Keswick RFC were recent winners of the Seal of Approval section of the President's XV Awards, sponsored for the first time this year by specialist business insurer QBE.

The same qualities which earned them that recognition have now brought them top spot in the national Seal of Approval Awards.

The year was one of triumph as well as adversity for the Cumbrian club and their place at he top of the tree is a fitting tribute to all the workers at Davidson Park who have refused to have their spirits dampened by the floodwaters which submerged their clubhouse and pitches.

Projects include raising over £250,000 raised towards pitch drainage and floodlighting; staging a new girls' tournament attracting 400 players; graduating six new Level 1 coaches and six new referees; recruiting four new committee members and successfully negotiating the purchase their ground, have combined to clinch the award as National Seal of Approval Club of the Year.

The criteria for entry into the SoA national and regional awards embraces the recognition and investment in all types of club volunteer; community initiatives and partnership schemes involving other local groups; and future planning, all boxes ticked by Keswick.

These headline sections help to identify the breadth of both internal and external RU activity and the various projects and links which have made North East & Yorkshire Regional winners Driffield RFC and Ashby from Leicestershire, who won the Midlands East award, the joint Runners-up in the National SoA Awards.

The Rugby Football Union has employed a wide range of initiatives to drive up standards across the Community game and with over £20 million earmarked for that sector of the sport in the coming year, the determination to maintain strong progress and development at grass roots levels remains at the forefront of planning for the future.

One of the main components of this game-wide advance has been the Seal of Approval initiative which ensures that players coming into the game benefit from the very best support systems that clubs can provide.

The Seal of Approval (SoA) award requires a major effort on the part of even the best run clubs to bring infrastructures and procedures up to a very high level - one which is also acknowledged by the Sport England Clubmark Scheme - and for clubs across the game to achieve a 60% success rate is a real feather in the cap of the Development Team, Community Rugby and the clubs concerned.

With so many clubs now ensuring that safe, effective, player-friendly standards are being met and with many more qualifying for their SoA plaque on an almost weekly basis, rugby union leads other Clubmark sports in this area by a considerable distance.

But even within the clubs who reach the highest levels of administration and structure which the SoA template demands, there are clubs who have gone the extra yard in reaching the required standards and whose submissions stand out, even in an area where excellence is the norm.

Says Andy Lees, the National Clubs Development Manager: "Every club which achieves Seal of Approval status - and Clevedon this year became the 500th of 831 clubs in the RFU to acquire Mini & Youth accreditation - deserves a huge pat on the back for reaching the very high standards demanded by the process.

"The Whole Club Seal of Approval accreditation, which assesses every aspect of a club's infrastructure and was introduced last year, is an even more challenging benchmark, but across the game clubs are signing up to both disciplines and putting in place procedures and programmes that deliver the highest levels of safety and support to anyone joining a rugby union club.

"The clubs we are acknowledging with these National, Regional and Constituent Body Awards are the best of the best and I'm proud to say that in rugby union, we really are dealing with some exceptional groups of people."

Regional and Constituent Body winners were: Clacton (London North & Essex); Chobham (London South & Surrey); Ashby (Midlands East & Leicestershire); Stoke on Trent (Midlands West & Staffordshire); Driffield (NE & Yorkshire); Keswick (NW & Cumbria); Banbury (South & Oxfordshire); Weymouth (South West & Dorset & Wilts).
CB winners were: Eastern Counties - Colchester; Hertfordshire - Old Albanian; Middlesex - Grasshoppers; Kent - Sidcup; Notts, Lincs & Derby - Paviors; Durham - Horden; Northumberland - Blyth; Cheshire - Lymm; Lancashire - Fylde; Berkshire - Maidenhead; Somerset - Yatton.

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