NWRFC Future Strategy Forum Results

Background

The decision to hold such a Forum came out of a meeting held in April 2017 where a number of Directors and officers were invited by the Club Chairman to participate in a meeting to discuss and recommend to the Board of Directors how the club should move forward with a number of projects which were in some stage of their development .

In the main these projects talked out what we call Hard Facilities which included for example provision of access for our members and guests to the 1st floor of our club house , provision of a balcony and the provision of improved training flood lights etc . From those discussions it quickly became clear to the group that to recommend anything to the Directors of our Club we should be asking the members of our club how they would like to see the club develop over the coming years .

To this end the decision was made to recommend to our Board of Directors that we should revisit our existing development plans by inviting our members from all sections of our club to participate in a Strategy Forum to develop these ideas. As we all know the date of such a Forum was moved following requests from a number of sections of our club , with the final date agreed as being Friday 15th June at The Club House . Those who could not attend that evening were offered the opportunity to partake in the exercise electronically/or hard copy .

Format for the Evenings Exercise

The format for the exercise was led by our external Facilitator Chris Carr who volunteered his services to put together and run the evenings exercise . ( see attached sample questionnaire used ).

Attendance was from a fair cross section of our club members on the evening, 33 attended with 30 completed questionnaires returned on the evening and 6 returned either electronically on hard copy following the meeting . The total number of 36 returns based on our membership gave us a 12% return .

Whilst participating in theexercise members were encouraged by Chris to be honest , but be respectful and to write what they were thinking,this giving given the Directors much to think about ! The findings from the exercisewas promised to be available to all members within the 4-6 weeks following the date of the Forum with the deadline of 27th July

So having taken the 36 returns awaythe responses were collated by a small group of Directors accompanied by Chris our Facilitator, with the outcomes being as follows -

Section 1 - What does North Walsham Rugby Club mean to you ?

A interesting question was presented to the group and from the resulting answers given it showed that a high number (32%) of our members indicated that they came to our club either on a Saturday or Sunday ( or both ) because it is a place to meet, make friends and socialize as it provides a welcoming and family friendly environment to be in . Another high number (22%) of our members indicated that they came to our club to watch the highest standard of Rugby played in Norfolk and were proud to be a member because of this fact.

Section 2- What ideas have you got for the club ?

This section gave our members time to think of ideas no matter how big or small and to understand this exercise was not just about hard facilities but about ideas they would like to be implemented in the future . As can be seen from the results of Section 2 ( see attached Results) there is a vast range of ideas for example , sorting out the showers on match days to providing lift access to the 1st floor of our Clubhouse . Following the completion of the questionnaire , members were asked to share their ideas with the wider audience .

Section 3 -Ranking your top 5 ideas from section 2

This Section of the exercise asked the group to rank their top 5 ideas from section 2 . This data has now been collated with the results shown on the attached spreadsheet , this shows the range of ideas put forward by our members as their priorities for the Club to address in the future . As can be seen 153 ideas were put forward and as part of the collating exercise these were put into a number of subject headings which had a common connection with the idea .

The percentage scores show that the following ideas were ranked the highest -

1) Communication within our Club & the wider audience

2) Utilization of our club facilities both in and out of season

3) Marketing of our Club to the wider community

4) Mini & Youth connection to Senior Club

5) Provision of outside catering & beverage area

6) Access to 1st Floor of our Clubhouse for All

7) Linking into Schools

Note - A number of ideas put forward have been identified as `maintenance` issues .These ideas are highlighted in green on the attached spreadsheet .

Section 4 - Scoring your recommendation to others

This Section asked on a scale of 1-10 how likely are you to recommend

YOUR CLUB North Walsham Rugby Football Club to your family and friends ?

A score of 10 being most likely and 1 not at all !.

As we would have perhaps guessed the result from this question was very positive with from 36 questionnaires answered an average score of 9.97 being obtained. One reason `why` I think covers most of the answers given was -

`The best place in Norfolk to come to on a Saturday afternoon is to watch a great standard of Rugby , meet likeminded people in a very friendly and sociable environment `

Conclusions

First conclusion is that the exercise was worthwhile with 36 members being involved in the Forum which represented 12 % of our membership together with 153 ideas which they had for our club .

Secondly, some clear Top Ranking ideas have emerged from the results from Section 3 when members were asked for their top 5 ideas. This information will now give our Directors a steer in which direction our members wish to take their Club in the future and will form the strategy to do this .

Thirdly , there are a number of maintenance issues that were raised & these should be noted and acted upon by our Clubs Management .

Maintenance issues included for example -

a) continue with senior player and retention to retain/ improve our league status

b) continue with the maintenance programme of our playing surfaces as outlined by the RFU`s Keith Kent report produced earlier this year following his visit to the club .

c) identify and carry urgent repairs to our main and training pitches floodlighting system

Recommendations to Board of Directors

Taking on board the findings from the above exercise the following recommendations should be considered by the Clubs Board of Directors -

1)Maintenance - The Board should take on board the Maintenance issues raised and take action as necessary .

2) Communication within our club -The Board should look to appoint a Communications Officer from within our Club ( either a Board member or a new Volunteer) with the necessary skills to coordinate and to relay ALL relevant communications matters across all sections of our club and to the wider community required .

3) Marketing of our Club - The Board should seek to recruit from our membership if possible, someone with the necessary expertise in Marketing to review our Clubs existing Marketing Structure and report back to the Board with recommendations on how to restructure for the future .

4) Utilization of our Club Facilities - The Board should look to forming a sub Committee from within its membership to include representation from all sections of our club ,to Manage and/or organize events etc to increase the use of our Facilities .

5) Access to 1st Floor and Provision of catering facility -The Board should look to revisit our Clubs Development plans for the proposed Balcony and Lift provision as shown on plans produced by SMG architects dated Jan 2015 and consider the feasibility of introduce a facility for providing ground floor fast food and beverages into any future Development . To manage this Development the Board should if possible appoint a dedicated Project Manager from its membership to manage the overall project .

6) Linking into Schools - The Board should consider & approve the implementation of the already produced `Links with Local State High Schools Potential Programme` produced by James Brooks &Paul Morse dated 9/06/17.

(con`t)

7)Mini & Youth connection to Senior Club - The Board should consider nominating a minimum of two Directors together with the Chair`s of both Youth & Mini`s, for them to recruit as necessary from our clubs membership volunteers to put together a simple action plan to help address this particular issue we have within our club.

Summing up this paper I think as your Chairman it is important for the membership to understand that our Club`s success on and off the pitch since 1962 when the Club was founded , has in the main always been underpinned by a strong volunteer ethos. Therefore it is important that if we as Directors of the Club are to implement the ideas put forward by our members, we need additional volunteers to put themselves forward to fill/support some of the roles identified within the recommendations . To this end should you wish to put yourself forward to get involved in developing our club in such a way as our membership has asked, then please do not hesitate to contact me or one of our Directors .

Keith Jarvis

Chairman

13th July 2017