Nick Avery (Chairman)
I work as a lawyer in an international law firm dealing mostly with the financing of major infrastructure projects. Although every day my work is very much associated with the development and improvement of industrialised and developing nations it is sometimes difficult to relate to how change prompted by the projects on which I am engaged filters through to the grass roots of society. Getting involved with touraid has allowed me to try and make a contribution which has a more immediate and personal effect.
I have always loved sport and have been fortunate enough to have had sufficient talent to enjoy a full participation at school and university but not so much as to be required to take it all too seriously. I am finding enormous satisfaction in seeing the children helped by touraid revel in the opportunities that come their way through the tours that are organised. Sport is a great leveller and provides a common language through which bridges can be built between the fortunate and the less so. What better way to use my time and the skills I have been lucky enough to acquire having had the benefit of a sound education in a stable and wealthy economy.
I live with my wife and three daughters in the Essex countryside and now confine my sporting activities to infrequent trips to the gym and running and riding in and around our village. Rugby is almost the only sport I have not attempted but maybe its not too late - its only catching and running after all.
Bill Carey-Evans
Julian Davies
I'm a lucky man. I'm happily married and have three lovely daughters, I own a design business in London and enjoy what I do for a living. I live in 'leafy Surrey' and life is sweet. My only regret is that I'm now too old and unfit to play rugby. And that's the crunch because I don't get to go on tour anymore (well not as a player anyway). I was lucky enough to play twenty years of senior rugby and that meant lots of tours! The USA with Cross Keys RFC, Hong Kong, South Korea, Nigeria, Canada and the USA with London Welsh RFC, South Africa and Zimbabwe with Esher RFC not to mention frantic weekends spent playing in France, Spain, Portugal, Scotland, Ireland and of course, Wales! Unfortunately, I didn't have the opportunity to start touring until my senior rugby days, and that's a pity because I made rugby friends everywhere I went. And that's why, when I was asked to get involved in touraid it was easy to answer 'yes'.
Our 'tour for a week, learn for a lifetime' tag line is so apt. The youngsters that touraid helps are just like I was when I started playing rugby - happy, energetic, keen to learn the game and very fit! But that's where the similarities end. Poverty, war, hunger, loneliness and death are part of everyday life for these brave youngsters. The stories that we hear and images that we've seen are enough to make one feel extremely humble and utterly useless, but luckily, that's not the case... Rugby has found it's way into these children's lives and touraid was founded to introduce them to the global rugby family.
As the Carpenter's sang, 'we've on just begun' but it would be fantastic to build something that lives in these young tourists memories for years and years to come.
John Inverdale
touraid is an organisation that's very close to my heart. It seems an obvious way of improving the lives of young people to offer them mind-broadening experiences through sport, and rugby is to my mind, the most congenial and generous of all sporting activities. If, nearly two hundred years after William Webb Ellis, picking up a ball and running with it can improve just a single child's life and offer them opportunities way beyond what they might normally expect, then we're doing a good job.
Nigel Llewlynn (Treasurer)
Adrian Pitts
I work for Lydian Asset Management, a global hedge fund and am delighted to be involved with touraid. Combining charitable support for disadvantaged children with rugby is an exciting opportunity with which I am proud to be associated. The benefits to both the touring and hosting teams in terms of education, cultural understanding, friendships and personal development are numerous. Rugby is seen as the catalyst for these benefits and the sport itself will also gain as more children become included in the global rugby community. In fact, everyone involved with touraid gains from the experience.
Mike Schmid
Neil White
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