Post by doughug on Oct 2, 2008 8:22:00 GMT
Just to let you all know that with effect from Saturday's game against Romsey, the programme price will increase from £1.00 to £1.50.
Supporters will have noted that something was up last Saturday with the curtailed programme. To cut a long story short, Ian Claxton spent a couple of long days at the end of last week trying to resolve a problem with his existing copier, and then having to use other means just to get a reasonable number of copies of the reduced programme together (still better than many we see around the league, I thought!). This was on top of time spent preparing programmes for the Cowes and Gosport Youth Cup fixtures. I've also heard a few comments around the ground expressing frustration that we are selling out of programmes well before kick off. Whilst the three home fixtures in 8 days meant that this was an exceptional week, it did prompt a review of how we can
* Maintain the current high standard of our award-winning programme
* Increase the number of programmes available as gates increase and for "big" games
* Give Ian a little bit of his life back!
We considered various options and the costs associated with them.
Repairing Ian's existing copier would have been quite expensive and would have been likely to just be a temporary fix. Anyone that works in an office knows that once a copier starts playing up, it's usually the beginning of a downward spiral.
Purchasing a new, or even second-hand copier, with the necessary support contract would have been prohibitively expensive, and would not have upped capacity.
So the board agreed we will trial getting the programme printed professionally, and the Romsey programme will be the first done this way. A 50% increase might seem drastic, but it should be noted that this is the first increase in around more than 15 years (the price was £1 for several Southern League seasons in the early 90s). With my FD's hat on, I can assure you that this will only generate a very modest profit. Keeping the price at £1 would have meant regular losses, or accepting a much-reduced programme.
I hope you understand the decision we've taken, but comments are welcome, particularly once you've seen Saturday's edition.
Supporters will have noted that something was up last Saturday with the curtailed programme. To cut a long story short, Ian Claxton spent a couple of long days at the end of last week trying to resolve a problem with his existing copier, and then having to use other means just to get a reasonable number of copies of the reduced programme together (still better than many we see around the league, I thought!). This was on top of time spent preparing programmes for the Cowes and Gosport Youth Cup fixtures. I've also heard a few comments around the ground expressing frustration that we are selling out of programmes well before kick off. Whilst the three home fixtures in 8 days meant that this was an exceptional week, it did prompt a review of how we can
* Maintain the current high standard of our award-winning programme
* Increase the number of programmes available as gates increase and for "big" games
* Give Ian a little bit of his life back!
We considered various options and the costs associated with them.
Repairing Ian's existing copier would have been quite expensive and would have been likely to just be a temporary fix. Anyone that works in an office knows that once a copier starts playing up, it's usually the beginning of a downward spiral.
Purchasing a new, or even second-hand copier, with the necessary support contract would have been prohibitively expensive, and would not have upped capacity.
So the board agreed we will trial getting the programme printed professionally, and the Romsey programme will be the first done this way. A 50% increase might seem drastic, but it should be noted that this is the first increase in around more than 15 years (the price was £1 for several Southern League seasons in the early 90s). With my FD's hat on, I can assure you that this will only generate a very modest profit. Keeping the price at £1 would have meant regular losses, or accepting a much-reduced programme.
I hope you understand the decision we've taken, but comments are welcome, particularly once you've seen Saturday's edition.
I would have gladly paid £3 for it on the day!! (And no - that's not an offer!)
?? A co-incidence?
