The event was a great success and saw Coun Hudson join other local councillors, Darran Travis and Peter Box, to celebrate the club's achievements, particularly in establishing a vibrant junior section.

The Mayor presented 30 of the RFU's "Valued Volunteer" certificates to show the club's appreciation of the help and effort given by the club's stalwart volunteers and the whole day was captured by a film crew on behalf of the RFU.

They were able to see training sessions given by the club's own coaches, augmented by coaches and academy players from Castleford Tigers and Leeds Carnegie, and the presentation of new kit by sponsors Wakefield District Housing, Pontefract Round Table, John Francis Paul and Son and SysServers in a well received family event sponsored by Leeds solicitors firm Blacks.

The club was chosen to help in the preparation of a video to provide a training resource to back up the RFU's nationwide People and Places programme to focus on recruitment of new volunteers, especially parents, through the use of various events such as the Castleford club's Join Our Team campaign and their open day as a model of good practice.

Mike Hart, the RFU's volunteer executive for the North of England, who supervised the filming, expressing his thanks to the club.

He said "The idea behind the video is to capture real volunteering at a local community rugby club, the lifeblood of any amateur sports club.

"Filming the organisation and running of the event meant that we had a glimpse of all the hard work that goes on the behind the scenes to get a real view of the important role that volunteers play.

"Castleford are a great example of how they are developing mini, youth and girls' sections to graft onto an existing successful senior club structure."

Steve Ball, Castleford's volunteer coordinator, added: "This was a great opportunity to show what we do well as a club and we appreciated playing our part in helping the RFU to show what is good about the game and being a member of a club such as ours."

The Castleford club is promoting the Join Our Team theme for the whole club, but in particular is looking to attract six to 16-year-old boys and girls.

Training for the juniors continues on Wednesday evenings from 6.15 to 7.30pm from June through to September when the season starts again.
Senior training is every Tuesday and Thursday from 7.15pm and for more
information contact Chris on 07775 707390.

For pictures from the big day, see the July 2 edition of the Pontefract & Castleford Express.