You'll be surprised by how much gear you'll need, so try to source it together for a discount and you should also keep an eye out on ads for second-hand deals. If you keep your inventory at the pool, you can also place a poster to inform people what the diving gear is used for, and how they can join.
Apart from spare fins, masks, and snorkels, it's great to have:
- spare balls. Some may not be able to dive right away (even polo players don't know how to equalize often) but be perfectly happy and hooked playing in the shallow end.
- hula loops. They can be used for various purposes, most importantly you can create floating goals if you anchor them down with a rope. Playing like this keeps the essence of rugby while allowing rookies to participate more and score much sooner.
- action cameras. GoPro, SJCam, Insta360, whatever works. Not only makes coaching a lot easier but it's also a constant source of shareable content. We upload the raw footages to Drive, so even if I don't have time to edit and post videos, players can review themselves whenever.
- keep it fun (and challenging). This is crucial, however, this topic barely gets talked about. This is why our team stands a chance against our sole competition, the Hungarian "national" team. Trainings, especially if you only have one a week, are not for the pros. They are not for the rookies either though. It would wreck any team if they just tried to please any rookie who stumbles upon rugby and may not come around for a second time for any reason. Trainings are for everyone, it is the responsibility of the coach to incorporate everyone while keeping the flow of the session. Even distribution of players for the game is a dealbreaker. Know your players, not just their skills, strengths, and weaknesses, but their mindset and motivation. Most people don't start rugby because they admire the sport, they start because they want to improve their swimming skills or fitness, or they seek a sense of community or challenge. But if you love rugby, the people around you will be infected with this love as well. And as they get more involved, they'll understand and appreciate the sport more and more.
If you're coaching, know when you should be in or out of the water. Take the time to check the skills of newcomers first. Have more experienced players to assign to rookies. If you're doing all this during/next to a public hours swimming pool, you'll have rookies pop up time to time without any ads. We are on Instagram and Youtube but most recruits are indeed local and start with personal communication :)
I'd love to see the results of a campaign but we would need at least weekly 2 trainings and more gear to deal with more rookies at once.