To play in activities underwritten by the Rugby Football Union (RFU) there is unfortunately some paperwork to complete. We need your consent, your information and this needs explanation.

• RFU registration
• Medical Disclaimer
• Photography Disclaimer
• ID card

Completion of all four documents is a requirement for membership if the club and participation in games so if there are any concerns or problems, please raise them with any committee member.

RFU Registration:
Every player (not their parents) must be a member of the RFU to be involved. This is free for children but does require the completion of an RFU registration form.

The form:
• identifies the player – for insurance purposes

• confirms the player’s age – essential for age grade rugby and ensures the safety of both your child and his/her opponents

• records contact details for parent/guardian – the club needs this to be able to contact you and keep you aware of club activities that are of interest to you or for your child

• records demographic information of the player – age, sex, nationality & ethnic origin. The RFU uses this information to drive its inclusiveness policies. Effectively it tells them which social groups are playing rugby and by inference, what groups are not. It is used anonymously to target resources and raise funds.

• The parent is able to opt in (default is to opt out) on sales & marketing information from RFU and its sponsors and partners. The RFU has no contact with children.

• Both the player and the parent/guardian sign to agree to be bound by the rules and adjudication of the RFU on all matters concerning rugby union.

This information is held in two places:

1. It is uploaded to a central RFU database called RUGBY FIRST. Only player registrars at the club and officials at the RFU have access to this data. The RFU have a published data protection policy and is subject to the data protection act.

2. Wortley rugby club also hold this information. We keep the paper forms for two years. The junior secretary keeps the childs name, date of birth and parental contact in electronic format. This information is necessary to

a. keep track of attendance of individual players and the Age Grade teams they play in

b. keep in contact with PARENTS (there is no direct contact with players) to keep you informed of club activities via the club newsletter. This is sent by email. We do send out unscheduled newsflashes by email if there is a late change to published activities.

c. Individual coaches will hold the mobile phone numbers of parents of the children under his/her care. This is to ensure the coach has an emergency contact number in the event of an injury but also to ensure any last minute changes / cancellations can be broadcast by text message.

Wortley RUFC pledge that contact details will only be held securely by club officers on a need to know basis for the above purposes and absolutely never pass them on to third parties. It is Wortley & RFU policy that the club contact is with the parents and never directly with the children. In this way it should be impossible for any unauthorised person to gain the info necessary to make contact with your child.

Medical Disclaimer:
Should an accident or medical emergency befall your child during a club activity and a parent or guardian was not present for whatever reason, the Medical disclaimer gives the club the necessary information and permission to pass on to the paramedic or doctor attending.

• Existing Condition: which might manifest itself on the pitch that we need to ensure medication is pitch side.– epilepsy, diabetes, etc or anything that requires regular medication.

• Known allergies or drug reactions: bee venom allergy, Penicillin allergy, Lactose intolerance – anything that medical personnel need to know to avoid

• Contact details for the child’s GP to be able to pass on to the medical team attending.

• Contact numbers for both parents / guardians as we need to be certain to get through to one or other. As parents are often together, a third party preferably at another address is needed.

This information is absolutely confidential and would only be passed on to medical personnel on a strictly need to know basis.

The paper form is held securely by the club and renewed annually. The data is held electronically by the junior secretary. It is updated onto the rugby first database annually. Only the summary of the medical condition is on the ID card as a reminder to coaches and match officials that a medical issue may be present.

In the event of a medical incident parents will be contacted immediately.

Should an ambulance be called and a parent cannot be contacted, a committee member would accompany a child and stay with them until a parent could be contacted.

The medical data is gathered for the players safety and is an RFU requirement, without which the player cannot take part in our activities.

The form also contains the photography disclaimer which is explained in the clubs photographic policy

Registration (ID) Cards:

Each player is required to have an ID card that displays a photo, date of birth and the club the player is registered with and emergency medical information eg Penicillin Allergy. That is the only information it carries. This is for a player’s safety. It ensures that clubs don’t play older children against younger children, that players are age matched. We are required to inspect opposition teams ID cards and have our cards available for their inspection. They are held by the coaches on match days and returned to the junior secretary for safe storage in between times.

Parents must supply a passport style photograph that is scanned. The original photo is returned or destroyed. The scanned image is held by the junior secretary and uploaded onto the rugby first database with the registration info. We will ask to update the photo periodically as likenesses change rapidly in the junior age groups

ALL PERSONAL DATA – registration, medical and passport photo from parents and players is kept confidential, is open to inspection by the person concerned and is removed automatically from both Wortley and Rugby First records on the players resignation from the club

Wortley RUFC Photography Policy:
This is the one that causes perhaps the greatest concern and needs the most explanation, especially since the original consent form has now been reduced to two lines at the end of the medical form. The RFU consent has two aspects:

1. Personal Photography: Rugby is played in open spaces often on public pitches and the RFU cannot be held liable if images are taken without parental permission and find themselves in the public domain.

2. For Publication: The RFU reserves the right to take photographs of players “in play” and use these for its own publicity of the game and their events.

Granting consent for this is one of the RFUs terms & conditions and we have to have signed consent or we cannot permit members to play. However, signing this does not waive either the RFU or Wortley RUFC’s duty of care to safeguard the children in our care.

Club Policy “anyone taking photos of a game or a practice session should be challenged by any club member, parent or official, to explain who they are photographing and why.”

Attitudes will depend very much on the context and the motivation.

There are two possible subjects in two possible circumstances:

1 Pictures of your own child and pictures of somebody else’s child

2 Action shots of the skills as used in play and portrait shots of individuals or groups of players

Personal photography:
As a club, we cannot police the touchlines and prevent all photos being taken. However, that does not absolve us from a duty of care.

“Action” shots taken by excited parents of their own children while “in play” are clearly an innocent undertaking but likely to image more than just their own child in frame. This is much the same as photographs taken at a child’s birthday party or school trip.

Club Policy: All member should respect other members wishes and concerns which is to say: If you want your child’s image however accidentally captured, deleted from another member’s camera, the club would insist that your wish was upheld as a term of membership.
Portrait shots:

Team photographs:

Kids love a team photo and parents love to take one. Parents can decline to include their child in a group photo. We respectfully ask that parents who don’t want their child in a team photo declare so at the outset and prevent their child from joining the photograph. It is hard to airbrush a child out afterwards and there is no opportunity to retake after the event.

Individual portrait shots:

There is no circumstance when a child may be photographed individually, out of play, by anyone other than their own parent or guardian. This would be viewed with suspicion.

Publicity Shots:

RFU photography: At present all our games are arranged individually, ad hoc between like minded clubs so there is not an issue of an official RFU photographer appearing and taking photographs. As the club progresses and enters regional tournaments or a league than this is a possibility parents will have to reconcile in the future.

Wortley RUFC Photography: We have used action photographs in the past. The club website has some open to viewing by members of the club only. These have been photos, taken by parents at a match or fun day and are seeking to share them with other parents associated with the club. These are not broadcast.

When the club seeks to use action photographs for its own publicity – either in the website or other medium eg Barnsley Chronicle it may obtain photographs from parents, or may appoint an “official” photographer for an event. However so the photographic images are obtained, they will not be published without the express written consent of the parent of all children that can be identified in the photograph. That consent will state explicitly the use to which that photo can be put eg appearance in chronicle, use for poster in thurgoland school.

Club Policy: Consent for photographs to be used for club publicity will be assumed to be denied unless it is given by parents in writing for individual projects and the limits of that consent specified

Portrait photographs: Should the club wish to do this either in team groups or individual photographs it could only happen if a parent was present but even then, the image may only be used if the parent has signed a permission form to stipulate where and how and for how long an image could be used. This has occurred already with the RugbyForce weekend and the U11 playing at Twickenham with pictures appearing on the IRB rugby force and RFU websites.

The summary is that parents
• Should feel confident to challenge the taking of photographs

• must consent to the use of a photo and can opt out before, during or after

• can request the deletion of any photo of their child