We’re very proud to be a charity partner of Edinburgh Rugby and love working with the players and team there.

Someone we speak to regularly at the club is Ruaridh Pye, Edinburgh Rugby’s Community Manager.

Following their return to playing over the last couple of weeks, we asked him a few questions about his role at the club and about working with It’s good 2 give.

Tell us about your role at Edinburgh Rugby:
The Edinburgh Rugby Community Team are responsible for all community related engagements for the professional club based at BT Murrayfield.
It is our job to create life-long affiliations to the club and showcase the values that being associated with Edinburgh Rugby brings. Our team - myself and Andrew Whitelaw - deliver a number of programmes across four key community pillars supported by our Main Club Sponsor, Principle & Prosper.
These four pillars – Education, Participation, Health & Wellbeing and Disability, Equality and Equity – underpin such values and allow us to not only meet the needs of the diverse community we serve but also impact meaningfully on people’s lives.

How long have you been in the role:
I have been with Edinburgh Rugby for three years now and love every minute. My current role is part-funded by the City of Edinburgh Council and while there is some cross over, I am essentially working two roles, so extremely busy.  However the way the club is now structured under our new Managing Director Douglas Struth provides the perfect platform for us to perform our jobs to the best of our abilities.
We have a small but very enthusiastic backroom team at Edinburgh Rugby that have all bought into and share Doug’s vision for the club.
This makes for a very proactive close-knit working community in itself and similar, I suspect, in many ways to Its good 2 give: people who want the best for their organisation and are willing to go over and above to make it happen.

Why did you choose It’s good 2 give to work with:
I first became aware of IG2G when a friend asked if Edinburgh Rugby could donate a prize for the Joanna Lamb annual golf competition at Turnhouse Golf Club.
As you can imagine, we get numerous requests on a weekly basis for such, however after probing a bit deeper into the cause I arranged to meet Alan (Jo’s father) to hand over a signed Edinburgh Rugby strip.
After hearing the heroic feat of someone so young, the challenges she faced and embraced and the legacy she left, I wanted to meet the founder of the charity that Jo had been an ambassador for. Alan very kindly put me in touch with the charity founder, Lynne McNicoll.
As a club it is important for us to stay rooted to our city and support those as close to home as possible.
I invited Lynne into our Edinburgh Rugby office at BT Murrayfield for a chat so that we could hear more of what this local charity does.
To say I was blown away was an understatement. It became clear after around five minutes that this was the perfect fit charity for Edinburgh Rugby.

What have you enjoyed about the partnership so far:
The charitable work that IG2G perform is simply amazing from the ‘trolley dollies’ to family packs to the Ripple Retreat. This all provides a really meaningful two-way relationship.
All of us at Edinbugh Rugby are passionate about supporting the community to have IG2G as our nominated charity works on so many levels. It is local, volunteer-led and the work they do is absolutely vital - so we can get our sleeves rolled up and get involved.
Everyone in the club from employees to supporters can associate with the charity, as undoubtedly we have all been affected in some way, shape or form by cancer. It’s not just seen as a ‘nice to do’, it is very much something that we want to do.
It shows that while we are a professional sports club we are very much grounded as individuals and committed to adding value to the charity. We provide an opportunity to fundraise, increase awareness, utilise our team (players and backroom) and help out in any way we can.
It’s good 2 give has been a great addition to the Edinburgh Rugby family. Everyone involved in the charity oozes passion and energy.
They are different to a lot of charities and what I mean by that is they don’t value fundraising over the service they provide. Fundraising of course, is important to every charity but they let the vital work they take on do the fundraising for them!
All of us at Edinburgh Rugby love the relationship we have with IG2G so much so we have committed to them for another year! With our commitment comes our club values, ethos, staff, players and fans!

What have you learnt while working with It’s good 2 give:
We have learnt so much from year one which will no doubt stand us in good stead for an even better year two! I would love to look back in years to come and see the difference Edinburgh Rugby and its supporters have made to the charity.

Tell us something no-one will know about you?
If I tell you something no-one will know about me then people will know and I’ll have to think of another answer to that question the next time someone asks! However if I don’t tell you I still have the answer! ☺
I am looking forward to welcoming the charity, ambassadors and volunteers back to Edinburgh Rugby hopefully in the not toooooo distant future…in the meantime keep up the good work and stay safe.