whoareya wrote:

lowandhard wrote:Thoughts?
http://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/sport/ ... -kick-off/



[youtube]ubVXprN4epw[/youtube]

Looks like Frank Carson, but not funny.

Well one half of him does - perhaps he has cut off the humorous side.

Marky wrote:
Of course they're trying to squeeze out every penny, we've got nowhere else to go, but I've never heard a reasonable explanation as to why they would want to turn down our money. What have we done that's upset them so much? The Dragons are never going to be profitable, as long as they stay I see no reason why they'd want rid of us.

I’m glad we agree on that latter point but beg to differ on the Dragon’s profitability or ours for that matter. Newport historically has provided large crowds for successful teams and obviously that’s what they’re aiming for combined with a model that provides income from the stadium. This is just my opinion but I happen to think that maybe it’s our misfortune that we are amateurs dealing with businessmen.

The WRU are a really professional outfit as anyone who has enjoyed the hospitality suites at the National stadium will testify. I look at it this way, they don’t sell cheap tickets and on “ unpopular “ internationals they drape the empty seats at one end with a huge Welsh flag. They don’t sell the seats cheap because they preserve it as a premium product ( personally I’d give those empty seats to schools ) but that’s just me. Why not respect the WRU instead of treating them as an adversary? Instead why not treat them as a business partner? Would you as a person retailing a product not deal fairly and with considerately with the provider of that product? Because let’s face it we are posidrive screwed without our Newport venue.

To sum up, we need to get more professional, we need to operate in an exemplary business manner that deserves respect and not like a bunch of cowboys. We are an EFL club, no small thing, we should start behaving like one. A start would be communicating properly and promptly with the paying public. We could try being articulate, literate and comprehensive when providing information. We should , since we are a business, try considering the customer. That would be a good start and where we should have been years ago.

Just my take, all views and criticisms welcome.

Can't disagree with 'lowandhard's' summation. Just would like to stress I cannot understand why the 'nip it in the bud' strategy is not applied by the board. Whilst appreciating that this is an unofficial forum, false rumours initiated on this forum does seem to have the habit of mushrooming out of all proportion and go beyond the readers of the forum, and have a negative effect on the morale and confidence of supporters, and even the wider local community. I believe that the sooner that 'fake news' is refuted, with contempt if necessary, the better for all concerned with our club.

I agree the communication could be better , although I understand why it isn't.

The fans also need to treat the directors with more respect, some of what I've read on social media is disgraceful.

We were told our short term future is secured , but the long term future is uncertain under trust ownership - hence the open meeting in September , so what's changed?


If and when our club fails , it will be the fault of social media as much as any director. The level of abuse these volunteers receive is unsustainable, although a sure way to shut these bullies up is to ask them to provide or suggest an alternative.

OLDCROMWELLIAN wrote:Can't disagree with 'lowandhard's' summation. Just would like to stress I cannot understand why the 'nip it in the bud' strategy is not applied by the board. Whilst appreciating that this is an unofficial forum, false rumours initiated on this forum does seem to have the habit of mushrooming out of all proportion and go beyond the readers of the forum, and have a negative effect on the morale and confidence of supporters, and even the wider local community. I belief that the sooner that 'fake news' is refuted, with contempt if necessary, the better for all concerned with our club.

Well exactly! No professional organisation would allow that to happen. As my old friend Vito once said “ how did it ever come to this ? “

Spiderman wrote:I agree the communication could be better , although I understand why it isn't.

The fans also need to treat the directors with more respect, some of what I've read on social media is disgraceful.

We were told our short term future is secured , but the long term future is uncertain - hence the open meeting in September , so what's changed?


If and when our club fails , it will be the fault of social media as much as any director. The level of abuse these volunteers receive is unsustainable, although a sure way to shut these bullies up is to ask them to provide or suggest an alternative.

Sorry to disagree, you earn respect , it isn’t due because of your position. I agree that insults and unproven or unprovable statements are out of order. I disagree about your reasoning about possible club failure, it’ll happen if we fail to provide what the punter wants, the social media will just mirror that.

lowandhard wrote:

OLDCROMWELLIAN wrote:Can't disagree with 'lowandhard's' summation. Just would like to stress I cannot understand why the 'nip it in the bud' strategy is not applied by the board. Whilst appreciating that this is an unofficial forum, false rumours initiated on this forum does seem to have the habit of mushrooming out of all proportion and go beyond the readers of the forum, and have a negative effect on the morale and confidence of supporters, and even the wider local community. I belief that the sooner that 'fake news' is refuted, with contempt if necessary, the better for all concerned with our club.

Well exactly! No professional organisation would allow that to happen. As my old friend Vito once said “ how did it ever come to this ? “

Because I assume we have no real say in the outgoings that the WRU and the dragons have over us.

I heard we lost money by staging the checkatrade games becayse of the match costs the dragons charge us

lowandhard wrote:

Spiderman wrote:I agree the communication could be better , although I understand why it isn't.

The fans also need to treat the directors with more respect, some of what I've read on social media is disgraceful.

We were told our short term future is secured , but the long term future is uncertain - hence the open meeting in September , so what's changed?


If and when our club fails , it will be the fault of social media as much as any director. The level of abuse these volunteers receive is unsustainable, although a sure way to shut these bullies up is to ask them to provide or suggest an alternative.

Sorry to disagree, you earn respect , it isn’t due because of your position. I agree that insults and unproven or unprovable statements are out of order. I disagree about your reasoning about possible club failure, it’ll happen if we fail to provide what the punter wants, the social media will just mirror that.

You have supporters insinuating theft because of the cup money . This was and has been explained in the last meeting that these clowns probably didn't attend.
June and July we've had no revenue coming in yet has anyone not been paid ?

These idiots will drive our volunteers out, it's unsustainable

lowandhard wrote:

Marky wrote:
Of course they're trying to squeeze out every penny, we've got nowhere else to go, but I've never heard a reasonable explanation as to why they would want to turn down our money. What have we done that's upset them so much? The Dragons are never going to be profitable, as long as they stay I see no reason why they'd want rid of us.

I’m glad we agree on that latter point but beg to differ on the Dragon’s profitability or ours for that matter. Newport historically has provided large crowds for successful teams and obviously that’s what they’re aiming for combined with a model that provides income from the stadium. This is just my opinion but I happen to think that maybe it’s our misfortune that we are amateurs dealing with businessmen.

The WRU are a really professional outfit as anyone who has enjoyed the hospitality suites at the National stadium will testify. I look at it this way, they don’t sell cheap tickets and on “ unpopular “ internationals they drape the empty seats at one end with a huge Welsh flag. They don’t sell the seats cheap because they preserve it as a premium product ( personally I’d give those empty seats to schools ) but that’s just me. Why not respect the WRU instead of treating them as an adversary? Instead why not treat them as a business partner? Would you as a person retailing a product not deal fairly and with considerately with the provider of that product? Because let’s face it we are posidrive screwed without our Newport venue.

To sum up, we need to get more professional, we need to operate in an exemplary business manner that deserves respect and not like a bunch of cowboys. We are an EFL club, no small thing, we should start behaving like one. A start would be communicating properly and promptly with the paying public. We could try being articulate, literate and comprehensive when providing information. We should , since we are a business, try considering the customer. That would be a good start and where we should have been years ago.

Just my take, all views and criticisms welcome.

Agree with the thrust of your first two paragraphs but especially that we need to work with the WRU and break away from any seige/ 'us and them' mentality - we have to work really hard at building up a relationship and mirroring their professionalism.

The last paragraph I don't agree with. We have finite resources, and I believe our supporters need to back off a bit with the minutiae. OK for the WRU to have a well oiled PR/comms/customer engagement m/c and so they should. Also their senior executives are well remunerated and full time - they would not get involved in the debating stuff.
Ok you could/will argue that if the board communicated more frequency then less enquiries/concerns would come their way - they would be putting out fires. However, I think people forget that our Board are not paid/are not full time and the employees have much ground to cover (did you see the job description for the kitman ffs!!!). So put another way, my business - 3 employees. 1 guy makes the product, testing, packaging and arranges delivery; 1 sells the product and sets up distribution channels and the 3rd guy manages invoices/bills/ordering/ general admin and customer support issues, enquiries marketing/databases etc I haven't time to speak to the 'sleeping' shareholders on a daily basis and explain what we are all doing and why and listening to their altetnative views and desire to be kept informed on every bad debt etc - once a month meeting with a top level overview/status and customers get told upbeat things as and when (not all of them are so interested in the product that they feel they need to know every about screw turn and as customers they rarely get together to be so intensely 'interested in all things screwlike - they have other things to do.

Spiderman wrote:

lowandhard wrote:

OLDCROMWELLIAN wrote:Can't disagree with 'lowandhard's' summation. Just would like to stress I cannot understand why the 'nip it in the bud' strategy is not applied by the board. Whilst appreciating that this is an unofficial forum, false rumours initiated on this forum does seem to have the habit of mushrooming out of all proportion and go beyond the readers of the forum, and have a negative effect on the morale and confidence of supporters, and even the wider local community. I belief that the sooner that 'fake news' is refuted, with contempt if necessary, the better for all concerned with our club.

Well exactly! No professional organisation would allow that to happen. As my old friend Vito once said “ how did it ever come to this ? “

Because I assume we have no real say in the outgoings that the WRU and the dragons have over us.

I heard we lost money by staging the checkatrade games becayse of the match costs the dragons charge us

Everyone dislikes those fixtures so I doubt anyone makes a profit on them : meanwhile the landlord can’t compromise their safety certificate...... recipe for us losing money. In future we should only open the Bisley, did we do that, I can’t remember despite being there?

Yes they did

Spiderman wrote:Yes they did

Thanks, another good reason for disliking that competition then!

lowandhard wrote:

Marky wrote:
Of course they're trying to squeeze out every penny, we've got nowhere else to go, but I've never heard a reasonable explanation as to why they would want to turn down our money. What have we done that's upset them so much? The Dragons are never going to be profitable, as long as they stay I see no reason why they'd want rid of us.

I’m glad we agree on that latter point but beg to differ on the Dragon’s profitability or ours for that matter. Newport historically has provided large crowds for successful teams and obviously that’s what they’re aiming for combined with a model that provides income from the stadium. This is just my opinion but I happen to think that maybe it’s our misfortune that we are amateurs dealing with businessmen.

The WRU are a really professional outfit as anyone who has enjoyed the hospitality suites at the National stadium will testify. I look at it this way, they don’t sell cheap tickets and on “ unpopular “ internationals they drape the empty seats at one end with a huge Welsh flag. They don’t sell the seats cheap because they preserve it as a premium product ( personally I’d give those empty seats to schools ) but that’s just me. Why not respect the WRU instead of treating them as an adversary? Instead why not treat them as a business partner? Would you as a person retailing a product not deal fairly and with considerately with the provider of that product? Because let’s face it we are posidrive screwed without our Newport venue.

To sum up, we need to get more professional, we need to operate in an exemplary business manner that deserves respect and not like a bunch of cowboys. We are an EFL club, no small thing, we should start behaving like one. A start would be communicating properly and promptly with the paying public. We could try being articulate, literate and comprehensive when providing information. We should , since we are a business, try considering the customer. That would be a good start and where we should have been years ago.

Just my take, all views and criticisms welcome.

This is my honest view. You must as deluded as the people running the Dragons if you think they will ever make a profit. Only 5% of pro rugby teams make a profit and most are underpinned by significant benefactor funds.

They also pissed off 50% of the support when they changed it to NGD then about another 20% when the renamed it Dragons. They have purposely disenfranchised their biggest target market and lyalnsupoort systematically over a number of years, how thick is that?

They even packed off all NRFCs historic memorabilia and chucked it in a room out of the way. Idiots the lot of them. Falling crowds, falling income, and the shittest team in rugby. They are a joke organisation.

I just hope we take these arseholes on and win and they are trying to screw us in my view.

"take these arseholes on and win". what the hell does that entail?

OLDCROMWELLIAN wrote:"take these arseholes on and win". what the hell does that entail?

Pretty much confirmation we are taking legal action against them.