Hi Kinley,

Last Fridays draw had 779 members in as paid. We've lost roughly 200 members in 2 years. 800 x £2 a week is £1600. Take off the prize money, bank charges and licence fees for running it and the surplus is donated to the YDP.

That's quite a drop Ant.
Personally I think the whole scheme has been half d from the beginning.
Many people felt duped at the time "biggest announcement in the clubs history" to be sold a lottery scheme.
That followed up by the clubs failure to communicate the scheme with any conviction or interest.
In my opinion it certainly needs a new lease of life (hopefully that will be you) and the whole thing needs rethinking from start to finish and particular attention paid to the marketing and contact aspects.
The idea of giving a small amount of money in order to promote junior/youth development at the club should be one that in theory is an easy sell to supporters add onto that you can win some money and it becomes very very interesting.
Looking at the decline in sales compared to the increase in sales of season tickets shows how badly administered this scheme had been and how the clubs eye is well and truly off the ball (if its ever truthfully been on it) on this one.
Good luck!'

It's good to see someone from the club finally talking about this - good on you Ant for taking time to do that.

As has already been said though, I think the club needs to do much more to publicise what the money is actually used for; since it began, I've repeatedly suggested a regular report on funds coming in, what they've been spent on and how it's benefitted young players - it would also be good to hear real life stories from players, their parents and the coaching staff, to bring the whole thing to life.

It's good that you're here and I hope your plans have some positive effects, but I think you're going to struggle to increase participation without some willingness to demonstrate tangible benefits to the youth development programme at the club.

I say all this by the way, as someone who signed up on the night it was launched and has paid in ever since.

I can only echo what's already been said, that the lack of information about the scheme has hurt it, badly. Like Bren has said before regular feedback about the ins and outs of Club 1873 is a must and real life stories of what the scheme has done for the young lads would be interesting to hear about and also put a face on what we're doing.

If you count places like Ossett, Horbury, Wrenthorpe, Outwood, Sandal and other suburbs of Wakefield where people define themselves as being from Wakefield the population is about 240K mark.

Anyway great to see you're on here and working on raising the profile of what is a very good idea.

I signed up from day one. 1873 take my money but to this day I don't know if I'm entered in to draws and when you get people ringing from the club asking you to join just tells me how shoddy it is. Can you supply a list of members names to view ??

I'm in the same boat pay for two memberships by standing order with full amount being taken in one go in July each year. Had three calls in last 12 months each time said I was already in and they had had my money and each time, I had to spend time liking back through bank statements to confirm when it was paid. I still haven't a clue whether I have been entered in any draws for the last 12 months despite having paid 200 quid upfront. It would be good if we could pm our names and obtain confirmation from the new bloke

Quote: WTW Lottery Dept "Hi Everyone, Just thought I'd come on and introduce myself. Im Ant, I'm the the clubs new Lottery Manager and have been brought here to really push Club 1873 and drive more revenue in to the clubs youth development programme so we can keep up the good work they're already doing. I can't do it on my own though, and this is why I came on here to appeal for your support. Some of you may already be in Club 1873 but for those of you that aren't I'll give you a brief outline of how it works and how you can join. It was setup exactly 2 years ago this week and originally a massive 1,000 of you signed up. For a £2 a week stake you get to pick 4 numbers between 1 and 31 and this is normally payable by standing order straight from your bank. You can download a standing order form here This is where we have dedicated supporters spare a couple of hours during a week to walk around a specific area where a number of Club 1873 members will already be waiting for you with their £2 a week. I do all the 'cold calling' before hand, so there is no selling for you to do! In return, supporters will receive between 10% and 20% in expenses for their time and also receive A FREE SEASON TICKET if you collect 50 or more each week. Collectors don’t necessarily have to be supporters, it can be anyone who just wants to earn a little bit of extra cash in the evenings. Anyone who is interested in the first instance, make yourself known by replying to this message. Let’s show everyone how well this can work! If you could then send me a quick email with your details on to Ant thats been done before, maybe under a different name but we had a door to door man for years.

Quote: WTW Lottery Dept "Hi Everyone, Just thought I'd come on and introduce myself. Im Ant, I'm the the clubs new Lottery Manager and have been brought here to really push Club 1873 and drive more revenue in to the clubs youth development programme so we can keep up the good work they're already doing. I can't do it on my own though, and this is why I came on here to appeal for your support. Some of you may already be in Club 1873 but for those of you that aren't I'll give you a brief outline of how it works and how you can join. It was setup exactly 2 years ago this week and originally a massive 1,000 of you signed up. For a £2 a week stake you get to pick 4 numbers between 1 and 31 and this is normally payable by standing order straight from your bank. You can download a standing order form here This is where we have dedicated supporters spare a couple of hours during a week to walk around a specific area where a number of Club 1873 members will already be waiting for you with their £2 a week. I do all the 'cold calling' before hand, so there is no selling for you to do! In return, supporters will receive between 10% and 20% in expenses for their time and also receive A FREE SEASON TICKET if you collect 50 or more each week. Collectors don’t necessarily have to be supporters, it can be anyone who just wants to earn a little bit of extra cash in the evenings. Anyone who is interested in the first instance, make yourself known by replying to this message. Let’s show everyone how well this can work! If you could then send me a quick email with your details on to Ant thats been done before, maybe under a different name but we had a door to door man for years.

That's why I asked if there was a list, But to be honest I wouldn't trust them just sending my name for them to say yes your still in the draw so then you just accept it. But if a members list was available to see and your name wasn't on it then you want a refund of all monies paid.

I felt duped and insulted in the way this lottery was launched so I decided not to subscribe for those initial reasons.
However after a month or so I calmed down and considered signing up, but by this time it was obvious the scheme was having problems. I therefore decided to hang on whilst all the problems got sorted. To this day I am still waiting.

I also agree with comment from other posters in that such schemes should be transparent and show what percentage of your subscription actually ends up in youth development.

I've been in since day 1 and won a 20 quid voucher for the Indian restaurant. Happy to help the club but would like confirmation that I'm in the draw every week.

I've been in since day one, joined as season tickets are so cheap, I've won 20 quid. One thing simple thing that made me feel involved, and stopped me from dropping out was asking for confirmation of my membership, the club sent me a membership card with my details and numbers on, seems a small thing (and is) but everyone in the lottery should get one without asking. It means i can see my numbers not come out, just like that other lottery i send my money to for little financial gain.
An idea to expand it might be to combine the season ticket membership and lottery membership in some way, call it being a dreadnought (or something equally as cheesy) give us a special hat/scarf or something that can't be bought separately, offer an extra discount and charge us appropriately for the privilege of being special.

My wife won the £250 the other week and my mate at work won the £2000 prize.

Confidentiality would mean that you should not be able to see the full list of names, why should an individual be able to ascertain whether BigAl, TRB, Sandalcat, Trinity61 etc are contributors to the scheme.
ps in order to protect their identities, the foregoing are not real people, they are actors and their voices have been dubbed.

I think you may be ott here Disney.
I think that if the people running the draw confirm that you are in, then that has to be good enough.
Why would they want to take YOUR cash and not include you.
FWIW, I've had calls asking me to buy a season ticket but, I already have one.
IIRC, you should have received a letter at the outset, confirming your numbers, which also gave a membership number.
Then if you check the draw each week, you should know if you have been lucky.
Equally, if the letter went astray, the new guy should be able to confirm all these details for you.

If it makes you feel any better, I know a couple of people that have won one of the consolation prizes, so the draw is certainly functioning.

The Saturday Yankee? Seem to remember I was in it back in the 90s.