Southbank Old BoySouthbank Old Boy What is STAR's view on this?
Do they have an opinion on this? Is their any lobbying of the club to protect the views of the fans? Have STAR asked their members what they think?
That Friday Feeling LOL @ everyone objecting to this now they are rolling it out across the whole stadium. Where were you bitches when it was imposed on the Upper West eh?
It's not that bad btw. You'll all get over it.
premiership_boundSouthbank Old BoySouthbank Old Boy What is STAR's view on this?
Do they have an opinion on this? Is their any lobbying of the club to protect the views of the fans? Have STAR asked their members what they think?
I should think there view is that the fans they represent are a load of miserable moaning for the sake of it oxf*rd.
Jet a oxf*rd life.
The 17 Bus 83% found it easy to use in a survey, I wonder how many used it though.
I believe Tesco are going to use Quick pay as well, no cash or cards in their stores, no I thought not.
North Somerset Royal At the last home game I arrived in the UW concourse shortly after the ground opened and on buying a beer found that the full price had been charged to my card with no discount. I queried this with the guy serving me but he did not understand what I was on about and just shrugged his shoulders. I reported this to the observers. They investigated and discovered that the pricing system had not been reset from the last rugby match. They were able to rectify this straight away so the problem only effected a few early birds. However they did not have any method of rectifying the overcharges and suggested that I write to the club requesting a refund. As it was only 30p obviously that was not worthwhile.
premiership_bound Christ I must have had a few last night I don't even remember writing that. I still think people are moaning for the sake of moaning though.
I'm hoping that eventually cards will replace cash full stop in all walks of life. Which probably wont be that long.
Southbank Old BoySouthbank Old Boy What is STAR's view on this?
Do they have an opinion on this? Is their any lobbying of the club to protect the views of the fans? Have STAR asked their members what they think?
starliaisonSouthbank Old BoySouthbank Old Boy What is STAR's view on this?
Do they have an opinion on this? Is their any lobbying of the club to protect the views of the fans? Have STAR asked their members what they think?
Sorry but I do not have the time to spare to come on here as often as some and so don't always keep up on what is said on here.
However as I give STAR a fair bit of my spare time I would turn your question round and ask if you have bothered to let STAR know how you feel. I am fairly sure I know the answer to that, as frequent requests for STAR members to let us know what the want us to follow up for them result in a resounding silence. If you can't be bothered to even send an email then fair enough - it shows how much it really matters.
We have got the software to send questionnaires out to members but so far lack on time available meant the first was delayed, so in the future we will ask our members what they think but there is no easy (and cheap as don't forget the subscription is only £10) to get to all our members and even the questionnaire will only get to those who give us their email (and always exclude those who don't have an emal address) so will not be perfect.
In the meantime let STAR know what you think on info@star-reading.org
STAR Campaigns These things do work in many places - schools, colleges, workplace canteens, etc
Silver Fox UNless they make the beer drinkable this won't affect me at all
SkylineSTAR Campaigns These things do work in many places - schools, colleges, workplace canteens, etc
All those are places where people can expect to be for 5 days-a-week, 40-50 weeks of the year, not just 25 times at irregular intervals (give or take a couple depending on cup runs). That puts a whole different complexion on it for a lot of people - a system you use every day is a lot easier to accept than one you only use once a fortnight or more.
SkylineSTAR Campaigns These things do work in many places - schools, colleges, workplace canteens, etc
All those are places where people can expect to be for 5 days-a-week, 40-50 weeks of the year, not just 25 times at irregular intervals (give or take a couple depending on cup runs). That puts a whole different complexion on it for a lot of people - a system you use every day is a lot easier to accept than one you only use once a fortnight or more.
STAR Campaigns MY personal view on this is that STAR isn't in a position to give a knee-jerk "anti" reaction on this, just as much as we can't say we're in favour of it. For years we've been banging on to the club that they have to do something to speed up service at the kiosks, and they have now come up with what they believe will solve this problem, so we can't very well say to them "That's never going to work - scrap it". They need to have an opportunity to see if it does reduce queues.
For every person from another stand who says "this is going to be an absolute disaster" there seems to be someone who's tried it in the Upper West who says that it does speed things up - yes there have been some problems there, but overall the people from the Upper West I've spoken to say it works well enough. These things do work in many places - schools, colleges, workplace canteens, etc - and from what I know of them the key to success or failure is not the technology - it's the way the system is implemented. So my own discussions with the club on this subject have been centred on *how* they roll it out, not whether they roll it out or not. As a PRINCE2 Project Manager this is one of the few things I do know something about!
A few years ago the club would have probably done a "big bang" approach and gone live with this in all stands one weekend - all credit to them now for rolling this out in a phased way, stand by stand, with people available to provide assistance as required. If this is going to happen this phased approach is clearly the best way to do it, and the club has learnt from past mistakes - and ditto with first running a pilot in Upper West. The club has stats etc and they believe this achieves the aim - who are we to say that we disagree with these stats because some people on a message board have decided this is going to be a disaster?
I believe that the proof of the pudding will be in the eating - let's see how this goes and if the queues move quicker or not before pre-judging it. It's not as good a solution as employing a better calibre of staff (which everyone knows will vastly improve matters) - but that's not going to happen without food prices rising, so I recognise that the final arbiter will be the market. If people don't like the system they won't buy food or drink on the concourses and so revenues will go down - if they do like it then the club's decision will have been vindicated.
Regarding the comment about STAR being "close to the club", I'm happy to answer that one too. We could have been like an ISA (Independent Supporters' Association) and automatically criticise, knee-jerk style, everything the club does, but I know from looking at the experiences of other supporters' groups that we would achieve nothing like that. The club simply wouldn't talk to us, and then supporters would have no voice with the club. Having an "us and them" mindset and automatically regarding the club as "the enemy" achieves nothing, since you can always achieve much more by talking to someone than being in opposition to them!
So I'm convinced it has been much more profitable for us have worked hard to have opened and maintained channels of communication with the club, and to have established our credibility with them - so we can talk openly about such things and give our honest opinions, which will be listened to, even if they're not always taken notice of. This approach may not be as visible or dramatic as an ISA which is always in the press criticising a club, but we get far, far, more positive stuff achieved for supporters than such an ISA would.
And because we've got to know the relevant people at the club and vice versa, when we do kick off about something the club, do know that we're serious about it because it's not our "default setting!" This includes things like the drug dogs, local radio broadcast rights, etc - and plenty of other things that we've either influenced or killed-off in discussions behind closed doors, where there's no great song and dance or publicity about them. But our approach does definitely work, is the best approach for working with reading FC, and also means that as a supporters' organisation we are very highly regarded in the world of such organisations - we now have 3 STAR people on the National Council of the FSF, more than any other club.
Southbank Old BoySTAR Campaigns MY personal view on this is that STAR isn't in a position to give a knee-jerk "anti" reaction on this, just as much as we can't say we're in favour of it. For years we've been banging on to the club that they have to do something to speed up service at the kiosks, and they have now come up with what they believe will solve this problem, so we can't very well say to them "That's never going to work - scrap it". They need to have an opportunity to see if it does reduce queues.
For every person from another stand who says "this is going to be an absolute disaster" there seems to be someone who's tried it in the Upper West who says that it does speed things up - yes there have been some problems there, but overall the people from the Upper West I've spoken to say it works well enough. These things do work in many places - schools, colleges, workplace canteens, etc - and from what I know of them the key to success or failure is not the technology - it's the way the system is implemented. So my own discussions with the club on this subject have been centred on *how* they roll it out, not whether they roll it out or not. As a PRINCE2 Project Manager this is one of the few things I do know something about!
A few years ago the club would have probably done a "big bang" approach and gone live with this in all stands one weekend - all credit to them now for rolling this out in a phased way, stand by stand, with people available to provide assistance as required. If this is going to happen this phased approach is clearly the best way to do it, and the club has learnt from past mistakes - and ditto with first running a pilot in Upper West. The club has stats etc and they believe this achieves the aim - who are we to say that we disagree with these stats because some people on a message board have decided this is going to be a disaster?
I believe that the proof of the pudding will be in the eating - let's see how this goes and if the queues move quicker or not before pre-judging it. It's not as good a solution as employing a better calibre of staff (which everyone knows will vastly improve matters) - but that's not going to happen without food prices rising, so I recognise that the final arbiter will be the market. If people don't like the system they won't buy food or drink on the concourses and so revenues will go down - if they do like it then the club's decision will have been vindicated.
Regarding the comment about STAR being "close to the club", I'm happy to answer that one too. We could have been like an ISA (Independent Supporters' Association) and automatically criticise, knee-jerk style, everything the club does, but I know from looking at the experiences of other supporters' groups that we would achieve nothing like that. The club simply wouldn't talk to us, and then supporters would have no voice with the club. Having an "us and them" mindset and automatically regarding the club as "the enemy" achieves nothing, since you can always achieve much more by talking to someone than being in opposition to them!
So I'm convinced it has been much more profitable for us have worked hard to have opened and maintained channels of communication with the club, and to have established our credibility with them - so we can talk openly about such things and give our honest opinions, which will be listened to, even if they're not always taken notice of. This approach may not be as visible or dramatic as an ISA which is always in the press criticising a club, but we get far, far, more positive stuff achieved for supporters than such an ISA would.
And because we've got to know the relevant people at the club and vice versa, when we do kick off about something the club, do know that we're serious about it because it's not our "default setting!" This includes things like the drug dogs, local radio broadcast rights, etc - and plenty of other things that we've either influenced or killed-off in discussions behind closed doors, where there's no great song and dance or publicity about them. But our approach does definitely work, is the best approach for working with reading FC, and also means that as a supporters' organisation we are very highly regarded in the world of such organisations - we now have 3 STAR people on the National Council of the FSF, more than any other club.
Cheers Campaigns, appreciate the detailed response.
I can totally understand where your coming from and STARs stance on operating closely alongside the club, however, I do think that at times it goes too far and I'm sure the club feel pleased to have STAR so firmly in their pocket.
I appreciate the time and effort you guys put into things, but with things like this where the fans life is, in my opinion, going to be made a lot more complicated and less convenient, then STAR need to be a bit more reactive.
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