“Scattered – Divided - Leaderless”

Elrond tells Gandalf that men are weak because they are “Scattered – Divided – Leaderless”. Does that sound like your organization? Weak, because everyone’s going off in their own direction? Although each individual person, department, or division, may be doing very good things, maybe even some outstanding things, the organization is weak because it lacks a common purpose. A strong organization, a successful organization, moves as one integrated whole.

That’s where I see Hawaii rugby right now. There’s a lot going on in rugby in Hawaii, and there are a lot of people doing some very good things, but it’s scattered – divided – leaderless. There are individual clubs, youth teams, a youth league, and the Union. Each is doing a lot, but they are not integrated and moving as a unified organization towards a common goal. The Union should be the lead administrative body, the core that ties everything together. Everything else flows from that and feeds into that. That’s how the Board of Directors and executive team acts in a business environment. It’s the focal point. That doesn’t mean it is all controlling. What it does is set the direction for the organization and acts as the administrative unit that information is channeled through. It monitors the progress towards defined goals, allocates resources, and keeps everything and everyone on track.

There’s a Union meeting coming up in January. Hopefully, everyone will come together and see that they are stronger when acting as a cohesive unit, and develop a structure that allows them to move forward to everyone’s benefit. Many things can continue as they are, with the addition of funneling information and coordination through the Union governing body. In turn, the Hawaii Union should be acting to support the Territorial Union that it falls under, and that acting in support of USA Rugby, but let’s take small steps first. I’ll help if I can. If your organization isn’t acting as a single cohesive unit, now’s the best time to get started. And I’ll help if I can.


Adopt-A-Rugger and Hug-A-Rugger - proceeds donated to USA Rugby