In August we asked the whole club three questions. What is Wests for. What should we value. What does success look like.
226 of you answered, from families in their first season to members of more than forty years.
Thank you. Every single response was read. We promised to tell you what you said and what we intend to do about it. Here is both, starting with the second part, because it matters more.
What we are doing
Wests will build a five year plan, and it will be built on what you told us.
A working group is being formed, with representatives selected from across every part of the club. It will be supported by independent experts from outside the club so the work is properly run and actually gets finished.
That plan will be the blueprint for how this club operates. Not a document that sits in a folder. A plan with priorities, owners and measures that the club is held to.
And it will not decide what Wests stands for. You already have. Three quarters of you named fun and belonging. Half of you, in your own words, said this club exists to build community, belonging and family. The same five values came back from every single part of the club.
That is not a survey result. That is a mandate.
We will publish the plan when it is done. You will be able to hold us to it.
Who answered
226 responses, against a target of 200. An average of 8.3 out of 10 on how likely you would be to recommend Wests to a friend. 52 of you have been involved for more than ten years, and 26 are in your first season.
Junior parents, pathway players, senior men, the Warriors, coaches, volunteers, past players, sponsors and supporters. Every part of the club, in numbers large enough to report on separately.
Where we agree
This was the strongest part of the result.
Asked to choose the values that should sit at the heart of the club, you chose these five above all others.
- Fun and belonging
- Respect
- Development of our own
- Inclusion
- Family
Those five came back from every single group in the club.
Winning matters, and our senior squads said so clearly. What came through across the whole club was that we will not chase it at the cost of everything else.
This is the most important thing the survey found. On what this club is for, and what it should stand for, the answers were the same from juniors and seniors, from first season families and forty year members, from the Warriors and the Old Boars. Wests does not need to work out what it is. You have already told us.
Where we fall short
We said warts and all. Here it is.
We get weaker as players get older
The junior programme is working. It is what the rest of the club is not building on that needs fixing.
Our Warriors gave us the most and rated us the lowest
Two thirds of the squad answered, the highest response rate of any group in the club. They also rated their experience of the senior club lowest of anyone, 3.05 out of 5 against 3.65 for the senior men.
What they asked for was not more for themselves. It was shared training, shared match days, a social calendar set before the season, and support on the sideline. That is a group asking to be closer to this club, and we have not made it easy enough.
Juniors and seniors can feel like two clubs
Many of you described the junior and senior clubs as two organisations sharing a ground. It was raised most by the coaches and volunteers who run this place week to week. Several of you used the phrase one club. That is your language, not ours.
And a number of you raised how the club is run
Competing agendas, a lack of clear direction, and questions about how money is shared between parts of the club. It came up unprompted, from every part of the club. We are not going to pretend it did not.
What you offered
133 of you offered to volunteer your time. 100 offered to help bring new players and families in. For a club that often says it is short of volunteers, that is the most useful thing this survey told us. We will come back to you with something real to say yes to.
What happens next
- Now. Work begins on bringing our women’s programme properly into the club. That does not wait for the plan, because season planning happens first.
- Coming weeks. The working group is formed and gets to work. We will tell you who is on it, and why.
- When it is done. The plan is published. All of it.
You told us what Wests is for. Now we build it.
Tusks Up.
The Executive Committee
Wests Scarborough Rugby Union
The full findings report is available to members on request. Email info@westsscarboroughrugby.com.au and we will send it to you.
About the survey. Shaping Our Future ran from 13 to 30 August 2026 and received 226 responses. It was shared through the club email list, team and squad groups, the Old Boars network, our social channels and the club website. Responses were anonymous, and results are reported here as totals and themes only, as promised.
Because the survey was open to anyone with the link, and answering did not require a login, we cannot technically rule out that a response came from outside the club community or that someone answered more than once. The results should be read as a strong indication of what our community thinks rather than as a statistically precise measurement. The full report sets out the checks that were carried out on the data.