2002 Club photos

The preparation of this year’s event was filled with twists and turns along the way. First the date was 5/3-5 then it became 5/10-12. First the event was scheduled for the soccer complex in Columbus but as you know we received permission to play on Fort Benning this year and now we are meeting at the Officer’s Club.

Ross Crunkhorn of the Columbus/Fort Benning club has orchestrated this change of heart at Fort Benning. Ross is a retired Australian Army Major and his wife Lt. Col. Crunkhorn is active duty US Army. They are neighbors with the Garrison Commander, Col. Jose Torres. Col. Torres does support this event and he is really the only reason Fort Benning has allowed us to return this event to Fort Benning. Basically Col. Torres is sticking his neck out on our behalf. Hopefully everything proceeds without problems this weekend and we will continue to enjoy the support of Col. Torres.

This underlines the tenuous nature of this new relationship. We do however have the support of the Commanding General, Paul Eaton to play on Fort Benning for the next two years.

While playing on Fort Benning helps to create the atmosphere desirable to the military rugby community, it comes at a price to the Columbus/Fort Benning RFC, your host this year. We have mixed emotions about this newfound relationship with Fort Benning. Col. Torres has been wonderful to work with and to get to know on a personal level. The sports office has done whatever it could to facilitate this event, but therein lies the rub.

While the Sports Office would like to be able to do things for us, there is in reality only so much they control. When this event was held at the soccer complex the entire infrastructure was in place. There are bathrooms with running water, a permanent concession stand, fields that are manicured and kept free of ants on an ongoing basis and easy trash collection and disposal. None of this is possible on Fort Benning. Indeed we when we found that the playing fields were covered with fire ants, no one was able to do anything about it because that is a “contract” operation. We tried to handle the problem ourselves only to be told to cease and desist by an environmental officer. We were lucky that the fields were scheduled to the treated and they are basically in good shape now. We cannot attest the likelihood of this happening in subsequent years.

We wish to do what is best for the event but all of the above creates an unnecessary financial burden to the club and creates many more man-hours of work. We wish to discuss this further with this committee should you choose to have us host this event in the future.

Some items of note include:

Again, most clubs do not provide the documentation asked for in advance. This may create a problem at check–in, depending on the level of scrutiny required by this committee.

There appears to be enough interest to hold a small 7’s tournament this morning. There was interest last year as well but the event did not materialize.

Most importantly, this year will see a reduced number of men’s clubs participating. This situation is created primarily by a significant number of Army clubs not participating as compared to previous years.

Respectively submitted,

Gary Kent