Hi All,

I wanted to start an open discussion on how we can improve and get more people through the door and down to Iffley Road.

I'm sure there are some small, easy ideas we can implement - so let's all discuss them here.

We've got two home games left so lets all pitch some ideas and see what we can do.

Thanks!

Tim

With just two games left I'd save any money for a marketing push next season. It would be too easy for someone to drift away over winter if they come to a game or two now.

Your easiest route is via fans converting friends. Unfortunately a lot of us seem to live a long way away, 70 mins travel for me, making it difficult to win over new converts. Somehow we need to persuade people in / around Oxford to consider watching RL. The gates in southern RL prove this isn't easy. The fixture list, plus having to take a game to Henley, has made it even harder. The RFL need to be told to deliver a fixture list as close to home, away, repeat as possible.

Can someone knock up a newcomers guide to the sport? Unknown faces can be asked of they want it. Basic rules, guide to referees signals that sort of stuff. Explain the positions, different roles on the pitch, bonus point rules and so on. If you can add a bit about the other teams we face and pick out key players to watch even better. Not many in Oxford will know Hunslet used to be as good as it gets and that might spark some interest. Stick a PDF on the website. The nature of the beast is that many people who live locally won't have watched RL and we need to make it easy for them.

Anything that makes people realise what a high standard of sport they have being played on their doorstep will help. The small club perception doesn't help, unfortunately the current gate levels add to this perception.

Also have a little look at the website. Two seasons in quite a bit of it is "coming soon" not a good impression or well out of date. The last blog was in May 2013. Those articles need writing /updating or the links need removing. TBH you may find volunteers in the fan base to write some of them. Someone must know Oxford well enough to knock up the "guide to Oxford"!

Sports fans are the obvious target. What about get in for a fiver with your London Welsh, Oxford City Stars, Oxford Harlequins, Oxford City and anyone I don't know about season ticket. Our season / playing date and time doesn't really clash. The smaller club may be interested in reciprocating. Pick a game v someone like Skolars, likely to be reasonably close and a half decent gate to generate a bit of a buzz.

Beyond that I'll have a think however can you pick the brains of other RL clubs as to what worked / didn't work for them? No point reinventing wheels.

LOTS but way to start ???

A lot of ORL fans ask me alot why do we have to pay £5 for parking on match days at the ground on top of the £12 in. Iknow of about 8 to 10 who do not come because of that and ask why is not £15 for park and getting in you will get 8 more every home match and not just the big matches.

Showing my ignorance of Oxford..... If gates did boom would most locals drive or is public transport viable? My impression is that parking is a bit of a nightmare locally anyway(please shout if wrong.)

To be fair to the club they do advertise a free car park 10 mins walk tops from the ground on their website.

Must admit I don't park at the ground due to the cost. Travelling in from North Hampshire I burn a fair bit in petrol and saving that fiver helps. Not sure if they still do but Farnborough FC charge for parking but throw in a free proggie. Better value and boosts proggie numbers making it an easier sell to advertisers. Total cost to the club, not a lot given not all the drivers would pay for a proggie anyway. (30% take up used to be about par in non league football. Suspect that has fallen in this internet age.) An idea to consider?

First things first: Win games consistently. It's much easier to get people to come back if they've seen a winning team.
Build up a good mailing list, use competitions, offers etc to get email addresses then make sure we stay in regular contact.
Free tickets need to be carefully targeted, season ticket holders of other local sports teams offered entrance to one game free would be good, maybe target some of the University societies. I know they are not there all season but raising interest for a few games would be a start. Cheap booze always atracts students.

BTW I think the car park is deliberately priced to discourage people from using it. Space is quite limited and a certain number of spaces have to be guaranteed for the officials and opposition etc, so it can't be clogged up with spectators cars. I too use the free car park down by the river but it might be worth offering appropriately price car parking season tickets to members.

Few things from me

1. More cooperation with the local sports. OUFC and Oxford City Stars have a tie up which has really helped the crowds at Ice Hockey. I have seen nothing between ORL and any other local sporting club. OUFC have a home game in 3 weeks so why are ORL not having a presence at these games to push the fact that the sport exists in Oxford

2. Don't go 9 weeks without a home fixture, its bonkers. The one thing ORL need to do is get people into the habit of attending, 9 weeks without a game in the peak summer period is not helpful

3. Contact list, I missed one match last season but this have only attended one. Why ? Probably holidays and continuity but if the club had a database of people who attended then one option would be to see who was not attending and ask why not

4. Local press coverage is shocking, Oxford Mail is just about OK, local radio frankly ignores ORL other than giving a result on a Monday. How can a better relationship be gained with local media

5. Local businesses, get in amongst them and offer incentives

6. Local schools, again let school groups in for nothing, they are the future

Until 6 years ago when it closed I was Community Officer for Oxford Speedway for about 7 years and we done loads. We took riders into local schools and then brought that school along to the meeting that same evening which meant they met a rider in the day and watched them race at night. They then had photos taken with the team which were sent to the school. We were outside major local supermarkets with the riders handing out flyers and fixture lists. We went to local school fetes, again with riders to raise awareness. With all of these we took DVD's so we could show the sport to those who didn't know it

This stuff is not easy, it requires peoples time and lots of patience while it bears fruit but it works and is a great way of getting the message out there

I may be really unfair but I have not seen any of this happening and building crowds will only come from hard work on many fronts, there is no silver bullet

Just another idea that was in place was a thing we used to call the Pyramid Club, this was an initiative which I am trying to remember fully but the basis was that you gave a free ticket to someone to attend, if they attended they were given another free ticket for someone else they knew and a half price admission for the next game for them. If they attended a 3rd time and beyond they paid full price. The person they gave their free ticket to had the same benefit so the concept was that by introducing one person and incentivising them to attend you gave them them the opportunity to persuade someone else and so it went on. Each person that attending then filled in their name and address and it started to build up a database of people who had attended once and more importantly started the potential for each person to create a pyramid of people below them whose attendance had come from the intitial free ticket

Always difficult to know how successful it was and one of the concerns was giving away free tickets but of course it really cost nothing because these were people that were not coming anyway so nothing was being given away

Just another idea

Hi everyone, Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to comment on this thread or send me a message, it is very much appreciated and I will be going through these suggestions to come up with a few actions to take forward. To address one point, the car park isn't controlled by us but the University Club who run the car park and bar on matchdays. Also the fixture 'hole' should hopefully be addressed with the new structure. As a club we are committed to continually improving what we do off the field as well as on so any suggestions or feedback will always be welcome and I will feed them into the operation. Feel free to comment here, send me a private message or email- timothyalun@gmail.com Thanks, TG

Hi everyone, Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to comment on this thread or send me a message, it is very much appreciated and I will be going through these suggestions to come up with a few actions to take forward. To address one point, the car park isn't controlled by us but the University Club who run the car park and bar on matchdays. Also the fixture 'hole' should hopefully be addressed with the new structure. As a club we are committed to continually improving what we do off the field as well as on so any suggestions or feedback will always be welcome and I will feed them into the operation. Feel free to comment here, send me a private message or email- timothyalun@gmail.com Thanks, TG