ConnachtCows wrote: Seems to be a theme here. The Branch need to get behind us, or its going to be a much larger struggle to get numbers up. How often do you see someone new post, and then continue to post?

These are just off the top of my head, and probably terrible ideas, but no harm in throwing them out there

Thanks CC. There is a need for closer cooperation between us and Connacht Rugby alright, but to be fair to them they are pretty under-staffed themselves, and as Dec pointed out they have some bigger fish to fry than getting the supporter's club sorted out. I agree with him that perhaps we can re-engage with them once the new CEO is in and the current headlessness has abated.

rossie wrote: Mrsc and leinsters supporters club work closely with their respective branches throughout the season. Both have their own bars within the grounds etc. Mrsc are responsible for season ticket sales to its members and the sale of international tickets, away tickets etc as well as organising and distributing flags on match day and fundraising for the acadamy.
Munster branch do not recognise the forums though and they are separate from mrsc. Afaik so is babbling brook. The branches do not like forums as they can be over critical of performance, indivuduals etc. The relationship may be better if the supporters club was separated from the forum. It doesnt mean that members cant contribute/post just that they do so as individuals not as official supporters club members.
I work with a former all ireland winner and intercounty manager. He often angrily refers to the faceless masses on internet forums hiding behind nicknames.

sure eamon o hara doesnt he use a forum, didnt he go on radio and tv? :evil:

This forum is doing wonders for the connacht branch, i can see not being giving out about players on there facebook page as they are selling a brand, but if you ask them a question on facebook, they arent in too much of a hurry to reply.
imagine if this forum wasnt there, imagine the branch answering calls from 300 people asking about tickets in parma, 350 for tickets in toulouse and 500+ for asking same questions re saracens.
this is a great place for information and the branch should see that

Decadence wrote: There are some good suggestions here, but in my opinion we need to be a little more realistic about where sit in the priorities of the big wheels at Connacht Rugby at the moment. At times we have struggled to get them to deliver on some of the basic things that we have asked of them, putting up decorations in the bar, getting players for post match interviews, giving us access to the bar etc. There are some very helpful people there but that doesn't always extend throughout the entire organisation.

Now I'm not suggesting for a minute that we stop trying, I think we should bring all of this up with them before next season. Who knows what approach the new CEO will bring. I'm just trying to inform people's expectations based on what I've seen over my two seasons on the committee.

That's cool, I was just throwing out ideas as they came into my head.
I definitely see the benefit of separating the forum from the Supporters Club, as I can see why the branch cant be seen to be connected to it. All it takes is one post from someone in here, and lots of trouble could be caused. It's the reason official sports teams (not to my knowledge) dont use forums, and why newspaper websites and like, moderate comments on articles

Mrsc and leinsters supporters club work closely with their respective branches throughout the season. Both have their own bars within the grounds etc. Mrsc are responsible for season ticket sales to its members and the sale of international tickets, away tickets etc as well as organising and distributing flags on match day and fundraising for the acadamy.
Munster branch do not recognise the forums though and they are separate from mrsc. Afaik so is babbling brook. The branches do not like forums as they can be over critical of performance, indivuduals etc. The relationship may be better if the supporters club was separated from the forum. It doesnt mean that members cant contribute/post just that they do so as individuals not as official supporters club members.
I work with a former all ireland winner and intercounty manager. He often angrily refers to the faceless masses on internet forums hiding behind nicknames.

Really going point from ConnachtCows on the pub events imo.
Details about the pubs showing games will be particularly important next season as more of our games will be on tv via Sky so there should be a lot more interest in going to a Clan event, could really help improve exposure, membership, events, etc. if the clan can get a strategy together for it.

I realize the fixtures aren't out yet but assuming higher numbers can be achieved other things suggested here like half-time raffle, quizzes, etc could be run during televised away games and could cross promote one another.

There are some good suggestions here, but in my opinion we need to be a little more realistic about where sit in the priorities of the big wheels at Connacht Rugby at the moment. At times we have struggled to get them to deliver on some of the basic things that we have asked of them, putting up decorations in the bar, getting players for post match interviews, giving us access to the bar etc. There are some very helpful people there but that doesn't always extend throughout the entire organisation.

Now I'm not suggesting for a minute that we stop trying, I think we should bring all of this up with them before next season. Who knows what approach the new CEO will bring. I'm just trying to inform people's expectations based on what I've seen over my two seasons on the committee.

These are my rambling ideas, feel free to discuss, ridicule, implement

1. Consider changing the name of the Supporters Club. People who dont know about the Supporters Club often hear talk of the Connacht Clan, and mistake the name for the Clan Bar/Stand
A simple name like The Official Connacht Rugby Supporters Club leave people in no doubt

2. The branch need to get more involved. Simple things, like when James Heaslip is out in front of the crowd before the game, get him to mention the Supporters Club.
Get them to announce Supporter Club events.
Whats the point in the Clan organising to show matches in The Dail, while Connacht are promoting Massimos. Connacht should be pushing the same agenda as us
Imagine there been a break in the game with 10 minutes to go, and an announcemtncomes over the intercom, telling all the fans in the stadium, that nexts weeks match will be shown live in The Dail, in association with the Official Connacht Supporters Club

3. There needs to be more exposure about what you guys do, and again, the branch need to get involved. They should be telling everyone about away trips been planned. The Ospreys game is a prime example. Why aren't they tweeting, facebooking, posting something on the website, telling all fans, that a number of Connacht fans are travelling over to the game. All they need to do is post a link to the thread.
Their Facebook page has 46,447 likes, and they have 23,000 followers on Twitter. Surely between these two mediums, they could get us more fans in here

4. I think you should be pestering the branch for free gifts. They should be donating memorabilia to the Clan Bar.

Seems to be a theme here. The Branch need to get behind us, or its going to be a much larger struggle to get numbers up. How often do you see someone new post, and then continue to post?

These are just off the top of my head, and probably terrible ideas, but no harm in throwing them out there

pinky wrote: I agree with Rossie's suggestion about including Clan membership with the season ticket and having the option to sign up separately also. That would be the ideal but I think there are issues with getting the branch to agree to that. I could be wrong but I think that was the outcome last time it was discussed.

There are issues and this is certainly off the table for this season. We can attempt to address this again when the structure at Connacht are a little bit more stable though.

pinky wrote: Away travel. This improved a lot this season, mainly due to Fourdogs. It will be a greater challenge next season without the Heineken Cup. I would re-iterate the need for an away travel co-ordinator to try to work with the branch and with Keller's, etc. re tickets, charter flights and so on, drum up numbers for away trips, organise ground transport at the other end, contact incoming supporters, etc. If Fourdogs won't take the post, I'd volunteer to be his puppet.

That would be great and you guys would have pretty much free rein on that. If you want both of you can be "official travel coordinators", no probs. Email me about it and we can see if we can't get you setup with contacts in Connacht Rugby directly.

Hey lads,

Great ideas.

Regarding membership: Tracking paid membership and sending out membership cards/prizes takes time and effort. In the first season we used a crowd who provided a platform for signing up. These guys cost money and charged for all transactions as well. On top of that we needed to chase them up to get the money transferred to setup merchandise options etc... This took a good amount of time. Plus we had to mail out the membership letters and pins by hand.
Previously Connacht STHs were automatically members of the Connacht Clan, but I don't think that that really worked. However we could see if we can target them with some emails encouraging them to join us here.
Since giving up on paid membership we have had a working premise since that members of the forum are considered "real" members. There is a facility to email users of the site which we have been lax in utilising, and I think that we could use that more to drive users back to the site. For example a weekly/monthly newsletter with "most popular topics", "planned trips", "Clan events" etc... Preferably we can setup the site to automatically generate one and this is something we can look at during the upgrade.

Away Travel: I agree that having 4D and Pinky doing travel articles and looking into options has been a great addition. Pinky has also signed up as an extra admin here to help out as well, which is great. We would love to have an official travel co-ordinator, but unfortunately no one is willing to take that on at the minute. If anyone IS interested please let us know!
Paid/chartered away trips are hard to get right. We have had success with small buses to Thomond Park (including a great trip this year ), but no other trip has really worked out. Remember that the professional Keller and Farrell travel agents have both (at different times) tried to get that to work and failed. Those are two companies with paid employees doing this full time. I am not trying to be a naysayer here, I had the same ideas when I signed on back in 2011, but time and again the travel agents, Connacht and Connacht Clan have failed to get enough people to sign up for a chartered trip.
We will continue with the Munster trips, and hopefully 4Dogs and Pinky will continue their great volunteer work in getting options out there for non-chartered trips.

Finances: We have not had _much_ trouble there. We have generated enough money through sponsorship and events to keep the site running, and even have enough to improve the bar, cover costs of prizes and even make donations to charity (the table quiz money was all donated to Hand In Hand). My main worry is that the sponsorship money is being given to us on the basis that we can bring supporters to watch matches, which is not always the case.

As mentioned the key thing that we are short on is time and manpower. Over the season we have 5 people on the committee, with different people able to contribute at different times. Most of the time three or so would be available at one time. Having 3/4 more people would really help us out.

Anyways that is the history of why we are where we are, and what has influenced the decisions so far. The key point though is that NONE of the above is set in stone. We will definitely re-visit all of these points and re-assess how we can do things better.
If you want to be involved in helping make these decisions please come to the AGM and/or join the committee. It really is just a meeting or two a month (albeit with lots of emails and some informal gatherings pre/post matches).

pinky wrote: With the season coming to a close, I thought I'd get a thread going on ideas for the Clan for next season, especially things that we could work on in the off-season.
My own suggestions:

<li>Away travel. This improved a lot this season, mainly due to Fourdogs. It will be a greater challenge next season without the Heineken Cup. I would re-iterate the need for an away travel co-ordinator to try to work with the branch and with Keller's, etc. re tickets, charter flights and so on, drum up numbers for away trips, organise ground transport at the other end, contact incoming supporters, etc. If Fourdogs won't take the post, I'd volunteer to be his puppet.</li>

Pinky

We could do a "Good cop, Bad cop" partnership. (you being the "Good Cop" of course) Think if there were 2 of us working with the Branch and/or Keller's officially on behalf of the Clan we might get somewhere.

Branch only did away tickets for HCup games and usually ended up being given Crap seat locations, we managed reasonable seats for the Sarries game when we did it ourselves.

We even managed to convince AS to let us have the Big flag, so there may be a bit more willingness to engage with us next year. No HCup will probably mean less people looking to travel.

pinky wrote: Are finances an issue? I really didn't think they were. At last AGM the committee were looking for suggestions on how to spend money, so I assumed our balance sheet was looking OK, but I could be wrong.

Sorry Pinky, I keep coming across like I'm unable to read your posts :oops:
Ignore me

Finances are not REALLY an issue, but that's more down to our only real overhead being serve maintenance. That said, most of the things that we've done this year have been revenue neutral at best (the bus, the table quiz, the bar work, the PA in the bar, the fleeces etc.) That said, the more cash we take in the more we can do with it.

I agree with Rossie's suggestion about including Clan membership with the season ticket and having the option to sign up separately also. That would be the ideal but I think there are issues with getting the branch to agree to that. I could be wrong but I think that was the outcome last time it was discussed.

Had big long reply here, which the site ate.

General tenor was: great ideas, keep em coming. Membership is a good idea, but logistically a nightmare of the highest order, but defo considering it. Planning trips is great, but centrally booking them have been unsucessful (in the main).

Do keep the ideas coming.

Are finances an issue? I really didn't think they were. At last AGM the committee were looking for suggestions on how to spend money, so I assumed our balance sheet was looking OK, but I could be wrong.