Fans' Forum: Your questions answered
In case you weren’t able to attend, this is what happened at the latest York RLFC Fans’ Forum!
Hosted by Chief Executive, Neil Gulliver, the evening provided an update on some of the work going on behind the scenes and details of the Membership packages for 2017.
IMG Update
NG - As we know, York were placed 14th in the rankings. The score was a bit higher than expected. The club had strengthened or was static across all pillars IMG judges on. Some of the criteria had been changed for 2027, including Catchment, so the club lost 1.5 points despite all the development work going on in different areas North Yorkshire.
Plans for an Academy are also moving. Will Leatt is now in post as Head of Youth. There are conversations about building a centre of excellence with both the RFL and York St John University.
Regarding IMG for next season, nothing is certain yet. Discussions about a link with the NRL and the inclusion of London Broncos in Super League are ongoing but nothing is signed or definite, including how the competitions will look, or when they will start.
Memberships
Operations Manager, Cameron Harris: We are moving to the term “memberships” instead of season tickets.
Details of memberships can be found HERE
Some prices are frozen from last year
Timescales
Renewals: 26th October
General sale: 30th October
Season Card collection: w/c 14th Dec*
Member pack delivery: w/c 21st Dec*
*assuming no unexpected delays
Members pack will include an embroidered keyring, a pin badge, a flag and a members card, and this year will be sent out by post.
Member packs will be posted this year.
Allocated seating
CH - All seats will be allocated this year, unlike in previous seasons. Specific seats will be bought with a membership.
If you come to a game with someone who ISN’T a member, you can go to the stadium Ticket Office and ask on a game by game basis to move your seat to where there is space, to allow tickets to be together.
By allocating seating, more seats can be made available under the terms of the stadium safety certificate.
1868 Lounge
CH - For Lounge access, the cost is frozen from last year.
This proved popular last year, so availability this year could also be limited once packages move to general sale.
The cost of Lounge access with food has also been reduced.
There is a capacity limit on the room, so numbers have to be restricted.
Kit supplier
NG - The new kit supplier is O’Neills on a multi year deal. The club is delighted to resume it’s partnership with the company.
Kit launch
NG - The plan is to hold this at King’s Manor in the centre of York at the end of November, Doors at 6pm for a 7.30pm start. It will be free to attend but ticketed. There will be food and drink available along with shirts and merchandise. More details to be confirmed in due course.
Supporters' survey
CH - There was a good response to the survey, and it still remains open because more feedback is still encouraged. As a club, we don’t want to stand still going into 2027.
You can find the Supporters Survey HERE.
The main issues brought up on the survey were kit availability and food and drink options at the stadium. The kit supplier is changing this season, and the club is working with the Stadium Management Company (SMC) on the food and drink options.
Fan Advisory board
CH - The process to find representatives for the Fan Advisory Board has been completed and everyone that applied should have been notified. There was an overwhelming response so thank you to everyone who applied. It has been tough to decide on who should be in the group because of the passion shown by everyone, and the board will be made up of eight fans, not six as initially announced. The first meeting will be in December, with meetings then planned to be quarterly.
The inaugural members are:
Andy Knowles
Gavin Wilson
David Mason
Steph Sargaent
Mark WIlliamson
Shaun Wilford
Eden Clayton
Carol Norris
We will introduce the board members to fans in the coming weeks.
Questions from fans:
With membership renewals can you pick a specific seat or will it be allocated?
CH - Yes. You can pick your own seat.
And the West Stand “singing area” will be labelled on the seating plan!
1868 Lounge - It’s good having hospitality in here but last year people who needed seating, such as older fans or disabled fans struggled to get one.
NG - We’re trying to learn what can be done better. The hospitality packages will be the same but lessons will be learnt from what didn’t work. There’ll be a different lay out appropriate to who will be in the room this season.
We are a group of five season ticket holders, plus we have another four who aren’t. How can we guarantee we can all sit together next year if renewals are available before general sale?
CH -There’s no real way to guarantee that. Renewals going on sale first is standard for many clubs. But you could buy more tickets on your account when you renew.
Where will away fans be seated?
CH - Same place as last season (usually South Stand).
Parking - even though we’d booked we couldn’t always get in. Will that change?
CH- When the crowd gets to a certain level, parking at the stadium struggles. We will be reviewing this with the SMC.
Are there any plans for away coach travel?
CH - We planned to do all games last year but there wasn’t enough demand to do it and not lose money.
We were trying to get funding and reciprocal arrangements with other clubs last year but it didn’t work. This year, we have more of an understanding of how and when people travel. We’ll use this knowledge to try and get more accurate costings for coach travel and see if it will work.
Can we standardise kick off times more frequently?
NG - Scheduling from the RFL is a tough job. They have to make sure there’s an even balance of when matches across the clubs (eg. so one club isn’t always playing on Thurdays) plus like some other clubs that ground share, we have the issue of stadium availability. There can be wiggle room on some games but not a lot. We do our best with what we can, but there’s not always room to move. TV dictates.
There’s still uncertainty about the league - have we had certainty there’s definitely 14 teams in there?
NG- Yes - they won’t reduce the number of teams.
What plans are there to expand our fan base and demographic?
NG - The fan base is growing. Ours is a younger demographic than many clubs and we have a good price point for children and juniors. There are more juniors playing in York than for years.
What’s the plan for promoting Valkyrie games more - it’s often hard to find home game details?
CH - We have work to do around the crowds with Valkyrie games. It was hard to promote the Super 4 games because they were late being released because of how the competition was formed this year. We’re looking at another club as to how things work to see if there’s anything that can work at York.
NG- We want to promote the club as a whole. Promotion will be focussed on both Knights and Valkyrie - the audiences for both teams can be different.
Why aren’t attendances issued?
NG -They go in the match reports in the day or so after the match.
What chance of talking to First Bus about travel back to town after games? There are often huge queues at the Park and Ride.
NG - We’ll speak to them. It’s not really been brought to our attention before but we will talk to them
The players that left at the end of the season got announced too late for the fans to say goodbye at the last game. Can we be better at that next year?
CH - We had a plan for the last game of the season to announce them at the end of the Bradford game. However post match commitments including TV wanting interviews with Paul Vaughan and David Nofoaluma meant by the time that was done, a lot of people had already left the ground. It’s a point to learn from.
We have more overseas players in our allocation than we should have. Can you tell us tonight who else is going?
NG- You’ll find out in due course. We can’t announce that tonight.
Have you considered having the Valkyrie play after the Knights instead of before?
NG - We did that the first year and they played in front of lower crowds. It works better playing before.
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