FANS FORUM

[tnbiscuitswithtone]

A G M tonight at the tollgate blurton 8.00
come and join in,
don't know what biscuits (if any)

[BoothenenderGaz]

We are meeting the club beforehand and will be discussing issues such as season ticket prices for the forthcoming year, website ticketing issues (information on allocations etc)

Is there anything else that anyone would like raising at the meeting?

[mark71]

Is there anything else that anyone would like raising at the meeting?

Any chance of a few ash trays in the Boothen Bogs

[StokieSC]

Yes, how f*cking unhelpful the staff are in the Hanley club shop.

[BoothenenderGaz]

Mark - That has been raised

The response from the club is that they are looking at a way forward. The police will not help - the response is that they are there to police the game not the issues in the toilets.

The council have told Stoke to sort it out. Stoke said to send down council officials to issue fixed penalty notices and they refused - even with stewards accompanying them

Stewards have blitzed certain sections of the ground and have been attacked on each occasion by other fans when trying to eject them.


Smeegs - have you an example that I could share with Stoke?

[mark71]

Cheers Gaz, I was only joking. I don't want to hijack the tread but It's very strange how the council want Stoke to sort out the smoking issue but won't do anything about it themselves.

They don't seem to have any problems slapping parking tickets on cars when no one is around.

[BoothenenderGaz]

Yeah I thought that too Mark when they said!

[Stafford-Stokie]

Gaz. I will not be able to come tonight as hoped (bloody kids). Could you keep us updated for future meetings as I am still keen to come and have a look.

[stayingupfor GermanStokie]

Feb 18, 2009 14:56:41 GMT BoothenenderGaz said:

We are meeting the club beforehand and will be discussing issues such as season ticket prices for the forthcoming year, website ticketing issues (information on allocations etc)

Is there anything else that anyone would like raising at the meeting?

I would like to raise a few issues regarding the club Shop and stock rotational policy.

1. In light of Le Coq Sportif being a relative last minute stand in after the collapse of negotiations with another retailer, how long are they actually under contract for Stoke City F.C.

2. Looking in hindsight, is the Club able to agree that the planning and forecasting for stock issue and rotational resupply was shocking and severely lacking. What plans and guarantees for both the fans and from the manufacturers that this will not re-occur. It is inevitable, even from an inexperienced retailers point of view, that promotion would lead to increased sales and revenue and we lost out by not planning and capitalising on this.

3. To ensure this does not happen again, has the club made appropriate adjustments to their cohntract with Le Coq Sportif to ensure that on this occassion, supply meets demand. It is simply not good enough to say that the manufacturer has not "made the shirts", it should be forecasted to exceed demand. Surplus stock can always be sold at cost in the future.

4. There needs to be more transparency between the two sites, in Hanley and the Britannia, and the official site. Both should be run concurrently so that stock can be supplied direct to the customer from either source. They seem to work independantly from each other and not showing if an item is available at either of the club shops if not available online. There should also be a greater parity in what is available, especially between the two physical sites in Hanley and at the Brit. Clients should not have to go to Hanley only to find that a certain item is only available at the stadium site (less items run out, but these should be replaced with 24/48hrs and are not as present). They should have the same "atmosphere" between the two sites whereas you walk into the stadium shop and looks and feels that same as the Hanley store..... This will in no doubt increase familirity between the two and encourage people to spend money. This works well in household named retail stores where you can walk in one stor and it is set up and feels like any other no matter where you are on the country.

5. To further increase revenue, have the club considered utilising certain outlets to sell Stoke City merchandise? I understand that there may be a sell-on clause/cost however the benefits of greater exposure and increased sales far outweigh the percentage costs required to seel these items elsewhere. This may not be an idea incoorporating purely the British market as I am sure we could utilise our links with Austin Aztex to embed into the US market. (The growing popularity of football/soccer is something that needs considering).

6. To ensure that we do "grab" the opportunity of the US market, is there the opportunity to sell Austin Aztex merchandise within our own stores while our wares are sold there? This will truly reinforce our links with this team and we are well aware of the intrest from this side of the water on our brothers in the USL.

Sorry..... I am sure there are one or two questions I could still reel out but without a proper discussion. that is all I can say at the moment. Hope i tis ok

[stokie25]

Excellent points, German. I would love to hear a response to them.

[sheikhmomo]

1/The clubs view on persisting with the inequuitous multi buy system.

2/Instead of getting Police, Stewards and council officials involved in the smoking issue. WHY CAN@T THEY OPEN A FUCKING DOOR.

Obviously if these type of questions are going to rock the boat a bit with your cosy relationship with the club you can totally ignore my requests like you did in September.

[RAF]

Momo and Scholesy sitting in a tree
K.I.S.S.I.N.G

H

[BoothenenderGaz]

German Stokie - very good points raised there

I will put these points to the club

We did ask about the stock levels during the last meeting

We were told that, even with forecasting it did not guage the levels of demand for the shirts once we got into the Premier League. Well over 3 times the number of shirts were sold than had ever been

Due to longer lead times at the manufacturers it has not been possible to replenish stock in a timely manner and by the time they did get the new stock people wont be buying it due to the new strip coming out shortly after

The club say they have completely reogranised their purchasing strategy and have brought in Andy Billing, who has previously worked at Addidas and they are already gearing up for next seasons kit launch

[BoothenenderGaz]

Feb 18, 2009 15:33:07 GMT Stafford-Stokie said:

Gaz. I will not be able to come tonight as hoped (bloody kids). Could you keep us updated for future meetings as I am still keen to come and have a look.

No problems - I will keep you up to date - Thanks for letting me know

[BoothenenderGaz]

Feb 18, 2009 15:55:44 GMT sheikhmomo said:

1/The clubs view on persisting with the inequuitous multi buy system.

2/Instead of getting Police, Stewards and council officials involved in the smoking issue. WHY CAN@T THEY OPEN A FUCKING DOOR.

Obviously if these type of questions are going to rock the boat a bit with your cosy relationship with the club you can totally ignore my requests like you did in September.

Sheikh - I will put the points forward you ask. We did ask about point 2 in the last meeting (see point 4 on the meeting minutes), any idea has to include exit and re-entry and has to be passed by an independent safety committee

[sheikhmomo]

Thanks Gaz can you please then enquire whether the club has designed any plans for exit and re-entry in readiness to present to a safety committee bearing in mind that at the end of this season the problem will have been in existence for nearly two years.


Cheers

[stayingupfor GermanStokie]

Feb 18, 2009 16:02:42 GMT BoothenenderGaz said:

German Stokie - very good points raised there

I will put these points to the club

We did ask about the stock levels during the last meeting

We were told that, even with forecasting it did not guage the levels of demand for the shirts once we got into the Premier League. Well over 3 times the number of shirts were sold than had ever been

Due to longer lead times at the manufacturers it has not been possible to replenish stock in a timely manner and by the time they did get the new stock people wont be buying it due to the new strip coming out shortly after

The club say they have completely reogranised their purchasing strategy and have brought in Andy Billing, who has previously worked at Addidas and they are already gearing up for next seasons kit launch

That is exactly my point re the stock levels. They should have based their forecasting on club in a similar position (i.e Hull, Blackburn early 90's) to fully understand what was required. I thought that would be the response, and apologies if i sound sharp, but that is simply not good enough. Please ask again about the guarantees regarding lead times as they can be adjusted quite quickly if there are contractual obligations involved. I am glad to hear that Andy has been brought in (although to be honest I do not know him) so that his experience may used to discuss this issue with the manufacturers. It would be painful to hear that the lead times would be a stumbling block once more.

Many thanks in advance, and it would be interesting to hear what the plans are for expansion, etc regarding my other points.

[606Stokie]

Anything on season tickets prices being either the same due to the ecomany like other clubs have?

[meirsquare]

Ask for more information on Project FREE KICK ?

[ST1 Stokie]

Could you bring up the stock or lack of stock in the club shops.People have been trying to get shirts for yonks without sucess.I myself have been trying to get the simplest of things like a beach towel since god was a nipper and still im no closer,they cant even give people a date when they are expecting deliveries,best I get is to try in a couple of months cant even order one.Rant over ;D.

[markscfc72]

Gaz

have just thought of something

could you please ask if they are planning on developing the online ticketing system so it is live with the one at the stadium rather than how i have been told it currently works, where they allocate a batch of tickets every now and then. would be better if when booking online you had the choice of every current empty seat

also are they planning on developing the system so that we can purchase away tickets online like you can with quite a few other clubs

thanks

[stayingupfor GermanStokie]

Any update on last night's meeting available please?

[meirsquare]

Feb 19, 2009 11:01:47 GMT stayingupfor GermanStokie said:

Any update on last night's meeting available please?

I was just about to ask the same thing ?

[stokietillidied]

I wasn't ;D

[markscfc72]

Gaz

Any idea when the minutes will be online?

thanks

[crimesy]

Wouldn't mind suggesting another early birds offer would you? I thought it a great idea last season.

[BoothenenderGaz]

Folks,

We will be putting the meeting minutes up very soon.

There was an AGM last night as well and there were quite a few changes to the structure of the forum to boot.

Just a few brief highlights that cover some of the things mentioned here:

There will be 1 more delivery of this seasons shirts to the clubshop in the next month in all sizes and that will be it

The other issue is that stock has to be ordered 6 months before delivery so when Stoke ordered stock last Christmas we did not know which league we were playing in and it wouldn't have made sound business sense to order more stock than we have ever before.

There have also been several drops of stock since the big one, although you may not have noticed as it has gone straight off the shelves

There is now a new buyer employed by the club so the problems with stock levels that we have seen this season wont occur next season.


Stoke are still exploring the entry/exit system for half time smokers

Mark - I did not see any questions posted after 5:30pm as I had left the house - I will ask the question about the on-line ticketing system next time

Season tickets: Stoke internal discussions about season tickets is still underway - When they have something to present to the forum over the next fortnight then they will contact us

The forum are exploring a couple of things independantly:

1) The possibility of having monthly hourly meetings at around midday on matchdays for 3pm kick-offs so more people can attend

2) The adoption of a ticket exchange system on our website where people can exchange seats for a game - Offer their ticket for sale (for the face value) or ask for a seat swap for a particular game if extra people are going



Would either of those two ideas appeal to people - Would more people come along to meet members of Stoke City with us if meetings were on a matchday?

Would the seat swap/exchange appeal to anyone on here?

[markscfc72]

Feb 19, 2009 19:56:25 GMT BoothenenderGaz said:

Folks,


Mark - I did not see any questions posted after 5:30pm as I had left the house - I will ask the question about the on-line ticketing system next time

The forum are exploring a couple of things independantly:

1) The possibility of having monthly hourly meetings at around midday on matchdays for 3pm kick-offs so more people can attend

ok mate no probs

and yes that is a good idea

[stokie25]

brilliant idea on seat swaps and face value re-sales...much rather that than empty seats and disappointed fans

Thank you Gaz

[diaofan]

BoothenenderGaz, was it said when this season's shirts be delivered?