The Challenge Packaging, 66th Sunshine Sevens will be held this Sunday 28th April, when we will provide a great day of 7’s rugby and entertainment. We can only hope that one of the wettest Marches ever does not continue – and we actually get some sun!

We are grateful that The Lady Astor of Hever Trophy is, as has always been reward enough for our Elite sides to come and entertain at Saint Hill. We welcome back last year’s winners Ramblin Jesters who have dominated for a few years but will face stiff opposition from the Apache teams, Shogun Rugby, Lions, Wooden Spoon and Esher Mavericks. Great to see the Ratana sides kicking off the season and offering new talent the opportunity to play at the Elite level.

Women’s rugby is just getting stronger and stronger, not only at East Grinstead but in the teams for this year’s sevens. Last Years winners Wooden Spoon are back to defend the Steve Cairns Trophy with sides from the Savvy Panthers – Lionesses – Eggchasers – Ratana and local sides East Grinstead, Pulborough and Uckfield.

The Men’s Open sees several local sides with some good development sides. We welcome the Oxford Buffalo’s, the Outcasts, and the Eggchaser Lions.

At East Grinstead Rugby Club we not only try to bring great Sevens, but also raise money for local Children’s Charities. To date the Club has raised over 400k in the 65 years. Last year was a great year for our fundraising, the Sevens, plus our Golf Day at the wonderful Birch Grove golf course, meant we were able to distribute over £30,000!

This amount of money has allowed us to support more local charities who have been really struggling to secure government funding. We continue to support Step by Step School for Autism, continue our long association with Wooden Spoon and East Grinstead Special Families. In addition, we have donated to Crew at the Queen Vic Hospital, Court Meadow Group RDA, horse riding therapy and Tadpoles, a swimming group at our local sports centre. We have also supported our local schools, Imberhorne and Sackville, by contributing to their student support fund. The schools go on international trips to work on schools’ projects, one such project is Champion Chanzige which carries out school refurbishment projects in Tanzania. With its close links to the schools and students we have decide to give some international support. Finally, we have been able to support some local special causes.

As always, we have many people to thank. Our special thanks go to Challenge Packaging, to Steve Rogers at Penny Farthing Jewellers for his all-round support and sponsoring the Player of the Tournament, our Programme Sponsors, the Organising Committee, Refs and all the Catering Team.

As always – we need help on the day with car park, pitch marshalling and many other jobs. Please contact any member of the committee – or just come a watch some great sevens. First games kick off at 11.00am.

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