Merry Christmas to you all, I am on a train out of London to spend Christmas with my folks at home and would you believe it, the train is delayed; cheers national rail! This does, however, give me a perfect opportunity to pen a quick festive blog.

Just before I pile into what’s been happening at UR7s in recent weeks, I want you just to picture where I am, I am on a train with a million commuters and Christmas shoppers. Fortunately I managed to procure a seat with a table but at the cost of sitting next to a drastically over weight man who is intent on snoring all the way to Peterborough; lovely stuff.

Right, on to more interesting stuff than the 18:28 to Peterborough…

Christmas is upon us. I can tell this not because my advent calendar is fast approaching its final window, or because there is snow on the ground, but because of the activities of the UR7s staff. Robin is sporting a magnificent mahogany tan, which can only mean the IRB Series has started and he has been off on international duty following the IRB Sevens World Series doing his live text commentary. Stewart is showing great excitement about the prospect of turkey... those gym goers amongst you will know it is a great source of protein and very lean... the gas man’s Holy Grail. The normally very un-jolly Tom is merrily singing along to the rubbish Christmas tunes on Radio 1 and finally Tim has hot footed to somewhere hot and is most definitely not on a delayed train in East Anglia...cheers!

The only upside to this delayed train is I can cast my mind back over a great 6 months for me. I have graduated from my position of office fresher (intern) and now, despite what my colleagues think, I am vital cog in the UR7s wheel. Since my last blog I have been to plenty of Sevens tournaments, various sport business events, rugby players benefit dinners and assisting match directors in the Heineken Cup, getting vital insight into running the commercial and rugby aspects of elite level rugby. I just want to take this opportunity to thank the guys at ERC for letting me attend some games.

Despite all this fun stuff there has been some savage geeking going on. Online marketing taking up the bulk of my time and I am still finding and learning more ways to improve the reach of UR7s.com and despite a barrage of abuse from a colleague who sits behind me for being “dry dry dry” I do still enjoy it. Right, enough of that or you will all be as comatose as the portly gentleman to my right!

It hasn’t been all work and no play this year; we’ve had some funny times too. Personal highlights have to be Tim chatting to DJ Spoony live on Radio 5 about the Olympic decision, recruiting the Royal Navy to stop the speed cage blowing away at Newquay and listening to Austin Healey bantering Martin Johnson about the somewhat under par performance of the England team in the Autumn internationals. Ah, and of course listening to Tom’s plight as he struggled to get home from Edinburgh last weekend!

Looking forward to the teenies, if that is what the tabloid press chooses to call it, remember you heard it here first! There is stack loads of exciting stuff coming your way in 2010. There isn’t enough time to go into it now, but as you will know the UK national Sevens Series will be a great addition to the UK sevens scene and UR7s tours is really kicking off; Las Vegas 2010 is really shaping up to be a classic. Now this is not to sound like the hard sell but this is not one to be missed...Rugby Sevens in Vegas. Come on, need I say more?

Big news for us who work at UR7s, we are moving HQ from East to South West London. We fully understand this will have zero impact on our readers but it does mean we will be taking very pleasant walks to work now rather than the Northern line with 1 million other commuters...you might have noticed through this blog I’m not the biggest fan of trains.

Right I am about to get to my stop so I’m going to have to call it a day there, time for a week of overeating and relaxing. I hope you all have a very merry Christmas and I look forward to seeing you all on UR7s.com in the New Year.

Finally, we love it when you guys let us know your opinion on Sevens or anything you’re up to so please keep commenting on articles, @ us on twitter and bantering on the Facebook fan page.

Barney