Welcome back - whilst the summer has many pleasures, there is nothing like the sense of expectation and hope that springs eternal at the beginning of every new rugby season.

This coming Saturday we welcome Otley to Portway in the opening match of our 2014/15 National League 2 North campaign.

No doubt like us, Otley will be keen to get their new season off to a winning start and they will have an extra incentive given that we managed to “do the double” on them last season. We snatched victory through a late Will Radburn try in a tight 24-21 home game back in September last year and enjoyed a rather more emphatic 12-48 win in the return fixture at Cross Green in January.

Much hard work has been done behind the scenes and on the training pitch in the closed season, with everyone involved in the club keen to build on the real momentum and ‘buzz’ which we successfully generated last season.

On the pitch, it is fantastic to see so many players retained from last year’s squad, with also the influx of a substantial number of new recruits over the summer, which bodes well for our ambition to fulfill all our Development side’s fixtures this season.

I couldn’t be down at the Portway last Saturday, but I was delighted to hear and read reports of the Development side chalking up their first victory of the season against Kings Norton, on the pitch next to where the First Team were playing (and winning) their friendly fixture against Nuneaton.

The Development side is an important part of the ‘playing jigsaw’ of the club, completing the pathway from Under 7s right the way up to first team rugby. It will also provide further healthy competition for first team places.

Off the pitch, we have a new kit supplier – O’Neill’s and I am delighted to see that shirts, shorts and indeed socks are full of sponsors’ names. A “busy” kit is a healthy kit as far as I’m concerned – thanks to all our sponsors this season, with a “special mention in dispatches” to this year’s Principal Club Sponsor – Pertemps (Tim Watts), Main Shirt Sponsor - St. Francis Group (Jim Kelly), Farmfoods (Eric Herd) and The Window Centre (Mike Adderley).

All our sponsors are listed on our new website – please support them, as they give excellent support to the club. Thanks also go to our Commercial team for their efforts in this and other revenue generation activities to date – watch this space as there are more in the pipeline!

I hope you will also enjoy our new catering arrangements that are in place for the new season – our ‘Yum Scrum’ ladies will be providing wholesome supporters fayre (our chief pie taster informs me that all varieties meet his exacting standards), Karen Kelly who is providing the hospitality catering and Jolly’s Kitchen who are managing the players’ food (an army marches on its stomach). We have also taken over the management of the Portway bar, with bar staff vacancies up for grabs (please contact Tina Lupoli for more details).

With all our many activities and innovations, the old adage applies – “if you don’t like it, tell us, if you do like it, tell your friends!

So as we go into the season, there are many good things going on in and around the club – we still have plenty to do, but very real progress is being made. Your active (in every sense of the word) support is both vital and appreciated.

Looking further ahead, whatever your views of the outcome of the RFU’s Adult Competition Review (our own and the majority of club’s in our league’s views were not shared by the RFU), the upshot is that at the beginning of the 2016/17 season National League 1 will be reduced to 15 teams and National Leagues 2 North & South will become three leagues of 15 teams. That suggests to me that our sights should be firmly set on our opening fixture in September 2016 being in National League 1. Over to you, Eugene.

COYB! #beesfamily

Chris Loughran, Chairman, Birmingham & Solihull Rugby Club