Melbourne Based Members/Supporters

[Bear]

Originally posted by Charlie
I will still buy a membership for three reasons:
a) I won't save a considerable amount by buying general admission, and the seats won't be as good.
b) I recognise that this is primarily the AFL's betrayal, so punishing the club will achieve little.
c) I want a Grand Final ticket when we get there.

Name a way I can punish the AFL without punishing the Swans, and I'll do it. I honestly don't see what sending a politically correct letter outlining "frustration", "concern" and stressing that we "understand" will do, myself.

Although I don't live in Melbourne, the heritage and the fans of this club are all-important.

On point (b), I see it as the club's betrayal. I don't know how many times this needs to be said, but if the Swans did not agree to the WB joint venture in Sydney then it would not happen.
Simple as that... Surely not in dispute.

Therefore, we need to take strong action. Sure, buy your membership, but write to the club, and further, more drastic action is required.

If members decided to start talking boycott of a game (e.g. Optus Oval, not Geelong 'cos that wouldn't matter), maybe the club would not take the level of support they receive for granted. Maybe the 'fan-friendly' AFL would take notice, maybe Mike Sheahan would take notice...

Now I know some of you will be horrified, but given all of the protests via letters etc in the past has acheived nothing, we need to make a stand that will create headlines and bring this issue to a head.

Are you willing to give up one game in order to gain respect?

United we stand... divided we fall.

[anne]

It would only work if we could ensure that ALL Sydney fans would boycott the game. I would do it if this was the case.

[Charlie]

I don't think I could give up a game though.

Although... I might just write to Sheahan...

[Rob-bloods]

Come on, I have never missed a game yet (even when we drafted poorly EVERY year, went broke, had Col Kinnear for coach et al...) and I am not going to boycott one now!

The Swans CANNOT control the draw, only Eddie comes close, but let's let the club know directly exactly how we feel, 4000 melbourne members last year more than twice that attending games in Bloods garb, that's a lot of emails!

[anne]

After voicing my disapproval at the draw I received a reply from Tony Morwood saying the club asked for 6 games and expected 5 as well as the Geelong game. He said they are concerned and will look at whether the Bulldogs game is really of any benefit to the club. He also said they are aware of the Melbourne fans concerns but that of the supporters who attend the games in Melbourne only 25% are members. I suggest as many people as possible write to him at the Melbourne office. They need to be aware of how angry we are and that the only way to get people to buy memberships is to offer them a reasonable number of games in Melbourne.

[robbieando]

A point worth remembering is that the Melbourne based members of the club make up close 25% of the membership.

[Bron]

At the B&F night, it was noted that 4,000 of the 22,000 members are in Melbourne. That's about 18%.

[Charlie]

Originally posted by Bron
At the B&F night, it was noted that 4,000 of the 22,000 members are in Melbourne. That's about 18%.

It was 6,000 in 2002. Does that tell you anything?

Perhaps that the 5 game garbage is hurting the club down here?

[robbieando]

Originally posted by Bron
At the B&F night, it was noted that 4,000 of the 22,000 members are in Melbourne. That's about 18%.

I did say close to 25% and in any case I was going on what our membership number in Melbourne was in 2002 when it was around 6000, against this years total as I didn't know the total for Melbourne this season. As Charlie said a drop of around 2000 members tells you something, be it the number of games, the performance of the team and value for money of the membership packages

[Charlie]

Rob - I don't think you can attribute a 33% drop to the poor performances in 2002. If it was, why wasn't the by reputation more fickle Sydney-based membership dropping off by a similar margin? We lost about 4000 members, off the top of my head, in Sydney. In percentage terms, that's a lot less than we lost here.

It's the games. There isn't enough of them, and it stinks.

[robbieando]

Originally posted by Charlie
It's the games. There isn't enough of them, and it stinks.

Charlie, I don't think we can put the drop in membership in Victoria down to just less games. I think a major reason for the drop is that membership just isn't value for money that it once was. Less games of course doesn't help with value for money because our membership didn't go 1/6th in price last season to match the 1/6th drop in games and that there lies the problem

[swansrock4eva]

But by that logic Robbie, our membership should have stayed the same up here in Sydney due to the same number of games, but as far as I'm aware it went up, despite the number of games not increasing.

[robbieando]

Of course Gem, however I should point out that our membership fell by only $5 hardly any real benefit or incentive to join up because instead of saving money buying membership over buying tickets at the gate, there was NO real difference in prices and if your brought a set seat for Ticketmaster or Ticketek, then your paying extra, where in the past the club gave us the option to buy reserve seat membership that saved us money.

[Charlie]

Off the top of my head, I think my concession Victorian membership saved me about $3 over the course of the year, in ticket prices for matches.

Oh yeah, I forgot... we got a magazine a few months late and a keyring, too, didn't we?

Gem - am I right in thinking that the Bulldogs and Kangas games weren't included in memberships in 2002? If that's the case, then you're membership actually covered one more game this year.

[peterh_oz]

Originally posted by swansrock4eva
But by that logic Robbie, our membership should have stayed the same up here in Sydney due to the same number of games, but as far as I'm aware it went up, despite the number of games not increasing.

The prices stayed the same actually - mainly because they expected a rebuilding (read "losing") year so a price increase was not justified.

How much IS a Melb membership?

Sydney memberships are overpriced. Actually, I will clarify by saying "the lack of a 'basic' membership is hurting growth". Also, having a membership of 40,000 may SOUND good BUT it MUST be accompanied by a cap of 20,000 "reserved seats". If the ground is always sold out to the same people (whether they turn up or not) then the game doesn't grow. And where will the next generation of supporters come from?

We don't want to be like Rugby Union, which has become a game watched on tv (big games, Wallabies etc) but not cared for. You don't grow "caring" or "passion" via a tv screen! Ever tried buying tickets for a Bledisloe Cup game? 80,000 seats @ Stadium Aus, 10,000 sol (the remainder are for the Rugby Family - ie brainwashed private school kids etc).