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?

I agree that is a good post from Starbug, I am in a bit of a dilemma as I have been offered a free town centre spot on Saturday to promote the club . But I have looked at the long range weather forecast and find it is going to rain heavily all day.So what do I do.

A) Do the stall anyway even though no-one will be around much and certainly will not want to stop and chat and take a soggy leaflet. Then the knockers will say well that didn`t work won`t bother with that again.

b) Wait till the week after hope for better weather but as we have a stall at the Charity Gala where most of the volunteers are busy already.

c) Wait till the week after that again.

Come on Starbug you always give me good advice what would you do?

Get down to the ' Pumproom ' and ask them to sponsor a good quality easy ' erecting ' gazebo and borrow a couple of those barmaids for the day as well

You might find you get a bit more help on the day as well

Wow !! Wot a can of worms .. First of all can i as a Fax fan for over 30 years thank all the people who put time and effort into running the club either as paid or vounteer staff. I for 1 think you all do a magnificent job and find it unbelievable that people can come on here and give you a hard time.

So where do we go from here ?

It is obvious that Mike is doing all he can to try to pull in the fans again after what have been 5-6 shocking years for the club and i assume all he is trying to do by starting this thread is get fresh ideas off like minded fans (remember Mike is also a fan of the club just like the rest of us).


I have said it before on here that the main reason ( in my opinion ) why people dont come through the turnstiles is because of the cost. £14 is a lot of money especially if a bloke comes to the game with his partner.

Mike/Sarah. Is it possible to spread the cost of season tickets over a whole year, so rather than pay £14 per game set up a direct debit over 12 months for a season ticket to spread the cost a little.
(eg . 20 Games at £14 = £280.00 Divided by 12 Months =£23.33 per month or £5.38 per week.
This is how i pay my gold club membership and to be honest i never think about it.

Please remember everyone that it is so easy to sit back and knock other people that are trying day in day out to get us where we want to be (others have tried and not lasted very long) which is back in Super League. Let support them because belive me the job is hard enough without us making it even harder.

I can't believe some of the comments on this topic, anyone would think we're bottom of the league and have no intentions of applying for the next round of SL licensing.

I know everyone is entitled to their opinions, otherwise, it wouldn't be a forum, but those with serious issues and choosing to state them on a messageboard for the whole world to see are doing nothing other than playing one-upmanship and lowering the reputation that the club as a group is building for the future.

Cheer up guys, there's a game to win on sunday, let's all get positive.

SACK FAZ !

Totally agree !!

Once the Club have got rid of the deadwood, they'll be able to move forward. Some are a hinderance. Whether they are well meaning volunteers or not, shouldn't come into it.

So, what you're saying Mr. Y is that the club should get rid of what those club employee's inside the everyday workings of the office say is a decent, reliable volunteer and increase their own workload ? Or, are you saying the club should increase the wage bill and employ someone on the books to do the work ?

Or am I reading this wrong ?

always have some on the many committees i have sat on that would work better without them, they think they are doing a good job but lot of time they are a hindrance to getting things done.

With all due respect, the negativity of this thread was invoked by the club.

But i fully agree. But fax being fax, we can't get along without infighting and negativity- its the nature of the beast.

For example, the thread about the club putting on coaches to doncaster... A tremendous sentiment by the club... We then have 6 pages of utter diatribe knocking the club and our support, including from our own fans... "well from my armchair we only took 50 fans to fev, which is very poor. We let fev down- they should have got a bigger crowd"

Some people shouldn't be allowed to thief oxygen

I disagree that there are 6 pages of utter diatrabe knocking the club.

There is some negative comments yes ,but lets not forget there were genuine positive comments on the thread too.
I intend to try to follow through with some of them myself, if it`s possible.