By LISC
July 18 2003

Minutes of the meeting between LISC and LISR on 15th July 2003

REPORT ON MEETING BETWEEN LISR/LISC

HELD ON WEDNESDAY 15TH JULY 2003

at London Irish, Sunbury

Present at the meeting were:

LISR: Conor O'Shea, Pat Coyne and David Law

LISC: Patrick Tahany, Ken Armstrong, Sarah Newton, Claire Gosney, Pauline O'Connor, Ken Emerson

Apologies: Chris Weldon, Paddy Green, Alan Murphy, Annette Delaney.

Absent: Chris Tampsett and Trevor Dolan

The meeting started at 7.45pm.

1) Welcomes and Apologies

The chairman welcomed Conor, Pat and David and tabled apologies from those unable to attend.

2) LISC Pre-Season BBQ - 2nd August 2003

The date was confirmed as August 2nd. It was agreed that LISC would finalise arrangements should as the catering arrangements, start time, how many people were expected., and how long they were likely to stay with Larry Dunphy (the new Sunbury steward). Conor said details of the event have been passed onto the players.

It was agreed that if LISC passed the details of the event to Jon Salinger, he would advertise it in The Blarney.

Conor reminded that meeting that there would be further opportunities to meet the players at the official "Meet the Players" evenings, scheduled for 13th and 14th August.

3) Joint marketing initiatives - update

There was a lively discussion about how the supporters' could help the Club's marketing initiatives. One key opportunity was to get a supporters' to publicise fixtures at his/her workplace, particularly if the workplace was local to the Madejski. Another suggestion included targeting the local pubs, and local breweries.

LISC warned against giving away too many free tickets, which the supporters felt undermined the value of the season tickets. The Club accepted this was a fair point.

LISC said it was impressed with the energy and innovation of the club's marketing initiatives.

Pat Coyne told the meeting a little about the new official website. It is undergoing final trials and should be ready for release in early August. Pat thanked LISC for their input into the design and management of the site and was pleased to accept their offer to help launch the site through the messageboards.

LISC asked whether it would be possible to improve their profile through the site. Once the site was launched, Pat stated that he would be delighted to let LISC have an area to publicise events for supporters'.

The launch of the new range of merchandise was also discussed. Pat informed the meeting that it would be possible to pre-order shirts though the new website, and there would be incentives for so doing. The official launch would be on the afternoon of 6th August at Sunbury closely followed by the Irish Race night at Kempton Park that evening. The committee again recorded their regret about the misinformation which had been rife concerning the new merchandising range.

4) Season ticket sales - update

Pat reported that season tickets sales up to the end of June had been encouraging. However, there is still much work to do to improve on last year's figures. Pat thanked the Supporters for their work in getting across the value of the tickets. The next big opportunity was to remind non-season ticket holders that the window for buying at the best price (the early bird deal) expired in just two weeks and anyone who was not already an ST ought to buy now.

It was hoped that the club would be sending out renewal confirmations and new season tickets (to those who had moved stands) in the first week in August. Pat confirmed that supporters' club membership application/renewal forms could be sent out as part of a general mailing at the start of August.

5) LISR Replica shirts and related merchandising - update

This item had been covered under the joint marketing initiatives above (item 3).

6) Fixture List Status

Conor opened the discussion by saying that all ZP1 clubs were equally frustrated by the lack of agreement over the fixture list. However, as far as he was concerned the only outstanding issues were the midweek fixtures. He confirmed that the club had been in discussions with Bath and the current situation was that the home game would be played on Wednesday 14th October and the return fixture would be played on New Year's Day (and not New Year's Eve).

The situation in respect of the Parker Pen Shield fixtures and opponents was still undecided. The issue outstanding was how many Welsh teams would be included in European competition. Conor agreed to let the Supporters Club know as soon as any decision had been reached.

7) Madstad catering contract - update

Pat Coyne confirmed that the new contract had been awarded to Compass. They have a record of franchised catering and it is hoped that there would be a significant improvement in choice and quality. However, we will have to wait and see what happens. Pat confirmed that the supporters' list of grievances and suggestions had been factored into the discussions, although he reminded the meeting that London Irish were just one of a number of interested parties in the discussions.

The Committee suggested that there was definitely a demand after 6 o'clock, particularly as the Craic in the North Stand didn't finish until 7pm.

Generally, Conor and Pat said that they have an outside stage licensed for the first home game of the season, on Sunday 21st September against Gloucester. Obviously the club is looking to start the season with an almighty party and the Supporters' Club enthusiastically endorsed the idea, offering all the help they could to start the season with a big event. It was recognised that as the first game of the season was against Leicester, the opportunity for travelling fans was limited (tickets at Welford Road being very scarce) and therefore the 21st September would be the first real chance for many of the faithful to see the team in action.

The club's main focus is the Gloucester game and to a certain extent the success or otherwise of that pre and post-match activities might influence what happened later on in the season.

8) AOB

Conor reported that the club had been approached by a supplier and had agreed to allow that company to market Ref-Link for the next season. He was not sure what the cost of this would be. It was agreed that this added an extra dimension to the match enjoyment.

The trip to Narbonne planned for 22nd August was definitely on, and the club were sending 22 players, together with management and coaches to the game. The squad would be flying out on Thursday, arriving home on Saturday. There would be a second XV game on Saturday at Sunbury, details to be announced.

The date for the next meeting was agreed.

The meeting closed at 8:45