Fans' forum updates

[Jon Palmer]

You can follow it here this evening: http://bit.ly/RobinsWall" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[I-Love-CTFC]

Yates says he doesn't know his best team and he's still searching for that elusive winning formula. Sounds familiar! It doesn't sound like he's learnt anything from previous seasons.

[rasta]

have been to 4 or 5 fans forums and was by far the best, feisty at times from the fans and PB. good!

[London Exile]

In fairness to MY he didn't shy away from answering the questions and neither did PB regarding ticket prices.
The last couple of forums I've been too I think good has come out of it and hopefully the same will apply tonight. The marketing guy is keen to hear from supporters with ideas and also hopefully the club might look into the cut off age or free admission with younger supporters (currently 11 yo)

[rasta]

ref; Junior Robins, some of us think the club has slipped up in dropping the age to 11 from 13 for free entry, there has been a big marketing push for Junior Robins which has been very successful.

What will happen when these youngster reach 11 do they stop coming and their paying parents to, we need to keep these fans on board for as long as possible. It may be to costly to just up the age to 16 but what we could do is increase the age by one year every season until we get to 16, then charge £5 to £7.

The Youth fan base is the future of this club, look around the ground, us old git's will need replacing and soon

[London Exile]

It would be interesting to know how many 12-18 year old ST holders there are?
Looking at the ticket pricing a ST for this age group costs (based on the early bird offer) between £100 - £145. Matchday admission is £7 seated and £5 terrace.
If the club was to increase the age of free admission from 11 up to 16 hopefully there wouldn't be too much of a revenue hole to plug and maybe this could be partially offset by finding a sponsor for the junior robins group? (Assuming there isn't already a sponsor)

[51/84]

PB said that to do that would cost £50K and it would have to be found somewhere else

I just dont believe that figure if the kids are paying £7 then that means we have 310 11-16 year olds (10% of the crowd - PB you are kidding)
How many junior Robins are there

[London Exile]

Free admission for under 16's would be great but even if finance dictates we have to leave it free for U 11's only then perhaps we should create a new concession group for 12-16 year olds and perhaps have a ST offer of £50 for them and matchday prices of £5 maximum for anywhere in the home supporters sections.
It still an income but maybe one that parents/pocket money could digest easier?

[Flux]

I have been a believer in a 2 tier Junior Robin section
Current system free admission upto 11
then implementing a second stage for 11-16 where as a member they pay £1-£2 per game (with possibly a few low category games a season being free to them too)
That way I think you can keep them engaged with the club at a very minimal amount to them

I have 3 boys all are/were in the Junior Robins my eldest has stopped coming now he is 11 as he doesn't want me paying for him to watch football (he's not that bothered about the game anymore) even though I would willing pay for him and his friend to come along if they wanted too. His 2 younger brothers one is 7 and comes every week he doesn't quite get football but sees it as dad and son time the youngest is 5 and wants to play playstation or watch TV most of the time but turns up when he wants.

Im sure other parents have the same issues that once their JR reaches 11 they no longer get free entry and have to pay to watch which puts the price up considerably for a family but maybe a £1/£2 charge might help keep them longer.

[RegencyCheltenhamSpa]

PB said that to do that would cost £50K and it would have to be found somewhere else

I just dont believe that figure if the kids are paying £7 then that means we have 310 11-16 year olds (10% of the crowd - PB you are kidding)
How many junior Robins are there

I imagine it's an estimate using membership data rather than attendance data. I doubt they know the breakdown of who attends games. They probably look on the database, see how many are aged 11 and then calculate how much it would cost them to come to games aged 12 next season.

[51/84]

How many are in Junior Robins
The club should be able to calculate how many over 11s to 16s it had as Junior Robins
I suppose giving a 100 kids free membership could meant aht there are 400+ in the group 11- 16, but I bet if they checked that group then not 400+ turn up on match day.
Some will some will not
Those that turn up spend on catering etc ( not CTFC income) but the point from last night is that they are the future
How many there last night started watching football after 16 or even after 11

[RegencyCheltenhamSpa]

Yes I agree with you.

[rasta]

on the plus side you no longer have to pay £25 to be a junior robin

[Benctfc]

I couldn't attend last night but from what other have said it seems MY spoke well however PB's answers were very poor. Especially the ones about the ticket pricing issue it seemed he dismissed it and was a bit disrespectful to the season ticket holders only seeing them as customers. End of the day as soon as we start losing these fans the club is in big trouble.

[leohoenig]

I think your analysis from afar is poor, Ben
Yates is not a great public speaker (as has been pointed out in criticism of some of the interviews), and this showed particularly at the start talking about Byron Harrison. He always comes across as honest though

As chairman, PB should think of the supporters as customers. Customers choose where to take their custom and for non-essential items they choose whether to buy it or not. PB's biggest problem when asked (by a supporter who will miss Saturday) why he should come to the game, he said because you are fans (or words to that effect). In other words a tacit acceptance that what is on sale does not necessarily constitute good value for money. He should have said, (and to some extent he did correct this), that you should come because there is a fantastic match in prospect, with a real chance of the underdogs (i.e. us) pulling off a shock result against the big spenders in the division above. It was a real test for PB that some people who thought he has got this wrong stood up and said their piece, and declared here that they were not coming on Saturday. These were a minority but it gives the board food for thought.
I think that it will be proof the board got it wrong if either
1) The crowd is low - under 3000
2) Cheltenham are outnumbered, or have only marginally more support

I think I will be shown wrong if the crowd is above 4000, including 2500 home fans.

[Alf]

One post on the 'Forum on Thursday' topic states something along the lines of 'The marketing guy is keen to hear from supporters with ideas'. Is this a paid job? If so, is it not the main part of his job to come up with ideas to improve the marketing of the club, including ticket sales? It is, of course, right that he should listen to the ideas of the supporters but judging by the comments on this topic there appears to be problems with the marketing of tickets and the advertising of games.
The whole point of advertising is to attract those people who may think about going to a game but are not going to spend time looking for the info on line. Advertising has to be where the majority of people can see it, not just in a programme or on the Robins website. That is not going to reach the ill informed masses.
Goodness knows, we get enough Pizza Delivery and Curry House flyers through our letter boxes so presumably that sort of advertising works or the small businesses that do it wouldn't bother. Also the cost cannot be that prohibitive or these small local businesses couldn't afford to do it.

[Nesty]

As someone said the other day, its all very well organising fund raising events - but if you dont advertise it then nobody turns up. I cannot keep making the same point - only a small % of our fan base have internet access (yes its probably growing) and/or buy the Echo and/or listen to local radio.

The best way to hit people is at the turnstyles.

I also mentioned last night about seating tickets being "sit anywhere" apart from ST's to make it easier to have special offers

[DingDing]

I'd imagine one of the more difficult things for the marketing team of the club is not knowing who the people buying tickets actually are.

If you're a season ticket holder they'll have your info, if you buy online they'll also have your info. If you just walk in and buy a ticket once from the club shop or turnstiles you're never asked your name and address / added to a database. Yes, it would slow down the ticket buying process massively to gather this information - so maybe you have to incentivise this to get people to do it online or something, some clubs offer £2 for buying early etc, probably with this in mind.

If they had that information they'd be able to target people who've been in the past year but not come back etc. with incentives, knowing they're interested but just choosing not to return. They'd also be able to carry out postal campaigns/leaflet drops on houses they know don't come to games with a different type of incentive.

Lots of options once you know who's actually coming...

[London Exile]

One post on the 'Forum on Thursday' topic states something along the lines of 'The marketing guy is keen to hear from supporters with ideas'. Is this a paid job? If so, is it not the main part of his job to come up with ideas to improve the marketing of the club, including ticket sales? It is, of course, right that he should listen to the ideas of the supporters but judging by the comments on this topic there appears to be problems with the marketing of tickets and the advertising of games.
The whole point of advertising is to attract those people who may think about going to a game but are not going to spend time looking for the info on line. Advertising has to be where the majority of people can see it, not just in a programme or on the Robins website. That is not going to reach the ill informed masses.
Goodness knows, we get enough Pizza Delivery and Curry House flyers through our letter boxes so presumably that sort of advertising works or the small businesses that do it wouldn't bother. Also the cost cannot be that prohibitive or these small local businesses couldn't afford to do it.

That might've been me Alf. Tim Cordell is the marketing chap and he is voluntary

[leohoenig]

Tim Cordell is the new marketing guy, and he is doing it as an unpaid position. I thought he was very enthusiastic - I have said he needs to make sure his e-mail address is included in the write up, or is a permanent feature on the web site

[Alf]

Thanks for pointing this out, I assumed (wrongly) that it was a full time post. Apologies to Tim and I wish him luck. Anyway, my suggestion is flyers ( either postbox drops or handed out in town ) possibly four times a season with up and coming fixtures. Possibly sponsored by a local company to cut costs.

[Malabus]

Fixture posters being handed out to the main large companies in Cheltenham/Gloucester to put up in their staff rooms.

[DingDing]

People who like football know we have a football team - putting in an offer with those company posters might entice people, but the information on it's own probably won't.

[hEaLeR]

I think your analysis from afar is poor, Ben
Yates is not a great public speaker (as has been pointed out in criticism of some of the interviews), and this showed particularly at the start talking about Byron Harrison. He always comes across as honest though

As chairman, PB should think of the supporters as customers. Customers choose where to take their custom and for non-essential items they choose whether to buy it or not. PB's biggest problem when asked (by a supporter who will miss Saturday) why he should come to the game, he said because you are fans (or words to that effect). In other words a tacit acceptance that what is on sale does not necessarily constitute good value for money. He should have said, (and to some extent he did correct this), that you should come because there is a fantastic match in prospect, with a real chance of the underdogs (i.e. us) pulling off a shock result against the big spenders in the division above. It was a real test for PB that some people who thought he has got this wrong stood up and said their piece, and declared here that they were not coming on Saturday. These were a minority but it gives the board food for thought.
I think that it will be proof the board got it wrong if either
1) The crowd is low - under 3000
2) Cheltenham are outnumbered, or have only marginally more support

I think I will be shown wrong if the crowd is above 4000, including 2500 home fans.

I think what Baker showed (my opinion) is that he's starting not to be bothered what fans think and he'll do what he and the board thinks is best. I've posted elsewhere that I think that PB is the best chairman we'll probably ever have and that he's done wonders for the club. I feel he's starting to lose touch with what I percive as being right.

Season ticket holders had the right to ask why we are being charged more for games and why Swindon fans are taking their seats. I felt this was answered very abruptly. At the end of the day, if you keep annoying season ticket holders no matter how small a number who might have greviences this will become a far bigger problem not just now but at the start of next season when season ticket renewals are up.

The Junior robins are the future of the club and we have done very well with the current scheme but I totally agreed with one of the posters on this board who said at the forum that we need to look at the ticketing gap between U12-U16. It's not up to individuals to come up with the solutions on their own. It's a collective thing. The Robins Trust is a good way forward and I implore them to champion this.

[joes dad]

Fixture posters being handed out to the main large companies in Cheltenham/Gloucester to put up in their staff rooms.

Good shout Mal.
I am a sales rep.covering all the large & small firms in Glos area
and would gladly put posters everywhere I could.

[51/84]

i have supplied email address to the club on a number of occasions but now never get emails
There was little empathy from baker with the problems over tickets and pricing and seats
He made statements that were challenged but he didnt even respond with I will look into it and get back to you
I felt he has over the last 12 months gone from being approachable to being Im right sod you
If you dont like it go elsewhere and they have done

I do believe he is looking for away out but when he gets offers he changes his mind

The club have no debts other than to him and other shareholders
The trust is still seen by him as a money cow and he will get another 50K soon from them

I have been a trust member since the start but Baker has only shifted ground as the inevitable is about to happen re supporters director. Meanwhile others who claim to bring expertise turn up on the board without so much as 1 share

[leohoenig]

PB explained his reasons for the prices. You and I do not have to agree with them.
He clearly did not know that people were being moved out of their seats, and agreed that they should have been informed directly (not after queuing for tickets). Once you have admitted the mistake, apologised and promised not to make the same error again, I do not know what else could have been done at this forum. He could not announce a reduction in prices, or more the segregation boundary.
PB has always claimed to support the idea of the trust having a director, subject to the total raised reaching the threshold.

One thing you are forgetting is that at chairman, he is committed to presenting the decisions of the board to the public - even when he has argued differently in the meeting. A fans director, when elected will also have to keep confidences revealed during board meetings and will not be able to come out of the meeting and say, "the board decided this, but I think it is rubbish".

For the record, trust membership of the board is not an end in itself, but a means to achieving the aim of making the board and club take better account of the views of the supporters. As a cash cow, the trust brings in only a limited addition to the budget, welcome as it may be.

It is an exciting time for the trust and hence this would be a good time to join. There is still the chance for people who are not even currently trust members to put themselves forward as directors. We are asking that potential candidates join the trust board, and we will co-opt anyone (even new members) onto the board. We are nine short of the maximum trust board size!

The intention is to have a sign up table in the Thompson & Banks stand on Saturday. We will not have one in the car park unless the forecast for rain turns out to be wrong, but raffle ticket sellers will have membership forms, and you can give filled in forms (find it on the trust web site) with cash to the raffle ticket sellers.

[confused.com]

I think your analysis from afar is poor, Ben
Yates is not a great public speaker (as has been pointed out in criticism of some of the interviews), and this showed particularly at the start talking about Byron Harrison. He always comes across as honest though

As chairman, PB should think of the supporters as customers. Customers choose where to take their custom and for non-essential items they choose whether to buy it or not. PB's biggest problem when asked (by a supporter who will miss Saturday) why he should come to the game, he said because you are fans (or words to that effect). In other words a tacit acceptance that what is on sale does not necessarily constitute good value for money. He should have said, (and to some extent he did correct this), that you should come because there is a fantastic match in prospect, with a real chance of the underdogs (i.e. us) pulling off a shock result against the big spenders in the division above. It was a real test for PB that some people who thought he has got this wrong stood up and said their piece, and declared here that they were not coming on Saturday. These were a minority but it gives the board food for thought.
I think that it will be proof the board got it wrong if either
1) The crowd is low - under 3000
2) Cheltenham are outnumbered, or have only marginally more support

I think I will be shown wrong if the crowd is above 4000, including 2500 home fans.

I think what Baker showed (my opinion) is that he's starting not to be bothered what fans think and he'll do what he and the board thinks is best. I've posted elsewhere that I think that PB is the best chairman we'll probably ever have and that he's done wonders for the club. I feel he's starting to lose touch with what I percive as being right.

Season ticket holders had the right to ask why we are being charged more for games and why Swindon fans are taking their seats. I felt this was answered very abruptly. At the end of the day, if you keep annoying season ticket holders no matter how small a number who might have greviences this will become a far bigger problem not just now but at the start of next season when season ticket renewals are up.

The Junior robins are the future of the club and we have done very well with the current scheme but I totally agreed with one of the posters on this board who said at the forum that we need to look at the ticketing gap between U12-U16. It's not up to individuals to come up with the solutions on their own. It's a collective thing. The Robins Trust is a good way forward and I implore them to champion this.

ST holders losing their seats happens in every club in the country, even at premiership level. So please let us be a bit more mature than to start that one

[hEaLeR]

He clearly did not know that people were being moved out of their seats, and agreed that they should have been informed directly (not after queuing for tickets). Once you have admitted the mistake, apologised and promised not to make the same error again, I do not know what else could have been done at this forum.

Speaking for myself, it didn't feel like a genuine apology.

I fail to see how the club didn't realise this would have been an issue and I think it shows a lack of thought, a bit like the pricing. Bottom line is that this has been done for no other reason than generating money, which I can understand from a business point of view but I don't understand from a customer care point of view (after all we are all customers now and not fans).

I've since found out that the seating segregation goes even further than I imagined. I'd guess around 50-100 fans must be directly effected by this (maybe more). 50-100 fans paying £300+ for season tickets. I'm sure that's worth a few Swindon fans attending one game though.

I didn't even bring up another issue with pricing which I have

The Wycombe pricing on the face of it is a good idea, hopefully it does bring in extra fans and these fans keep coming to games but why the hell are we only reducing prices for the terracing? Is this another slap in the face for fans who sit (or can't stand). Everyone expects to pay more for seats that's not in question, why not reduce the seat prices as well?

Short sighted in my eyes.

Baker can keep going on about reducing the playing budget etc... etc.... but if the trend continues of losing fan numbers he's going to be doing that anyway.

Rant over.

[hEaLeR]

I think your analysis from afar is poor, Ben
Yates is not a great public speaker (as has been pointed out in criticism of some of the interviews), and this showed particularly at the start talking about Byron Harrison. He always comes across as honest though

As chairman, PB should think of the supporters as customers. Customers choose where to take their custom and for non-essential items they choose whether to buy it or not. PB's biggest problem when asked (by a supporter who will miss Saturday) why he should come to the game, he said because you are fans (or words to that effect). In other words a tacit acceptance that what is on sale does not necessarily constitute good value for money. He should have said, (and to some extent he did correct this), that you should come because there is a fantastic match in prospect, with a real chance of the underdogs (i.e. us) pulling off a shock result against the big spenders in the division above. It was a real test for PB that some people who thought he has got this wrong stood up and said their piece, and declared here that they were not coming on Saturday. These were a minority but it gives the board food for thought.
I think that it will be proof the board got it wrong if either
1) The crowd is low - under 3000
2) Cheltenham are outnumbered, or have only marginally more support

I think I will be shown wrong if the crowd is above 4000, including 2500 home fans.

I think what Baker showed (my opinion) is that he's starting not to be bothered what fans think and he'll do what he and the board thinks is best. I've posted elsewhere that I think that PB is the best chairman we'll probably ever have and that he's done wonders for the club. I feel he's starting to lose touch with what I percive as being right.

Season ticket holders had the right to ask why we are being charged more for games and why Swindon fans are taking their seats. I felt this was answered very abruptly. At the end of the day, if you keep annoying season ticket holders no matter how small a number who might have greviences this will become a far bigger problem not just now but at the start of next season when season ticket renewals are up.

The Junior robins are the future of the club and we have done very well with the current scheme but I totally agreed with one of the posters on this board who said at the forum that we need to look at the ticketing gap between U12-U16. It's not up to individuals to come up with the solutions on their own. It's a collective thing. The Robins Trust is a good way forward and I implore them to champion this.

ST holders losing their seats happens in every club in the country, even at premiership level. So please let us be a bit more mature than to start that one

Merry Xmas to you too.

[London Exile]

Just a quick question as a non ST holder, is it made clear at the start of the season where the cut off point is in the Thomson & Bancks stand for segregation?
If not then maybe next summer this is something the club need to make much more clearer, maybe to the point of not selling STs in an area that is subject to changes dependant on away support.

[hEaLeR]

Just a quick question as a non ST holder, is it made clear at the start of the season where the cut off point is in the Thomson & Bancks stand for segregation?
If not then maybe next summer this is something the club need to make much more clearer, maybe to the point of not selling STs in an area that is subject to changes dependant on away support.

It's never been mentioned as far as I'm aware. It's never happened to me since I've been sitting in the in2print but I understand it's happened a few times before for people further down block 5.

It's not that we need to give Swindon the space, we are choosing to do this to maximise revenue. If there were rules then I can understand it, 15% allocation is 1050 based on 7000 capacity. That's the whole of the away end then.

We are choosing to give Swindon our fans seats. Regardless that I'm one of the ones moved (I've already brought my tickets elsewhere so will be going) It's not right!

[51/84]

Looking at the 1n2P stand there is an obvious cut off at the first tunnel you could use the seat above the entrance and to the Hazelwood side. Or they move it towards the Hazelwood depending on using the entrance. It would appear that we keep the entrance for CTFC support .
As was stated last night normally the is good enough but a few seats in the corner may not be very good viewing.
I am sure that what was said last night was correct that few people are / were asked to move in the past - so why the change.
Similarly I dont recall having seen anything on the ST application suggesting you may have to move
So say that Alan Brown is no longer in the ticket office was an an explaination I suggest is not good enough
Customer care - Non League
( Actually the non league club probably looks after its own supporters better)

If there is away forward on this can the club look at introducing segregation in the hazelwood one half home one half away or allocating away fans with small travelling support the away section of the In2P allowing home fans the hazelwood.

There was no apology but an attempt to explain the reason which backfired on the chairman.
I suspect he hadnt been told

[leohoenig]

So are you saying we should not let more Swindon fans enter the ground?
Reducing the away capacity to less than the expected take up would increase costs, as we would expect more Swindon fans in home areas, which requires more stewarding. Allowing sufficient room for all the expected fans makes sense.

Naturally, I have sympathy with the home fans being moved, the club should have
1) Warned of the possibility of moving when they chose the seats
2) Sent information out to seat holders - if they register e-mail, then direct, but to save costs I would only advertise beyond that via programme, web site, etc.

As a padockite, I do not have to suffer the problem. If there were circumstances where I might not be able to stand on the paddock, I would have expected to be informed pre-season, and with the ticket information for the game

[hEaLeR]

So are you saying we should not let more Swindon fans enter the ground?

If it's at the expense of many season ticket holders we shouldn't (IMO) - We've not done this for any other game I can remember.

What happened when Leeds/Forest visited WR, I wasn't in the in2print then - Anyone remember if ST's got moved?

As a padockite, I do not have to suffer the problem. If there were circumstances where I might not be able to stand on the paddock, I would have expected to be informed pre-season, and with the ticket information for the game

No-one has been informed until the point of queuing to buy tickets. This is part of the gripe.

What happens if we go up to L1 - Will we be told sorry you can't have your season ticket seat each week as large numbers of away fans take priority? Shall we just give away fans as many as they want if the demands are there? Do we want money more than we want our own fans?

It may sound a trivial thing but I think this can and will have consequences going forward.