Or not! What's your view?
News today on CASTrusts latest campaign to help promote football for a fiver and extend the reach of the clubs marketing to fill the valley for the Wigan match as a pilot scheme
http://www.castrust.org/2013/09/ordinary-fans-help-cafc-fill-valley/Http://castrust.org/ftvVery simply every volunteer gives out 200 flyers in their neighbourhood etc to promote the offer, 50 volunteers equals.. Well you do the math.
We've also helped Valley Gold get a website for zero cost which means more for the academy, and are helping supporter groups with IT and publicity
You all know about
http://castrust.org/valleyacv please sign up if you haven't already
We are also promoting fan events and offering a fixture list to your phone and providing other services and articles (not forums I might add)
We've built a network now including nearly 4000 fans (with some duplication) and 740 members.
But seriously we can all have our views about how the club is run, shouldn't we also be doing something positive like supporting this initiative and trying to grow our regular attendance?
(BR)
Comments
The Trust could sit back and wait for the car accident as described in the takeover thread or, after long discussion it is taking a chance on promoting the Wigan game... But a lot of the fans in the last survey thought it would be a good idea...in fact over 1,000!
So far, just 12 hours after launch we have 12 volunteers so will you help flyer your local streets/station/community centre?
Or perhaps you think it's the wrong time / wrong idea? As above what should the Trust be doing?
I think non regulars will turn up because of the reduced ticket price.
The end result to many is the attendance on the day... to us it is a question of whether we can rally 50+ fans to lend a hand promoting the match...now and perhaps again on another scheme?
So far we have 18 volunteers after 1 day...not many perhaps but that's 4,000 flyers...looking to double that and double it again...
Just like the Trust itself which will be hitting the milestone of 4,000 contacts next Tuesday night...not bad given we were on 1,000 just 7/8 months ago...no fire fighting no rock throwing just a consistent campaign
50% of our members and subscribers read our emails every week - imagine if we could convert a fraction into a volunteer army who come out to help come rain or shine...
People moan about home performances but we had an unbeaten run after the 2-0 loss vs Millwall! There is a comms gap with the club and fans...we can take that up and state very simply that we have put the Trust Brand on the line to promote the Wigan game...perhaps with 60/70 fans helping out... imagine how many would come out to help if there was a more positive dialogue? !!!
i'm glad it exists
needs us to get behind it
i'm finally gonna sign up with my fiver today
(been waiting on a debit card)
There are many things that flow from that, the revenue to pay the bills, the introduction of Addicks lapsed and new to the stadium but ultimately this site is the main community of our people in this world so do you think this is the sort of thing a supporters trust should be encouraging ?
But the question was why was the response so muted and that is probably because of two reasons. 1. There is nothing new here, the club has.been doing this game for years now and organising volunteers to target local areas, stations etc. You're just doing that for then now, and 2. There is a huge overload of Trust pushing messages on here, which is probably why the ones that are clearly tTrust ones see poor readership and have to be slyly bumped or provoked into debate by the 7-9 of you heavily involved.
As for the game, it is not a new event anymore and history has shown that the novelty of seeing the ground full at kick off soon wears off when you find the atmosphere worse than normal, and half the people there not really into it. Ultimately it appears to have virtually no impact on increasing our crowds either in the short term following the promotion, or in the long term after if recent crowds are anything to go by. I have brought a number of non-fans to this game in recent years, not a single one has returned for a single game as a paying customer. For the past five years our club have been giving away tens of thousands of free tickets, yet the ratio of one of those going on to be a regular is minute.
Of course there is promotional and marketing work that can be done, but while the offering on the pitch is on a bit of a lull, its effectiveness is going to be ten times more difficult, and people shouldnt be made to feel they don't care just because they don't answer every rallying call.
I know nothing of how previous initiatives were organised and yes, football for a fiver plus comps can have a minimal effect but its a start...
If more and more fans join this then it has two outcomes: the gates go up and the collective power of the fans can be recognised as a positive force...and as such rewarded...
And I think you will find that there are more than 9 fans involved in running the Trust...perhaps it was 9 who did the legwork last October / November to set it up but the Trust has grown a bit since then - while resisting the temptation to jump on the bandwagon and attack the club! Not having a go at your bread and butter, just saying like
However, the Trust is the best hope that Charlton fans have of effecting some kind of influence of events - events which may become critical for the future of the Club at any moment or maybe not for sometime.
Very simply, the larger the Trust membership the greater will be its clout (as a means of representing fans' interests and potentially fund-raising) as and when the critical time comes.
It seems to me that, however difficult the circumstances, if the Trust considers this a worthwhile exercise then it should be encouraged (practically and verbally) though of course I am not saying the strategy should not be subjected to constructive criticism (which is precisely what you have done). It is clearly a hard sell but it is an opportunity to present the Trust to non-members and even potential fans as an organisation with a purpose and the interests of the Club and its fans at heart and, as such, has the potential to enhance its standing and membership.
At the moment, the strategy of the Trust is to seek to build a constructive relationship with the current owners/management of the Club (that is a sensible starting point but should not and I believe will not tie the hands of the Trust should circumstances change). All I would want to see, at some point soon, is the Club demonstrably putting its weight into building that relationship. I assume that Barnie and others are content that it is doing so or will do so.
In the meantime, whatever doubts we may reasonably have, they deserve our full support (IMO).
I'd distribute some flyers if I lived anywhere close. Up here it would just be 200 wasted on Blades and Owls.
I worry that these initiatives, praiseworthy though they are, can be counter-productive. Taking our current brand of football to a wider audience will not necessarily get casuals hooked and could have quite the opposite effect. The key is serving up something more exciting on the pitch, which has been more or less lacking for too long.
This site provides excellent matchday coverage and a good range of post match views including the fans scores...
It gets some very high hits on certain threads but bottom line there are what 2/300 regular posters?
The Trust comes on here a lot less than when it started because it has diversified and because it has achieved critical mass to get going...
But the fact is that 50-60% of Trust members and subscribers use this site so to announce things and start a discussion we occasionally post(!) here...
As Peanuts Molloy states, we choose activities and tactics to publicise what we are about and to increase our reach...and we do engage with the club at middle management and board level...I could say a lot more there but it is not megaphone diplomacy and it is up to the club to state their position, not for the Trust to represent/misrepresent...
The more fans join in, the more the club is inclined to talk with us...and the more likely that the Trust will stay on track... we already secure donations nearly equivalent to our membership subs indicating a way forwards...and hopefully more active fans, some with technical skills will assist the Trust continue its current trajectory into its second year...
For perhaps that is when things get interesting?!
In the past there has been a real feel of community around the club, and that to plagiarise an overused phrase "we are in this together." But with all of these talks of takeovers, £40 million taglines being thrown around, chairmen who don't seem to care about the team, I think makes people feel that Charlton is currently more of a business (that's how I feel at least) and I wouldn't go out leafletting for Tesco's.
Call me fickle, I love Charlton to bits, but I feel like we would be helping out the owners, not Charlton, even though of course in reality the two might be linked. Nothing about the team for me, more the business side.
Yet again though, well done for the trust, and seeing real action like this is the kind of thing that will make me sign up!