IGR and GRC Digital Merger

The Trustees of International Gay Rugby and Neil Pyper of GayRugbyClubs.com are pleased to announce the merger of their social media brands to create a new, single point of reference for the gay and inclusive rugby community, taking effect from Monday 29th February 2016.

GRC has been strongly complimentary to IGR’s developmental goals since its inception in July 2013 and both the IGR trustees and Neil see this merger as hugely beneficial to our community, by creating stronger links and connections between the IGR clubs, focusing our digital and social media presence through a single brand and unifying our message to our external stakeholders.

To achieve this, we are implementing a new, unified gay and inclusive rugby “community” brand – “International Gay Rugby Clubhouse” or “IGRC”. This will utilise the outstanding following developed by GayRugbyClubs and will become the “social” brand for IGR – see the logo above.

The following digital platforms will operate under this brand:

• GRC Facebook group (English language)
• GRC en français Facebook group (French language)
• GRC Twitter account
• GRC Instagram account
• A new IGRC Tumblr account

The current IGR “business” brand will remain unchanged under the merger. The following digital platforms will operate under this brand:

• IGR’s website
• IGR Board Member Facebook group
• IGR Regional Reps Facebook group
• Other organisational Facebook groups

Later in 2016, the content of IGRugby.org and GayRugbyClubs.com will be collated to create a brand new, one stop shop website for the gay and inclusive rugby community, also creating the potential for regional pages, with IGRugby.org becoming the primary website. Once implemented, GayRugbyClubs.com will close.

To enable a single point of reference for our community, the existing IGR Facebook “Like” page and Twitter account will become non-promoted entities and the IGR Instagram account and GRC2 Facebook group will close.

Content guidelines for IGR / IGRC administrators have been agreed. IGR / IGRC exist to promote and exhibit gay rugby. All posts should have a gay rugby connection. The rugby connection of the content is more important than the sexiness of the content. However, this does not mean there cannot be sexy rugby posts. For example, if IGR clubs are publishing calendars, these could be advertised via IGR / IGRC social media platforms.

Chairman of International Gay Rugby, Jeff Wilson said about the merger: “This is an exciting time for the International Gay Rugby community. The integration of all messaging about and around gay and inclusive rugby is the culmination of a lot of fantastic work by Neil to ensure that players, fans and organisations could collaborate and communicate globally. This merger allows for us as a community to strengthen our internal and external messaging as we manage all the stakeholders and audiences, in a coordinated, deliberate fashion.”

GRC creator & IGR Social Media Lead, Neil Pyper expressed his enthusiasm for the new project: “I am absolutely thrilled to be working alongside IGR in this way. I believe that with IGR’s strength of brand, this union with GRC will see our collective ‘front of house’ presence grow and expand, creating an online environment where club members, new and experienced, feel that they can join in a conversation with all tiers of our community.”

Media Resources

International Gay Rugby – www.igrugby.org/about.htm
Gay Rugby Clubs – www.gayrugbyclubs.com

International Gay Rugby – IGR (Registered Charity Number 1154241) The International Gay Rugby Association & Board is a charity registered in England and Wales whose registered office is at 71 Holland Road, West Ham, London, England E15 3BP, United Kingdom.