Thought it was a good event
The new team are obviously keen to grow the supporter base home and away. Went through figures and it showed a couple of things
1. How important big game is
2 the owners are keeping us going

Laurie asked for a show of hands to see how many people think we can win the prem in next two years, let’s just say it didn’t show a great deal of confidence that we could.
Quinssa members will be getting full details in next mailer

Nice presentation from both marketing director and CEO. Essentially a brief run-through of the same presentation delivered recently to all staff at the club. Key points that stood out to me:

• Changes to the memberships are forthcoming (including a price increase) - mainly centred around refining/simplifying/updating the benefits provided at each tier. They looked interesting.
• On any given matchday, 30-40% of members (who have obviously already paid) do not turn up. This is a dreadful stat, and one they are aiming to massively reduce. Sporting averages would expect around 10%. This has a knock-on effect not only on additional revenue from food/merch, but also on atmosphere at the game.
• The vast majority of our members are over 65 - the club is looking at ways of making sure the younger demographics are better represented/targeted.
• We are currently operating at about a £4M loss - generously subsidised by our owners. It was mentioned that the owners are big fans of the club, and game, and do not want to be seen as sugar-daddies (paraphrasing here), hence deliberately choosing to not be very visible.
• I think memberships accounted for just over £2M of revenue; the Big Game for just under £2M, and other ticket sales a little less again. The Big Game is the absolute envy of the entire league since no-one else can come close to getting such an attendance.
• The new stadium plan is still in progress, the club and owners are fully committed to it, but this will be a slow burner due to the large number of local stakeholders involved.
• The management team were fully aware of the challenges the club faces, had a diverse range of ideas to combat these, and were very upfront about the fact that some solutions would not work; but they wouldn't know until they tried.
• Me and my mate appeared in the foreground of one of the photos in the presentation ;D (the one of the South-West corner).

The whole management team came across really well, and I was very grateful to them for their time. They did give me confidence that they are prepared to make hard decisions when necessary, and have the drive to push us forward. They were also not afraid to say "I don't know" at times during questioning.

Regarding the Q&A session at the end, there were quite a few present with axes to grind, which was a bit unfortunate, and added a slightly negative feeling to the end of the evening. However, the wonderful Mr. Munton, and a couple of other attendees tried to reverse this by asking more positive questions, or even simply making positive statements about the club. I think that the negative comments were borne of frustration, and not from a desire to moan; and that did come across somewhat. So that is essentially a good thing: that we have supporters passionate enough to travel to such events and confident enough to raise their concerns.

Erm... I think that's everything!

As always, thank you to Quinssa for organising yet another quality evening.

Thanks IQPH, much appreciated.

Should read Chris Robshaw comments on social media, was mentioned how good his communication with supporters was , in particular recent message about moving on

I suspect Lawrie gave the same presentation as he did to Debenture holders earlier this month. If so, there was a huge focus on match day experience which I felt should have been given less prominence compared to winning games.

I also quizzed one of the presenters after the presentation about attendance - he was not about to say if I returned my ticket for resale, did I fall in the “didn’t show” category.

I thought about this the other day. There seems to be more importance placed on being the best for the match day...however often at the expense of the home fans as often the away supporters  will comment on the excellent facilities washing down their victory with award winning ales, food, music and the like.

I also quizzed one of the presenters after the presentation about attendance - he was not about to say if I returned my ticket for resale, did I fall in the “didn’t show” category.

I meant to say “he was not able to say” not “he was not about to say”

Although the Management group's main concern is delivering a profit (or at least as small a loss as possible), maintaining match day experience is indeed very important; results and form are down to the coaching team and players. However, the management team can't afford to lose sight of the fact that the coaching/playing team, by delivering better results, will improve the match day attendance and atmosphere: the two are linked, but better results are the domain of the coaching/playing team; (match day atmosphere/ground facilities, their utility and popularity, by the management team.