative on that Board. The voting for those spots will be proportional, with larger SGBs having more voting power.

Those seven will then have a ton of work to do to set up the organization’s bylaws, and just as important, finalizing the Community Agreement with USA Rugby, which will codify how USA Youth and High School Rugby works with USA Rugby with regard to dues, insurance, Safesport, and other issues.

Will it all be unanimous? Don’t bet on it. But maybe now is the time to wonder at how everyone seemed to agree just for one night.