An open Fan Forum between our CEO and Board

[Tony Bongo]

Below is a copy of an email I have sent to Paul Osborne(CEO), Roy Spagnolo (Chairman) and Sid Kelly(Deputy Chairman)

To our CEO , Chairman ,Deputy Chairman and Board Members of Parramatta Leagues

Following on from our discussions over the past few weeks I am requesting that we arrange a time at your nearest convenience to have a brief meeting with a few representatives from League Unlimited ,another forum and The Parramatta Eels Supporters Club. As you are aware these 2 forums and supporter group are the three main bodies that represent not only a large number of our Football Club members but also our fans in general from all over the country(who may not as yet be members).

As I am an active member of all three I have organised a three point plan to raise concerns and ideas with you, our CEO and Board in a constructive and hopefully productive manner.

1. A LIST OF SUPPORTER'S CONSTRUCTIVE THOUGHTS

We currently have a thread on each forum asking for our members to suggest constructive ideas and also list their concerns they would like our club to address. On Tuesday PESC will be having a meeting to be attended by our CEO where they will be doing the same.

2. PRESENT THE LIST TO THE BOARD

(The meeting I am now requesting). A few members from each forum and the President of PESC collectively present to you (our CEO and Board) a list of those constructive thoughts as well as areas of concern we would like the club to look at and if possible address. This is not intended as a meeting to debate the issues raised but rather a simple opportunity for you to be presented with the supporters points of view. This will clearly demonstrate at this point that these ideas and concerns have been made available to you and that our collective thoughts have been passed on.

3. HAVE AN OPEN FAN FORUM

Once you have had time to look at the supporters thoughts and ideas we would like to see an open Fan Forum. This is an opportunity for you to demonstrate to us that we have been heard. Here you can inform the supporters of what you can or can't address, what action you have taken, when we can expect to see the results of that action etc. It will also give supporters the opportunity to give you constructive feedback with regards to how you have responded to our thoughts and concerns.

This is a simple three point plan that is already well under way and I am excited that as many fans of our great club as possible are involved in the process. I look forward to continuing to build the relationship and transparency between us the supporters of the Parramatta Eels and you our CEO and Board.


Yours Sincerely

Tony Bongo

 

[Haynzy]

You might want to talk to MITS, Jess, and Hellsy who along with some others produced and presented to the club a similar document a few years ago.... ie: have we moved forward from that point or are we still asking the same questions to uninterested suits?

 

[MarkInTheStands]

Hanzy,

Yes a large number of the requests made in the report have been done, some other have been done to a point and some others are still waiting, but the report had some traction before and then during the election.

Having said that this years Events was pretty lacking in comparison to 2008 and 2009, and for that I would think would be due to the change in game day and membership staff, who I would think will have to learn the ropes first before we get back to where we were, before some of the membership staff left / were moved on.

 

[Twizzle]

Tony I appreciate your efforts but this bit is not entirely accurate.

Following on from our discussions over the past few weeks I am requesting that we arrange a time at your nearest convenience to have a brief meeting with a few representatives from League Unlimited ,another forum and The Parramatta Eels Supporters Club.

I would say more like members of LU rather than representatives of LU, which would mean the owners/administrators/directors of LU.

I would appreciate if you could confirm with them that you dont represent LU, I have no problems with your mention that you guys are members of LU. The difference being that any of you comments or opinions may not represent that of the directors of League Unlimited.

Cheers

 

[Haynzy]

Hanzy,

Yes a large number of the requests made in the report have been done, some other have been done to a point and some others are still waiting, but the report had some traction before and then during the election.

Having said that this years Events was pretty lacking in comparison to 2008 and 2009, and for that I would think would be due to the change in game day and membership staff, who I would think will have to learn the ropes first before we get back to where we were, before some of the membership staff left / were moved on.

Cool,
I never saw the report you guys compiled and I assume you and Tony are aware of each other and just thought it would silly to not make use of all of your hard work if it was still relevant.

 

[Willow]

Tony I appreciate your efforts but this bit is not entirely accurate.



I would say more like members of LU rather than representatives of LU, which would mean the owners/administrators/directors of LU.

I would appreciate if you could confirm with them that you dont represent LU, I have no problems with your mention that you guys are members of LU. The difference being that any of you comments or opinions may not represent that of the directors of League Unlimited.

Cheers

Tony Bongo, to back up Twiz here, please don't suggest in any way that you represent League Unlimited.

Good luck with your efforts, but you only represent yourself and any group that you run.

 

[boxhead]

Nice ideas Tony, thanks for helping to organise all this.

 

[Tony Bongo]

Tony Bongo, to back up Twiz here, please don't suggest in any way that you represent League Unlimited.

Good luck with your efforts, but you only represent yourself and any group that you run.

By representatives I did simply mean members. Myself and other members of this forum will be presenting the thread that asks for ideas and concerns. I will make it clear that the constructive thoughts in no way represent the ideas and position of administrators of this site, just the members who have spoken.

 

[Twizzle]

thanks Tony

 

[Tony Bongo]

thanks Tony

No problem and thanks for making me aware of the need for clarification.

 

[Tony Bongo]

I have recieved a response from Paul Osborne and he thinks it is a terrific idea and wants to make this all happen. He said he will be in touch with me on Monday and I will keep you all posted.

 

[Hellsy]

I'm sort of sick of putting forward the report we did TBH, I've shown it to soo many people at The Eels and it gets looked at and ooohhh'd and ahhhh'd over and then swept under the rug till someone new comes along, blah blah blah same old story....
It doesn't take alot of brain power to come up with things like trivia nights, charity events, golf days, open training sessions.... I could go on.

 

[Kornstar]

I'm sort of sick of putting forward the report we did TBH, I've shown it to soo many people at The Eels and it gets looked at and ooohhh'd and ahhhh'd over and then swept under the rug till someone new comes along, blah blah blah same old story....
It doesn't take alot of brain power to come up with things like trivia nights, charity events, golf days, open training sessions.... I could go on.

Simple meat heads (the club that is) will never get it.......imo this will achieve nothing because until the culture is changed we will be an inconsistent rabble!

 

[Ratchy]

I'm sort of sick of putting forward the report we did TBH, I've shown it to soo many people at The Eels and it gets looked at and ooohhh'd and ahhhh'd over and then swept under the rug till someone new comes along, blah blah blah same old story....
It doesn't take alot of brain power to come up with things like trivia nights, charity events, golf days, open training sessions.... I could go on.

Your probably right, most of the ideas will get probably be looked at for 30 seconds and then put at the bottom of the pile. But at the same time it can't hurt can it?

 

[bartman]

Simple meat heads (the club that is) will never get it.......imo this will achieve nothing because until the culture is changed we will be an inconsistent rabble!

But the culture was changed, according to the winners of the club's last elections... :crazy:

- - - -

Anyways, Tony I love your work! :thumn. I haven't met you (have my ST seat, and didn't make many away games this year, but what you are doing to draw together fans from here, the other site, and the official supporters club is really special. Some people have talked about it in that past but something always got in theway... you've gone ahead an done it - bravo!

Hope Ossie's phone call and the subsequent meeting (and the eventual open fans forum - which hopefully will be a regular thing, at least three times a year) all goes well.

 

[Hellsy]

Your probably right, most of the ideas will get probably be looked at for 30 seconds and then put at the bottom of the pile. But at the same time it can't hurt can it?

I didn't say not to go ahead and do what you want to do, I responded to someone stating that a report had already been done by a few of us and that I myself personally was sick of putting it forward and it getting ignored time and time again.
And I'm not 'probably right', I am right as the report has been largely ignored for about 3 years now.

 

[Ratchy]

I didn't say not to go ahead and do what you want to do, I responded to someone stating that a report had already been done by a few of us and that I myself personally was sick of putting it forward and it getting ignored time and time again.
And I'm not 'probably right', I am right as the report has been largely ignored for about 3 years now.

Mate i'm with you, the whole forum imo is nothing more than a PR exercise to make fans think they have an input into the running of the club. But if there are some that want to throw their full energies into the concept more power to them, i'm just not as negative as you.

 

[Tony Bongo]

I'm sort of sick of putting forward the report we did TBH, I've shown it to soo many people at The Eels and it gets looked at and ooohhh'd and ahhhh'd over and then swept under the rug till someone new comes along, blah blah blah same old story....
It doesn't take alot of brain power to come up with things like trivia nights, charity events, golf days, open training sessions.... I could go on.

I'm interested in seeing the report. Is there a link or thread on this forum somewhere ?

 

[bartman]

No link Tony, it was a word document.

A fair amount of people helped with it, but I think Hellsy and MITS did the bulk of the work, and should be considered "owners" of the final file. Given the amount of effort you are putting in now with things Tony, I'm sure they wouldn't mind sharing it with you if you asked - maybe PM them with your email address?

 

[MarkInTheStands]

Yeah Bart is on the money there, we wrote the document and submitted it to staff of the club in 2008, at that time we got a fair amount of traction and some things got done.

I was asked to a meeting with my Co-authors of the document by the Previous Board and Fitzy. I have heard that the document was in the possession of members of 3P campaign, and have had campaign members of 3P talk to me about the report.

One thing we didn't want to do was put the document "on line" knowing that it could be a press nightmare with the election looming so we all agreed to keep it offline.

I am not sure if Hellsy still has her copy. I have checked and I do still have my copy.

But for the reports length (over 40 A4 Pages) it mainly spoke about the Other clubs in the NRL and mainly in Sydney and what they were doing for their fans and called for some parity for Parramatta fans.

At the time of the report the club had continued to remove Fan related events from the calender, to a point where Fans were approaching me as to how to see the players, and I simply didn't know of any public events for them and if a fan wanted their jersey signed the best advise I could give was send it to the Football office with a request to get it signed.

The Recommendations section of the report I have broken down below into some dot points. We recommended the adding of restarting of the following fan related measures.

Events
1) Post Match Functions *
2) Fan Day. *
3) Open Training Sessions *
4) Member Information Night (AKA Stadium Tour)* -
5) Coach's Forum * -
6) Breakfast with the team @ Church Street Mall * -
7) Trivia Night* -
8) Golf Day - Open to Regular Members
9) Away Game Travel Initiative.*
10) Regional and Interstate Events @ Away Games
11) Allowing fans to attend "Sponsors" Only events like Season Launch, and Masquerade Ball. + -

Memberships
We asked for the Addition of the following clubs
1) Sparkies Junior Eels *
2) Ladies Club - Which would include events like shopping trips with Players Partners's
3) "Well off" fans club (Like the old 1000 Club) +
4) Region Eels *
5) Making B&G Army a slight additional cost for STH's +(Including FC memberships and standardised packages +/- tickets)
6) Partial Season Tickets. *

New Media Communications
We asked for the addition of three following features.
1) Players Column +
2) Players Timetable
3) Season Ticket Holder Brochure as a downloadable PDF. *
Now anything above with an * beside it has been done since the report was first touted to our the Communications manager Ross Smart, or after the report hit peoples desks within the football office. (July / August 2008)

+ have been done since the new Administration. (April 2009)

- have been done then removed in the past year.