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Thirty-three-year-old Westport lawyer Jane Duncan has become the first ever female chairperson of a Provincial Union when she was appointed to lead the Board of the Buller Rugby Union at their recent board meeting.<\/p>\n
Duncan said she was excited by the challenge of leading the governance of Buller Rugby.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a privilege to be the first ever female chair of a Provincial Union. I\u2019m excited by the role and look forward to working with my fellow Board members tackling the opportunities and challenges ahead for Buller Rugby.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me this is not so much about gender, but about skill. My fellow board members felt I have the necessary skills and that I am the right person for the job. But it shouldn\u2019t be a surprise to anyone that women have the right skill sets for these roles, so I am looking forward to seeing more women joining me in leadership positions in rugby.<\/p>\n
\u201cFemales are playing a bigger part in rugby with strong growth in the number of women playing the game, the success of the Black Ferns Sevens team in winning silver at the Rio Olympics and Dr Farah Palmer\u2019s appointment last year to the New Zealand Rugby board. It\u2019s natural that there are more women in senior administrative roles in the game too.\u201d<\/p>\n
New Zealand Rugby Board Chairman Brent Impey congratulated Mrs Duncan on her appointment.<\/p>\n
\u201cCongratulations to the Buller Rugby Union on their historic appointment and congratulations to Jane on her new role. I look forward to working with her, along with the other chairs of Provincial Unions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is exciting to see new people with a range of backgrounds and skills getting involved in the highest levels of rugby administration. I am confident the appointment will bring a fresh perspective to the board and her leadership of it that I am sure will be of great assistance to Buller.\u201d<\/p>\n
Duncan moved to Westport in 2010, taking up a position at Stevens Orchard Lawyers where she has been a Director since 2012. She was appointed as an Independent Director to the Buller Rugby Union in February 2015.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Buller Rugby Union faces challenging times. We are one of the smallest Unions in the country and the closure of the Holcim Cement Works and the major downsizing of the Stockton Mine has brought about a massive reduction of jobs and as a result player numbers have dwindled,” said Duncan.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not only player numbers that are suffering it\u2019s the lack of people with the ability to coach, referee and provide volunteer support. Buller is fortunate that its community spirit is such that those currently involved have the dedication and commitment to keep the wheels turning which makes our Union survive.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite these testing times Buller have performed well above expectations, having been finalists of the Heartland Rugby competition five times in the last seven years including making two finals for the prestigious Meads Cup and the Under 12\u2019s and 14\u2019s took home the Seddon Shield trophies in their respective tournaments.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite the uncertainty in the region we will do our very best to continue to achieve great success on the field and rebuild our Rugby Union off it. We are soon to celebrate our 125th anniversary and I\u2019m sure that with the right strategy we will be around in another 125 years.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Issued by New Zealand Rugby on behalf of Buller Rugby Union Thirty-three-year-old Westport lawyer Jane Duncan has become the first ever female chairperson of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1890,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buller-ru","category-latest-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buller.retrorugby.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buller.retrorugby.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buller.retrorugby.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buller.retrorugby.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buller.retrorugby.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buller.retrorugby.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buller.retrorugby.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buller.retrorugby.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buller.retrorugby.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buller.retrorugby.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}