Club Communications: Programme & Match Report Volunteers needed

Do you like rugby?  And do you like writing or desktop publishing?

I'm looking for some volunteers this season who would like to help the club in one or both of two areas:

1. Writing weekly match reports for the newspaper of the game they watch/support or play in

2. Editing or sub-editing a match-day programme each week.

If you're interested in helping out as part of a small team with either of the above please get in touch with me by email to communications@millwallrugby.com. There's more info about it below.

By having regular coverage in the newspaper, it helps us recruit players. But equally important; it keeps the local community and local businesses informed and interested in the club. And that makes it much easier to get valuable sponsorship.

I hope you can help out because both of these things make a real difference to how successful the club can be on the pitch, in player recruitment and in attracting members, sponsors and funding. 

Best regards

Andrew
Communications Officer

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Here's some more background of what it involves:

Match Report Writing (Men's, Venus & Youth)

We have good links with the local papers and most weeks during the season we manage to get a few column inches and a photo or two into the paper.  The paper will sometimes rewrite what we send, so it doesn't need to be perfect. There just needs to be some basic info like:

• who did we play, 
• where did we play, 
• who scored, 
• what the final score was, 
• what the captain thought/said,
• and as the season progresses what the game means for our league position.  

It is vital that the match report is READY by 6pm Sunday evening otherwise it is less likely to get in the paper. Some of the papers have later deadlines.  "Something" is always better than "nothing" in this case, so don't feel what you do has to be perfect; it doesn't.

This job can be allocated to a player as a match-day job (it has been in the past), or could be done by a supporter who travels to see the game.  In the latter case, you'd get free transport to away games in the team minibus.

Programme Editor (or editing team)

The Millwall match-day programme is something of a club tradition. If you're interested in looking through the history of programmes since time began, we have a box of one copy of each edition upstairs in the clubhouse office. Some seasons we've been better than others at keeping this tradition going.

The idea is that teams pick up a copy at the Saturday meet and take it with them to read on the train/bus.  In theory a few copies would be taken for supporters too.

This job could be shared by a few individuals on a rota or each compiling part of it. Since we have the club blog it should be easier.  As a bare minimum, you'd take everything that's been published on the cub blog that week, include a list of stats/appearances (Flex makes this) and get an update on club finances from the treasurer.  It could include a regular message from the chairman or section chairs. It would include match reports from the previous games. If you don't have a match report, you can write a completely fictional one!! It could be funny or serious, as you like it.

Potentially, advertising could be sold, but only if this is a regular and reliable thing.

Essentially the programme editor (or editors) can make this "their own".  Design it how you like, or follow a template that's been used before.

If you decide to make a PDF version as well as a print version, it could be distributed to 800 supporters each week as well and that could have impact on sponsorship and donations from members who live away. As an example of what would be possible if someone made a PDF programme, see our Issuu library here.

Usually the programme editor prints a few copies of the programme at work (maybe up to 50 copies a week), but the club could pay for it to be printed elsewhere if necessary.