NOTHING much has changed at the club over the last seven days.

We were contacted by our bank to expect a phone call about our Business Interruption Loan application but this failed to materialise and we haven’t seen anything from our grant application.

The government did send an e-mail asking us to get information ready for when the furlough payments go live next week so that has again kept Keith Holt, our finance man, very quiet as he works through different claim permutations due to the fact that most of our staff are on variable wages.

The time off has given us some time for reflection and to review some of our longer term plans.

If I was given a crystal ball to see into the future, I would ask myself what I would like to see.

I think the future is most certainly interlinked with our current plans.

Barrow Raiders would like to see the game of rugby league further up the rankings in terms of participation and popularity and we have to play our small part to ensure that the local area flourishes.

We would like to see Barrow Raiders more closely aligned with all the local amateur teams so that we have joined up plans resulting in at least eight strong clubs.

We would like to see all clubs being able to field at least two sides, but also the opportunity for those not signed up for a club to participate in less intense games maybe through festivals or tag.

We would like to address the drop off in participation in the early teen years and try to get all our clubs fielding teams at every single age group rising in one year gaps, not two.

Ultimately the cream of these players would feed in to our Furness Raiders set-up with the very best choosing Barrow Raiders as their professional club.

An established reserve grade would be in place with players moving freely between the professional club and the community clubs ensuring the very best players make the grade.

At the other end of the scale we would like to support the Masters programme and ensure that age is no barrier to participation. Moving to other groups, all at Barrow Raiders would love to see a ladies Super League team playing out of Craven Park.

We have done much to increase participation through our Raider Girls sessions and it is obvious that they should feed in to the ladies team.We are already looking at making South Cumbria more active through our walking and running groups but we would like to extend our community services so that people with disabilities could access the club. I would like Barrow Raiders to be the focal point of the whole community with rugby league at the forefront of putting the town on the map with match days encompassing numerous areas of the club, not just a first grade game, but always a festival of rugby played out in front of ever-increasing crowds.