By LWSC
July 16 2010

The middle of the summer break is traditionally the time when the Supporters Club hold their AGM and reflect on the past year. The AGM was held on 30th June and attended by Supporters Club members and representatives of the amateur sections. The report presented to the AGM reflected on their successes during the year and looked ahead to the future. Dragons’ Den brings you the main points.

“The Supporters Club’s successes are down to the hard workof the committee members. There are not many of us but it is a group that worksvery well together with the sole aim of supporting all aspects of London Welsh.Any differences of opinion around the meeting table are put aside the moment weleave the room and return to the bar and it is this attitude that makes thecommittee so effective.

The organising of City Hall events and coaches to Cardiff, therunning of coaches to away games and the day to day operation of the SupportersClub happens because everyone gets on with the task.  The perfect example of this being the play-offsemi-final at Bristol when we had three and a half working days between knowingwho our opponents were and the coach departing from ODP. 

Just a fortnight after our last AGM the professional side of the club wasthrown into turmoil when it was placed into administration. Going over theevents and the repercussions of last summer is pointless but naturally it didimpact the Supporters Club. One positive to come out of the change of ownershipwas that we were forced to end our reliance on the rugby club for communicationand had to find new ways to get our messages out. Our new website (www.londonwelshsupporters.com) not onlyhelped us communicate but gave us an online shop to sell memberships and CityHall tickets and also a bulk email system to send out regular information tothe 900 people that have signed up to our newsletter. If you add in theFacebook  group, messages on theunofficial forum and the news items on the London Welsh website then ourcommunication with supporters has never been better.

Our core activity remains the running of coaches to 1^stXV away games. It can still be a struggle to draw together enough interest tomake a coach viable for every trip but we can be proud of running a coach toevery league game apart from the Friday night match at Coventry and the trip toCornwall. The number of supporters travelling did increase at the end of theseason, especially for the coaches to Doncaster and Bristol. One of ourchallenges for next season is to build on the interest that the play-offsgenerated and try and get similar numbers to travel with us during the regularleague season.

It is also encouraging that membership numbers reached thehighest level for a number of years and hopefully we can continue this trend forfuture seasons.

Our events at City Hall remained popular and ticket saleswere boosted by our online shop. City Hall is are our main fundraiser but ourincome is being squeezed by the WRU’s decision to start holding Six Nationsmatches on a Friday night.  If we are tokeep up our donations to the amateur sections and continue running coaches toaway games then we will need to find alternatives ways of fundraising that canbe easily organised by our small number of committee members.

There is always a lot of talk about the London Welsh Family and the activitiesof the Supporters Club cross all sections from the 1^st XV, throughthe amateur adult teams right down to the minis and youth sections.

We had a good relationship with Danny Wilson last season andthere is no doubt that we will have similar links with Phil Greening. We alsohave good communication with the amateur sections and are pleased to offerfinancial support to them where we can. For the first time our end of seasonawards recognised the achievements of a youth team. 

As the 1^st XV strive for Premiership status, London Welsh AmateurRFC take their place in the league structure and the remainder of the amateursides go from strength to strength the Supporters Club may need to review ourrole within London Welsh. If we fail to keep up with the changes at the rugbyclub then we could easily be left behind and find we no longer have a usefulpart to play. ”

Join the Supporters Club by visiting their online shop at www.londonwelshsupporters.com