First XV Squad for 15th November

1st XV team sheet published in the usual place, any questions let me know on 07847181594 or email selection@millwallrugby.com

If you fancy a game and haven't let us know yet email selection@millwallrugby.com

Also, those who have out of date membership (if you're not sure then email me and I can check) please pay by following this link: http://www.millwallrugby.com/membership/paymembership.html to pay online.

Also remember our touch tournament and quiz this Sunday! Details are here http://millwallrugby.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/register-now-for-sundays-touch-rugby.html 

Cheers,

Cookie

Introduce a new player in 2014 and get £20.14 to spend at the bar!

As part of the club's recent adult recruitment efforts, we need YOUR help!

We'd like you to contact your friends, family, work colleagues, neighbours; anyone you know who is interested in playing rugby and encourage them to come along and try a training session and then encourage them to join as a club member.

If you bring them along to participate in any adult training session, touch rugby session or Rugby Basics session before the end of 2014 AND persuade them to join straight away, we'll give you £20.14 to spend at the bar as a thank you!

Just contact membership@millwallrugby.com to introduce your new member to us.

Terms:

• You need to be a paid-up, current club member yourself.
• Over 18s only.
• You must bring a new member to any adult training session, touch rugby session or Rugby Basics session, or as a player on a match-day before 31st December 2014 and they must participate as a player or beginner.
• The new player must join and pay membership within 4 weeks of first coming along to their session/game.

Online membership payment for 2014 now available

We've now made it possible to pay your 2014 club membership online via our website.

Visit our membership page to join or renew your membership.

About Subs and Membership fees

Just a reminder if you’ve been in a deep slumber for the past few weeks that our membership fees and some match day subs have increased. Astute playing members will have noticed that the new price of £50 is more than the experimental £40 we charged last year, but this is still less than the £60 we were charging for men’s playing membership a couple of years ago.

Why?

Well we looked at what we think we will spend in 2014/2015 on transport, coaching, equipment, ref fees, pitch hire, physio support, first aid supplies, strapping tape, balls, shirts, laundry, post-match free food, free beers, and more. And in short: we realised what we were charging at the moment together with what we expect to make in profits from the clubhouse wasn’t looking like it would be enough to cover it.

I’m hoping to get these numbers presented nicely soon to show you what we mean.

Hopefully sponsorship wins and cost savings throughout the year will enable us to review the charges again.

Membership Options this year

Our standing order scheme is usually the best value way of paying for your rugby at Millwall. It’s £25 per month paid over a 12-months making a total commitment of £300 over the year. This figure includes membership and all subs. If you play more than 16 matches this season this is better value for you and in the past the club has let members on this continue year-after-year without increasing the amount. Contact treasurer@millwallrugby.com to set it up.

If you’re feeling flush this month… Life membership is £1000 and includes all membership fees and subs for life.

Really can’t afford it?

If you really can’t afford your club membership (as opposed to just preferring to spend your money elsewhere), our treasurer (alone) has the discretion to waive it or reduce it on a special exception basis if you approach her with a persuasive case explaining why it’s too much for you. Contact treasurer@millwallrugby.com – If you don’t do this, your team manager will expect you to pay what is due in line with other members. If you are struggling to pay your match day subs too, please contact the treasurer as she has the discretion to approve a waiver for a limited period.

Isn’t the committee listening?

Yes. And we’re really busy trying to do something about the finances. We want the club to enjoy another 20 years on the pitch with all of you playing.

We want to make rugby affordable and will do all we can to encourage more people to play. Your playing chairmen/women all sit on the committee and have been involved all the way in the decision making and understanding the issues voted for the changes. Many of the management committee are current or recent players anyway.

We are currently looking into costs and charges as a matter of urgency to keep them as low as we can afford to. In the meantime, please do what you can to support the club and make your team manager’s life easy by making yourself available and paying the amounts they ask you for as contribution to the club’s costs.

PS... Don't forget to read Robin's post from Wednesday too for more on this topic.

Andrew
Communications Officer
communications@millwallrugby.com

Update from the Chair on Subs

Dear all

No one likes a price rise and the higher subs has created some noise in some quarters - so here is some background to the decision:

• subs hadn’t risen since 2011
• since 2011 what we spent on playing rugby per player rose by substantially over 50% to £16.50 per game
• or another view: transport and coaching went from £7,700 in 2011 to £14,000 last season and a projected £16,200 this season

To put things simply - we were heading towards a loss with no guaranteed respite. Clearly something had to change.

I have heard a couple of questions so to air them here in case you also wondered about this:

• How come we could afford buses last year but didn’t have to pay extra subs?The committee arranged the transport as an experiment and attempted this without raising any prices to cover the cost. the club absorbed the additional expense but this is not a sustainable outcome.
   
• Isn’t the only reason we have to pay more now is because of the massive loss on the annual dinner?
  No. That loss was absorbed by the club as a one-off hit. The rise in subs relates to the ongoing higher costs of running rugby teams.

We are looking urgently at alternative travel arrangements where we could borrow buses for almost no cost and drive ourselves around. If our application to join the scheme is successful the committee will review the financial projections with the view to reversing some or all of the subs increase. We will do what we can when we can. Volunteer drivers step forward to Ronan/Fisher please!

While player numbers have remained fairly steady since last season, the additional games scheduled in the new league structures mean that we are struggling to field three full squads in one weekend.

Can everyone please think if you have any friends or contacts who would like to join you at Millwall. James Gough desperately needs some recruitment help if we are to remain with a 3’s team? Contact thirdteammanager@millwallrugby.com

All the best and see you at the club

Robin Poynder
Chairman
robin@millwallrugby.com

Changes at the Club - How this affects you

I hope you have been enjoying the summer and are looking forward to a great season of rugby.
 

I wanted to write to you personally, to bring you up to speed with the club’s current situation, as well as to highlight some changes to membership and subs that I believe are necessary and may impact you.


  

Improving Rugby at Millwall

Millwall Rugby Club is a strong, successful and vibrant club. And it may surprise you to learn that our annual turnover is in the region of £90,000, putting it on a par with some small businesses. Building the club to that size of turnover has inevitably meant that we encounter some challenges.

Over the past few years, the club’s committee has worked tirelessly to improve what we offer to members, to ensure that we stay competitive and grow as a club both on and off the pitch. As we enter our 20th Anniversary year, we are offering members more than ever before. 

• We now provide regular, quality coaching to the men’s teams via a paid-for-coach, rather than relying exclusively on volunteer coaches.
• We now provide free transport to most away matches.
• We’ve moved training from an often poor quality paddock at Mudchute Farm onto Millwall Park, alongside our clubhouse and we now have a set of reliable and fully portable training floodlights for the winter months.
• We are now more consistent in providing home and visiting teams with good quality home-cooked food after matches.
• We’re now running touch rugby more professionally all-year-round.
• We’re now providing better first-aid cover and physio support through recruiting and training volunteers. 
• Opened in 2010, we have a warm clubhouse, that is now open for longer hours and is consistently available for members and guests after training sessions and matches.

 
 

Shortfall in revenue

Some of the improvements that the club has enjoyed have inevitably meant incurring additional costs. The level of additional spending has now reached £16,000 a year more than the club needed to spend in its earlier years.  In terms everyone can understand, this now means that it costs more than double what it used to cost to give everyone a game of rugby.

Recent committees have made good progress in finding alternative funding sources in their efforts to maintain members’ cost increases to a minimum, with membership fees and subs increasing only slightly in recent years. I want to emphasise the efforts that have been made to keep charges low and affordable for everyone.

However, it is important to recognise the lack of certainty that the club is faced with as we look forward at the costs the club will face this season when compared with expected revenue. If nothing changes, we could expect a revenue shortfall of at least £12,000. Clearly, this situation has to be addressed if we are to ensure a financially viable rugby club for the coming years.

With this in mind, I called together the current management committee to look at how we can plug this funding gap and secure the long-term future of the club.

Whilst I understand that there are some potentially interesting areas where costs can be saved your committee agrees that a certain level of spending is necessary if the club is to develop and achieve its ambitions. We have an exciting season ahead of us in the Essex 1 league and maintaining the coaching and travel commitments in support of our ambitions has to be a priority.


  

Here’s what we decided

This issue affects the viability of the whole club, and we believe it’s the right thing for everyone to be part of the solution.  We are a “rugby club with a strong social element”, not a social club that plays some rugby. And we want everyone to come together as part of one Millwall rugby community.

Here are the decisions:

• We’re abolishing the two-tier membership structure and introducing a single-adult membership level of £50 per year for everyone. This will affect all adult members, including men, Venus, social members and youth parent members (except students/unwaged membership who will still pay £25). This change means that all members will simply be classed as ‘member’ (as opposed to playing or social), and anyone will be eligible to play for the club if they wish.
• We’re increasing weekly playing subs for adult men to £15 per match. (Venus subs will remain at £7.50 because the women do not benefit from the paid-for coaching). 
• Weekly playing subs for student and unwaged members (men and women) remain discounted, however they will rise to £5 per match while you remain a student/unwaged. Evidence of your status may be required periodically.
• The Standing Order men’s membership scheme has changed and remains the best value way to be a member if you play regularly - and more details are in the section below.
• We’re taking a more rigorous approach to collecting membership fees and weekly subs.  If your membership is not up-to-date by Wednesday evening before the game, your team manager will not select you to play. Any arranged club transport will not leave until every player travelling has paid their subs - even if that means letting the club down by travelling with fewer players or forfeiting fixtures.
• Youth subs and membership charges will be re-introduced this season. Details to follow. 
• Life membership, which includes all subs, will stay at a one-off payment of £1000 (or £100 per month if paid in 12 instalments over a year).
• Some of the bar prices will increase slightly, however we are keeping them as low as possible – for instance a pint of Becks remains at the low price of just £2.90.

All of the above changes are effective from today.
 

The men’s Standing Order scheme

Our standing order scheme is very good value for money because it includes membership and subs in one low monthly payment.  With the increased number of fixtures this season, you could easily save £80 against the cost of paying membership + subs.

A few years back the existing 12-month payment scheme was changed to an 8-month scheme, to try and counter the actions of some members who were not honouring the spirit of the scheme by cancelling their payments during the summer months.  

• To help budgeting over a longer period we have decided to bring back the 12-month scheme to allow members to spread payment evenly over the whole year. The 8-month scheme will cease.
• The new price for all members is £25 per month paid over 12 months, recognising that there are many more fixtures this season.  In recognition of longer term support for the club, any member who is already paying a 12 month Standing Order may continue to pay at their current rate. The club is grateful to the number of overseas members who continue to support the club in this way!
• Everyone who takes up the scheme is expected to honour the 12 month agreement. We will be more rigorous in ensuring that all payments are collected and if you should fall behind on your payments, you will not be selected to play until you’ve made up what you owe.

Historically, the club has allowed members on the 12-month standing order scheme to continue paying at the same rate for as long as they maintain the same un-broken standing order.  Whilst we can’t guarantee the actions of future committees, it is the committee’s intent that this approach will continue for the foreseeable future. You may therefore find that there are additional benefits in joining the scheme and locking-in your rate now.
 

Volunteers

It is the club’s policy to reward regular volunteers with 50% discount on membership and subs (except life membership) for as long as they remain a volunteer. Many of our volunteers choose not to take the discount, however we believe that this is a simple way to incentivise and recognise people who give a little extra of their time each week.
 

Hardship cases

We will still be understanding in cases of genuine hardship, and existing club policies around this remain unchanged: we want Millwall Membership to remain accessible to all. If you are in genuine hardship and cannot afford your membership fees you should write to the treasurer explaining your circumstances.
 

“Let’s Go to Work”

I believe your management committee has done its part and taken the difficult decisions needed to put the club on a strong financial path for this season.  We will continue working to minimise costs and maximise alternative sources of funding, such as finding sponsorship and applying for grants.

We need you to support the changes, keep training, keep socialising and to encourage others to play their part in the success of the club. We’d like you to suggest new ways of funding, new ideas that we might be able to action to bring in new revenue and to introduce us to your employers who might want to sponsor the club.

This season promises to be an exciting one for Millwall Rugby. We are in Essex 1 and the pre-season training has been progressing well. The players look fitter than ever and the tackling looks strong. Whilst I daresay we will encounter challenging moments through the season, I am looking forward immensely to watching the Men’s teams cement their places in the League and Merit tables, and for Venus to crack into the ladies league. Touch rugby has also received a new impetus and as we align ourselves more closely with the O2 Touch programme under the watchful eye of Mr Flex, we can look forward to seeing further new faces on the park and to welcoming more new members into the club.

Shaun Cook, who with the other playing members on the committee was part of these decisions, will be holding a meeting for players on Wednesday this week after training, where he will echo these key changes.  If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me personally at chairman@millwallrugby.com.


With best wishes for a cracking season ahead


Robin Poynder

Chairman, Millwall Rugby Club
www.millwallrugby.com