Here's a scenario; You don't make an agreement to have a business logo on a Man U playing shirt but see the logo on the shirt every game and then are asked to pay for it. No order, no discussion.

And another; You are told by Man U that in return for spending a small fortune and being a good sponsor in times of good and bad, we'll give you a photo montage of all your presentations on stage with the players, then on presentation night forget to give them it and when it does turn up there are only a couple of photo's. To some of our past sponsors it's a BIG thing. Attention to detail is crucial and who can possibly be expected to pay for something they were promised but never received?

Here's another; You turn up one day and find somebody else is on Man U's shirt when you've been on their for years and they never asked you if you wanted to continue before giving it to somebody else.

The list can go on and on and it's no wonder that Sponsors have left in droves over the years.

Back on topic. If the Club are prepared to take on board the suggestions made by fans in a "Brain Storming" session, then I'm sure it will be well attended and there could even be a prize for the best ideas that are implemented.

Do the club have a database of past season ticket holders? If so, as we are now enjoying our most succesful season since 98 & playing the most exciting rugby, could we not send out invitations offering "mid season" season tickets & also provide them with a DVD of a past match where the rugby has been great.

That way, they can see for themselves what they are missing & maybe generate more fans (even if they were ones who had drifted away)

The problem you have though is this, I do believe Yob to be an upstanding member of the community and very shrewd businessman, anybody with any sense is not going to believe he is telling fibs now are they?
Im really suprised there have being any discussions with sponsors.Trying to contact someone who is running the club is like trying to get blood out of a stone.

On the volunteers note. If I volunteered to build your house and did a shabby job. Would it be ok because i was a volunteer?

Anyway back on topic griffax has a good idea about the past season ticket holders. Maybe you could add past sponsors to that list as well afterall it cant be that hard to dig up a database containing all this info can it..........

despite being council owned, would there be any benefit (for both clubs) to finding a stadium sponser ,or has it already got one?

it could be called The Safeway Shay or something

The lack of interested parties to pay for naming rights is one of the reasons so many new stadiums are not getting built at the moment

The days of massive deals for ground sponsorship have gone

GFB - why don't you try picking up the telephone, emailing the club, call in to the office if you need to talk to someone. Quite surprisingly many people have done this today. Amazing I have spoken to people on the phone, answered emails and also answered queries from people who have called in the office today. Not that you will believe it but one person came in to book his kids in as mascots after they had been to a kids party that the rugby league staff had organised in their own time (voluntarily) at the stadium, one had won a prize of diners for two at the Sheffield game and enjoyed it so much he has persuaded his company to take a match sponsorship at the Fev game and one lady came in to buy 4 home shirts for her kids as Ben and Shad had been in to their school and given them tickets for the Barrow game and told them to wear blue and white.

Most of these would not have happened without volunteers. Let's get rid of them all then and we wouldn't have as active a schools programme, no cheerleaders programme, no entertainment or PA on a matchday, no commercial sales, no merchandise or internet shop, no matchday sales people, no dinners and no player appearances at amateur club events etc.

As I have said previously if you would like anything explaining or questions answered contact us - many other people seem to manage it. Until you do that you can sit behind your user name and post on here with an obvious grievance and let us get on with our work - no matter how useless you think we are. And yes we do have databases going as far back as our Bluesox days and we use these for mailshots and have been working on the excellent suggestion Griffax made earlier about mini season tickets last week.

what about just a small/ moderate deal? better than nothing! and may develop into something better you could hope

What about creating a game based on Halifax RLFC for kids- something like Top Trumps card game for example.

Its a shame that people have had a bad experience with Fax in the past but I truely believe the club has improved in many area especially since Mr Clay has come on board. Fax is manned by Humans who do make mistakes like we all do. However they also need to learn from the mistakes made.

I feel the club and fans need to work a lot more together-however the Fans need to help the club more as most are volunteers like Mal. The problem is people feel they have to commit themselves etc-wrong you just need to help where you can whether that be in a big or small way. If you can only help on a stall for example for 3 hours a year than that is better than nothing. Sometimes help need not be a big thing or require a lot of money or time. It just requires somebody to spend an hour or two away from a TV and do something worthwhile.

does anyone remember the shay babes? got the shaymen national recognition! (to sun readers anyway)

its wrong to knock the many volunteers that do a sterling job for the club... They are many and are the lifeblood of the club... But so are the fans... The current fans... And this whole thread started with mike preaching to the converted and amidst this knocking 800 season ticket holders for not being a member of the lottery, and generally being negative about our crowds... Its our duty as fans to swell attendances?

In an ultimately negative thread, there has still been a plethora of good ideas. Imagine then what would be borne from a positive meeting of minds. There seems to be a number of people with suggestions and time to invest, if only the club ask us?

Seems like i have touched a nerve. It would be interesting though to know why one of these volunteers seems to know the inner working of the clubs finances, enough anyway to make comment of it on here. Not very proffesional if you ask me but we all know why its ok.

Marketing of sports clubs should be the most important part of all their activities , higher even than the playing side

Unfortunatley the management of most clubs are there because they are fans at heart , they like the hard core support ' believe ' that if they get things right on the pitch the fans will turn up to watch

But unfortunatley these days that is not the case , basically they are 20 years behind the times , still thinking we are in the 80,s

Most fans started going to the matches as juniors either taken by family members or on free tickets given out at school [ because I played for the school team I got complimentary tickets ]

But back then juniors would go to the game on their own and didn't cause any trouble because there were enough adults there who would make sure little Johnny down the street behaved

These days the kids have much more to keep them in the house and their parents have much more to keep them occupied as well

Just putting up signs [ while very neccessary and should be automatic ] will not bring them to the ground , you need to be getting into the town centres / shopping centres and supermarkets with offers of free and or heavily discouted family based tickets

You need to communicate with the potential fans , actually asking " Have you been down , why havent you been down , we want to invite you down , it's great at the moment " , aim for the mothers /grandparents rather than the dads , they are the ones who will buy his Fax shirt for xmas or his birthday

One of the hardest parts is then checking out how successful you have been , you need to monitor how many take up your offer and how many end up finding there way into the hands of stupid fans who think because they have managed to get a free ticket that was meant for somebody else they are clever

This can be done and will be much easier for you when the new stand is finished , you could then put all these potential new fans in the old Skircoat stand , you have a steward on the gates asking why somebody has a family ticket but no family , no kids , no entry

This also helps you to preach to the converted , send a letter to all your S/T holders and give out leaflets,programme notes explaing to your regular fans that the people in the Skircoat are there on free tickets as part of your marketing to increase your future fan base which will result eventually in more paying fans , more merchandise sales , which means more sponsorship , which means more income which means better players , which means better team

Which eventually /hopefully will mean SL RL back in Halifax

The problem then comes how do you get into the town centres,shopping centres,supermarkets , volunteers can only achieve so much , you need a dedicated team of people who will be there week on week with plenty of organisation and a well thought out strategy

But clubs as ours just dont have the resources and finance to achieve this and also put out what we hope are competitive teams

This is what gets me so unhappy with the RFL and their obsession with trying to bring corporate support to clubs at our level rather than helping us at the basement level of getting fans through the doors [ which will eventually get you more coporate support via sponsorship as a businessman will more likely tip up if he sees a stadium with 4/5,000 people in and a good atmosphere rather than a stadium with 2 stand half empty

The clubs should be pushing the RFL to get direct funds to pay for localised teams of ' marketeers ' , working for clubs in the lead up to their home games

A roadshow type event held on the town square and on the cap park of the local superstore on the tuesday and wednesday before a sunday match giving out tickets and ' freebie marketing stuff like flags,hats even fax coloured t shirts to the kids and parents with a personnal invite to the game

Any willing fans wanting to help could then go down and lend a hand for 1/2/3/4 hours or whatever they can as the ' event ' is there

As I posted earlier , get together with the 4 other clubs in your area and buy whatever you need and share [ maybe a signage trailer with removable boards for each club ]

Get hold of a local van hire co and ask if they could supply a vehicle to tow it round when your event is on , even have a player wearing a funny wig driving it round or just get Frank to do it , a few years ago at Leigh we had one of my vans driving round towing one of our trailers signed up with the next 2 games

Lee Hansen was driving it round wearing a ' Rasta ' wig , it got noticed

Between the clubs buy a portable PA system like they use on election day driving round telling everybody that your ' roadshow ' is at asd/tesc/lid/ald/nett/morriso or wherever and get down for your free tickets

We are never going to attract fans from far and wide so you must concentrate on getting as many people from your local borough through the gates of the SHAY at least once every year

I'll give my fingers a rest now while you read what I'v posted

It has been said before, in this thread and others OUR WEB SITE IS PANTS! the fixture list still has not been updated with the score away at Donny and the table is not up to date.

People who are maybe thinking of coming down for the first time, perhaps after their kids have come home from school with free tickets, will look to the website to get some idea about whether it is likely to be an exciting and entertaining day out - as well as kick-off time etc. Sorry, but it is bland and a bit boring. God knows what potential sponsors think when they look at it.

Go look at the Cas website. the damn thing roars at you before you enter - how good is that?

Back to the volunteer aspect, I know there are potential volunteers out there with the skills to sort this out (Triran for example). We are practically half way through the season now - surely time to sort this out?