: Tue Jun 02, 2009 6:44 pm  

Halifax RLFC wrote:

the most powerful tool we have to increase the crowd is the current crowd. . if everyone of us brought just one more person the crowd would be almost double

if some people dont know when games are, perhaps we could collect them and bring them along

i think that, the last couple of games apart, anyone coming for the first time for a long time would enjoy the watching the way the team is playing right now

free kids tickets is a difficult one. . . over the last four seasons we've given away thousands and thousands . . have they helped the crowd increase?. . i'm sure so . . but not in correlation to the numbers we've printed and passed out.

we all will know of kids who have started coming along, theres lots more of them now (the junior cheerleaders are an example)

we've done kids for a quid most of the season, but when we have to increase it to £5 for a shared gate cup match, we gets lots of folks moaning that we've put the prices up!!!

And its still troubling that we have only hit 3000 a couple of times this season and we're winning


as previous posters have said god help us if we got into super league and started losing. . the 3000+ would i'm sure rapidly reduce back to the 1500


its a real problem. . . perhaps summer rugby has put the mockers on our game. especially if as promised global warming ends up with us having proper summers again!!! everyone will be bar b quing and off to the coast

I think there are plenty of good points here but not entirely down to the crowd although I think they have an important part to play I believe our most powerful marketing tool is the players. I wish we could afford more fulltimers to send them out and about around town.They have already started to turn things around on the pitch but it takes time to build the trust back up after years of people being disapointed.

: Tue Jun 02, 2009 6:57 pm  

if every one of us brought just one more person the crowd would be almost double

If EVERYONE brought 1 more then it surely would be EXACTLY double Mike lol?!

I agree though, more needs to be done in town, such as the halicat and brew's idea.

I hate to suggest things like this but whats to stop us going out there and poaching fans, advertise IN Hudds, bradford, keighley etc (re-poach in the first two case), we've lost 2000-3000 fans in 5 years somewhere, they haven't just gone missing, they more than likely visit the Galpharm or Odsal on a weekly basis now - its not very 'sporting' or fair to, but its a dog eat dog world at the end of the day and if this mean improving us, and/or our fan base then it should be done, and done now whilst we are winning games.....

: Tue Jun 02, 2009 7:09 pm  

Halifax RLFC wrote:

the most powerful tool we have to increase the crowd is the current crowd. . if everyone of us brought just one more person the crowd would be almost double

if some people dont know when games are, perhaps we could collect them and bring them along

i think that, the last couple of games apart, anyone coming for the first time for a long time would enjoy the watching the way the team is playing right now

free kids tickets is a difficult one. . . over the last four seasons we've given away thousands and thousands . . have they helped the crowd increase?. . i'm sure so . . but not in correlation to the numbers we've printed and passed out.

we all will know of kids who have started coming along, theres lots more of them now (the junior cheerleaders are an example)

we've done kids for a quid most of the season, but when we have to increase it to £5 for a shared gate cup match, we gets lots of folks moaning that we've put the prices up!!!

And its still troubling that we have only hit 3000 a couple of times this season and we're winning


as previous posters have said god help us if we got into super league and started losing. . the 3000+ would i'm sure rapidly reduce back to the 1500


its a real problem. . . perhaps summer rugby has put the mockers on our game. especially if as promised global warming ends up with us having proper summers again!!! everyone will be bar b quing and off to the coast

Just sounds a bit negative.

How about a night with the speccies down the shay, if we get a lot of fans down we could an ideas night.
Making sure the ideas flourish.

: Tue Jun 02, 2009 7:12 pm  

why dont we bring back the take that tribute act to get em packing in?

: Tue Jun 02, 2009 7:15 pm  

Talking of players, ive just been reading a report put together by Frank Watene on the work the players do in the Community

This year 1500 schoolkids will take part in Mission Nutrition a healthy eating programme being delivered to every school in calderdale

TAG RL festivals. . again 1500 school kids already taking part in this

Black History week . . . Frank plus Bluebase are putting together a learning through Rugby project which will archive the involvement of Black and Ethnic people in the history of Rugby league. It will include youngsters from a number of different Calderdale schools taking part.

Northern Rail Cup taken on a schools tour by Ben and Frank

Haka day at North Bridge recently. . . 30/40 folks learning the Haka

Summer schools holiday programme. . . lots of Skills and drills for many Calderdale schoolkids throughout the 6 weeks holidays

Fostering . . . Players involvement with Calderdale Fostering Campaign

Adult health . . . involvement with Mens health forum

Cheerleading. . . approx 60 junior cheerleaders now have regular tutition from the Club

Youth Media development. . . Calderhigh school take pics at games will be interviewing players will be putting on podcasts, have involved RL refereees, Huddersfield university,

Disability sports . . . players helped train/launch Halifax Wheelchair RL team

These are just the key programmes that YOUR players are involved with every day of the week. Mainly its Frank with Ben Shad Said and Rob taking up most of this work

n addition so far this year the players have made almost 50 personal appearances at Junior RL clubs, at Fund Raising events, for hospices, hospitals etc Theres another 19 such appearances due this month with the Gala next week

The point I'm trying to make is that theres a huge amount of PR / community work undertaken by the Clubs players. .often it doesnt appear in the Courier (generally cos it happens too often to be newsworthy) so many fans probably have no idea of just how involved in Calderdale OUR players are

And then of course we are training at least three times a week and more often than not four times. . . so part time they may be, but we get extraordinarily good value from them

mike

: Tue Jun 02, 2009 7:18 pm  

if you know of a way to get the fans down for an ideas night perhaps we could use that way to get them to games!!!

joking!!!

: Tue Jun 02, 2009 7:39 pm  

Why can't you put reports of the work the players do onto the club website, Mike? That way, we'd all know how much work they are doing. I know that the Haka event was on there, but what about everything else?

: Tue Jun 02, 2009 8:28 pm  

TheWorldFamousSammyO wrote:

If EVERYONE brought 1 more then it surely would be EXACTLY double Mike lol?!

I agree though, more needs to be done in town, such as the halicat and brew's idea.

I hate to suggest things like this but whats to stop us going out there and poaching fans, advertise IN Hudds, bradford, keighley etc (re-poach in the first two case), we've lost 2000-3000 fans in 5 years somewhere, they haven't just gone missing, they more than likely visit the Galpharm or Odsal on a weekly basis now - its not very 'sporting' or fair to, but its a dog eat dog world at the end of the day and if this mean improving us, and/or our fan base then it should be done, and done now whilst we are winning games.....

There was nothing "sporting or fair" about the way Bradford pinched our crowds and they started with the kids.I know that for a fact as I answered the phone at my school (Sowerby Bridge area) many years ago it was Bradford offering to send the Bully Roadshow to the school so they wanted to know when the school gala was. They were going to send a couple of players free tickets and Bully.I declined and said they should not be poaching from our school as we were Halifax area. Plenty of schools did take them up on it as the Courier was full of the pictures for weeks.

This one you will not believe but is perfectly true, a few weeks back the same school where I am still involved sent me an invite to go along one afternoon to a special event run by Huddersfield Town they brought along a pair of goals and a development lad from Hudderfield ran a sponsored penalty shoot out.The kids at school took the sponsorship forms home and they raised over £900 and the proffesional football club took HALF OF IT.

Then a week or two after they all got special invites through the school for the Giants game I was in the playground when the kids were coming out and the invites were not even free they were just a cheaper price .But guess what the kids were asking their mums if they could go so the families were organising themselves into driving rotas and the like.My grandchildren were deciding who they were traveling with as well and they have Fax season tickets I was furious as we had a match that day. Thankfully they did not go but plenty did.
So don`t feel guilty nobody else does .

: Tue Jun 02, 2009 8:29 pm  

furthermore, what about the new website that has been promised, but delivery is still outstanding. My friend saw this in working order back in march, yet it still hasn't been released.

The current one is sub standard.

You'll be amazed how much a decent web presence can increase your publicity

: Tue Jun 02, 2009 8:31 pm  

Dog eat dog. Used to get offered tons of freebies for both Wigan clubs at school and, unfortunately, many others didn't have the same strength of mind to stick with their hometown club.