This is without a doubt one of the brightest and most encouraging years in the history of the Harvard Rugby Club.

Blessed with an especially strong and devoted group of performers, the Crimson fifteen has launched off a full season by activity which spotlights an unprecedented 14-day trip to Europe.

The Club will cross the Atlantic for as first major international competition comprising a series of five games with teams in England and Ireland--during Christmas vacation. Arrangements for the trip have been made, and the schedule has been set. Most important, the faculty Committee on Athletics has nodded its official approval.

Plans have been made to fly to England for games with the Maidstone Rugby club in Kent, the Richmond fifteen in London, and the St. Mary's Hospital team, also in London. After that, the Club plans to travel to Ireland for contests with Queens University in Belfast and Trinity College in Dublin. The Crimson will return by air.

Costs for the venture, involving about 23 team members, have been estimated at $10,000, some of which will be furnished by the players themselves, as has been the custom in the past on all trips. Determined to make the tour, the Club's first mission out of New England in two years (last year the team was unable to take its annual southern spring training trip because of a Faculty decision), the players have rallied in an all-out effort to secure the necessary expense money.

Because the fifteen is of club status in the eyes of the University, and therefore not subsidized by Athletic Department funds, it must look to its alumni for most of its support.

Captain John van-Schalkwyk, who has been instrumental in arranging the tour, has led the campaign for funds. Already, a list of former Harvard rugby players has been compiled, and letters of solicitation have been mailed. Van-Schalkwyk reports that several donations have been received, and although the team still falls short of its intended goal by several thousand dollars, prospects continue to hang strong.

The drive will soon include personal visits to alumni, and as player-alumni contact increases, overall implications of the project hint of a "Friends of Harvard Rugby" organization, similar to the groups found in other sports such as track. In the past, these organized alumni groups have provided beneficial financial and moral support for Crimson teams, and have urged greater self-perpetuation and interest in the sports.

Along with the task of making the trip a reality, of course, is the more pressing job of making the team into a potent unit. This Saturday, the Crimson meets Villanova, one of the strongest sides in the Eastern Rugby Union last year, in its first home contest of the year. Game time is 12 p.m. on Soldiers Field.

From early indications, personnel is extremely promising. The men to watch, if one must pick and choose at this early date, are van-Schalkwyk, Buzz Miller, Dick Shulman, Dave McGugan, and Charlie Whitman in the scrum, and behind them, backs Dick Baker, Bill Mares, Ian Pasley-Tyler, and Al Rutan.

The Club's executive hierarchy is composed of McGugan as president, vanSchalkwyk as captain, Lee Freeman as Secretary, and Keith Julian as treasurer.