1. The Rugby Season starts this Saturday – the 2012-13 season gets underway on Saturday 26 August, with EK 1sts at Allen Glen’s playing the preliminary round of the RBS West Regional Shield, kick off 3 pm. If we win, our next Shield match is on 6 October.

2. Pre-season progressing – the preparations for the new season continue, with EK playing Strathaven in a training match on Wednesday evening (22 Aug), ko 7.30pm. On Saturday, the 1sts played in a round robin competition, finishing 2nd in a pool involving Irvine, Waysiders and Paisley.

They lost 12-7 to a last minute try by Irvine, had comfortable wins over Waysiders and Paisley. With no real rest between the last pool match and the semi final, they lost narrowly to Linlithgow. It was a good run out.

3. First League matches - the 1s and 2s both play their first league matches on 1 Sept. 1sts are away to newly promoted Helensburgh, kick off 3pm. 2nds are away to Cartha Queens Park (this may be our new local derby given some recent departures!!)

4. New Coach and Numbers at Training – new coach Allan Steel has been working hard to help the club prepare for the new season. His efforts will be made much easier if we have maximum turn outs at training. While there is only 1 match this Saturday, we desperately need more players at training, and willing to play on 1 September.

Whether you are a player, supporter or hanger on, please do everything you can to get folks to come training and playing for EKRFC.

5. New Away Strips – never content with just protecting his local neighbourhood, Super Slueth (aka PC Plod) Scott Johnston won the club a set of Canterbury strips in a competition - they are glorious red and white stripes. I will put some photos of the new strips on the website in a spare moment. Sunglasses may be recommended. Well done Scott.

6. Refereeing Course at East Kilbride, 10 & 17 Sept - Scottish Rugby and EKRFC in particular always need more referees. There is a Level 1 refereeing course being held at EK Sports Club on Mondays 10 and 17 September. 6.15 to 9.15 each evening. If you have any doubts, talk to Scott Johnston, Ally Blackwood or Chris Mclellan who all did the course last year. Express interest with me or Andrew Macpherson, who runs the course, by 3 Sept. Email: andrew.macpherson@sru.org.uk Tel: 07764 772247.

7. Player Registration – in the (possibly unlikely) event that we have any new senior (and junior) players who have turned up at the club, please let me have their details so that I can register them. We don’t want to risk losing any league points by playing unregistered players. I can register players quickly.

8. Law amendments – just a reminder that there are some law variations this season. These were explained earlier on the website. You can refresh your memory here.

9. Internet purchases – earn some money for EKRFC: a reminder that you can earn EKRFC some money by making routine online purchases through the EKRFC website at no extra cost to yourself. The link is here

10. International Matches: contrary to common belief, I have been very busy of late so have yet to announce arrangements for purchase of tickets for the Autumn Internationals and the 2013 Six Nations. I will do this in the next few days so please be patient and look out for a separate announcement. As previously indicated, we will be running a bus to the Scotland v South Africa match on Saturday 17 November, kick off 2.30pm