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00:00My name is Anne Hawkins, I'm Corporate Services Manager at Weltshopper Union, and I've been in various roles in this organisation for many years, coming up to 47, so covered all sorts of roles and areas in that time, but currently Corporate Services.
00:23Well, as I started here in 1978, which was a very, very different organisation in 1978 than it is now, there were just 20 members of staff in those days, and I think there's 200 nods now, if I'm right, I'm not quite sure about that, but you can see how small an organisation it was.
00:44So, it wasn't a case of getting involved in rugby as a sport, but as an administrator, it was, yeah, it was where I started, and I've grown from there.
00:58So, watching this organisation grow from a tiny little, it was an international organisation for the outside world looking in, but it was a tiny organisation for anybody that worked here in that time.
01:14As I say, with just 20 members of staff covering all aspects of Welsh rugby and the national stadium, as it was then, from cutting the grass, accounts, ticketing, just 20 people.
01:26So, you can see to be involved in an organisation of that size and then grow with it, it's been a privilege and a blast.
01:36Probably, probably, I was saying, until the 90s, that did you have any women in senior positions.
01:43I mean, I didn't start in a senior position, it sort of came to that later on in life, but, so seeing how important it is for women to hold those roles,
01:56and how fair it is as well, because they're more than capable of doing those roles as any male colleague.
02:03So, you know, so seeing how positions can develop has been amazing.
02:13Always be willing to learn, never too old to learn, own up to your mistakes.
02:19If you make your, if you make a decision, somebody once said to me once,
02:23if you make a decision, having really thought about it, and then you come to that decision, and you say, that's why I've done that, I will stick to your guns.
02:31If it's the wrong decision, you've done your best.
02:33And very often, you have to sort of fall back on that.
02:38You weigh everything up, listen.
02:42I just think listening to different people and not going off at the deep end is always a good one.
02:48One of my proudest moments is that, right from day one, when I started, I was involved in an organisation called the Welsh Rugby Charitable Trust.
03:01It's an organisation which runs parallel to the union, but it isn't part of the union, and it's the organisation that looks after all those players who've been seriously injured through playing the game.
03:15So, not just at international level, but at any level, and really some serious injuries where they may be in wheelchairs, amputations, really life-changing injuries to people, and I've been involved with that since I started.
03:32And I think one of my biggest achievements was that a few years ago, I was asked to be a trustee of that charity, and that is something I'm really proud of.
03:43But it's still very close to all those.
03:45We have 33 injured players in Wales, and I think it's fair to say I'm good friends with all of them over that amount of time.
03:53Some were injured just last year, others many years ago.
03:58So, that's one of my biggest achievements has been involved with that charity.
04:05And I think the other, which is strange because I was never ever involved in women's rugby ever,
04:11was I was asked a few years ago if I could help women's rugby started as an international sport in 1987.
04:22But at that time, it wasn't part of the Welsh Rugby Union.
04:26It was a separate organisation.
04:28So, it was the Welsh Women's Rugby Union.
04:30And it wasn't until the mid-noughties, really, that the women came into the Welsh Rugby Union under their control.
04:40So, we had no records at all of where these players were that played for Wales from 1987 to now.
04:48We're with records of the current team, obviously, but nothing at all.
04:53So, I was asked, could you find them?
04:57That's been a task and a half.
05:00Finding people who've changed their names through marriage or whatever reason.
05:05So, it's not the same as, you know, you're looking for a person who maybe has the same name now as they had then.
05:13So, it's been a massive, massive task and it's taken three years to find those.
05:19We haven't found them all, but there are 299 women international players from 1987.
05:28Lisa Burgess being in the first team to now, 299 and we're still missing 25.
05:35We've whittled it down to 25.
05:38So, I think that's, for me, it's an achievement as well, seeing as this is International Women's Day.
05:44This is a big one in that we've managed to find the foundation and the structure of women's rugby that it is now.
05:53They had a struggle back in 1987.
05:55They weren't taken seriously.
05:58It wasn't a game.
05:59I don't think anybody ever gave it any credence at all.
06:04And they've built on that and they've come to where they are now.
06:08Not only in Wales, in all other countries.
06:10And that's where we are.
06:12299 international players for Wales at Women's Rugby since 1987.
06:19And I found them all other than 25.
06:21I've always been happy to be in the background, working with socks off in the background.
06:26Never been one to push myself forward.
06:30And maybe, I don't know, maybe I should have done a little bit more of that.
06:34But I've been really happy doing what I've been doing.
06:38I've dealt with all sorts of aspects, different aspects of international rugby in all those years.
06:44And no, I've really enjoyed it.
06:46So, I don't really think I can give myself, yeah, pick myself up off anything other than say,
06:52maybe I should be a little bit better at doing this type of thing.
06:55Ha ha ha!
06:56Ha ha!