The Hong Kong 7s Fund was created in 2006 by Randy Heward, a Director of the Canadian Rugby Foundation and John Woodward with Randy continuing to lead the Fund’s growth through local fundraising activities and donations. The Fund is designed to support the National 7s teams in their Hong-Kong-based competitions at the Women’s and Men’s HSBC Sevens Series or Challenge Series stops.
The Canadian national team came each year hoping to win for their fans, but as an amateur team, found themselves constantly defeated by the professional squads competing from countries like Australia, England, New Zealand and South Africa. Hong Kong’s Canadian ex-pats were discouraged. In 2005, while drowning their sorrows after another disappointing tournament, two such ex-pats John Woodward and Randy Heward, decided to create the Canadian 7s Fund and throw a rugby long lunch to raise money to bolster the Canadian team. The idea and support from Canadians took off and they raised a substantial amount of money.
The following year, this additional funding allowed Canada to arrive earlier in Hong Kong, bringing with them additional staff and players. The results spoke for themselves. Canada qualified as a core team globally (top 12) and won hardware for their supporters. Finally!
THE FUND
The Fund has grown from $50k CAD ($375k HKD) gross raised in 2006 to the current balance of over $415K CAD net (over 2.5 million HKD), held in the Canadian Rugby Foundation’s Hong Kong 7s endowment fund.
The annual Canadian Rugby 7s luncheon has become a focal point to raise awareness and financial support for the team and to gather Canadian rugby supporters, but unfortunately due to the lag in tourism in Hong Kong post-COVID, but wirth the declining numbers of Canadian expats in Hong Kong, those luncheons have been cancelled until further notice.
In 2016 we introduced the Direct to Players incentive program to raise a pool of cash to reward the players for exceptional performance specifically at the Hong Kong 7s tournament. This program sets a C$ payout to each player on the Hong Kong 7s roster based on their tournament finish. Cash payouts are made for top 9 finishes ranging from 100% of funds raised for a Cup win (1st place) to 20% for a Bowl win (9th place). Funds not paid out are set aside to ensure this program continues in the future.
Recently we raised money for an Olympic Fund as qualification for the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics progressed. And now we are looking ahead to both the resumption of the Hong Kong 7s and future Summer Olympic games.
CBC News Article on Fund’s Founding
USE THE FORM BELOW TO DONATE TO THE HONG KONG AND OLYMPIC 7S FUND:
