Report for Season 2008-2009

The Fixtures Pool website is establishing itself as a necessary and worthwhile tool in the armoury of Fixtures Secretaries / Match Secretaries of rugby clubs in the Midlands. January 2006 now seems a long way away and hardly anyone can remember all the time that was wasted, waiting for a telephone line to clear, before you could find out who was looking for a game of rugby in “The Pool”.

Improvements have, yet again, been made to the Website for this coming season by Richard Arney (Webmaster) following suggestions by various clients and it is running superbly, with all users commenting as to how user friendly the programme is and how much easier it now is to find out who is looking for games on either a Saturday (Senior) or a Sunday (Junior and Mini).

Business has continued to increase, with the bonus of it all going on in the background unnoticed. Thanks to Richard Arney for his work as webmaster, the time that I have to devote to administering the facility has diminished considerably, enabling me to branch out into other administrative duties with the Midlands Leagues Organising Committeee of which I am now the Secretary. The growth in membership of the Fixtures Pool has steadied this last season, but clubs are using a system that they all feel very comfortable with and all report that it makes the life of the Fixtures Secretary / Match Secretary so much easier than it used to be. What has been most pleasing is the increased use of the ‘Pool’ by the Junior and Mini Sections within clubs for their Sunday games, but it would be even better if more clubs, who are already members, realised that their Junior and Mini Sections can use the facility totally free of charge.  

This season, we averaged 134 teams per week in the ‘Pool’, dealing with 4,812 teams in total – last season the figures were 98 per week and 4,250 in total. As you can see, this season has seen a further increase and all without hanging on to the end of a telephone line waiting to get through. What is exciting about the future is that the more clubs in the Midlands and elsewhere that join, the bigger and better the site will become, still with the bonus of no queuing. In order that this may come about it needs all users to encourage non users of this facility to become members of this Fixtures Pool, in addition to any other that they may use. They would very quickly find out which one was the easier to use and which gave them the better service.

The monthly breakdown, showing the last two seasons for comparison purposes, was as follows:-

All registered clubs received an invitation to attend the Fixtures Secretaries’ Meeting at Alcester RFC on Tuesday June 16th 2009. where a buffet, paid for out of club subscriptions, was laid on by Karyl as usual.

The Structured Season and League Fixtures for 2009-2010 were confirmed  by the RFU and released to clubs via their League Secretary at the end of May.

The fees for next season will be reduced thanks to a sponsorship deal with Briefclick. There will be an all-inclusive, up front fee of £20 per club, with no extra charges for entry into the Pool or use by Junior, Mini and Women Sections. We hope this will encourage more clubs to use us, thus giving you more choice of opposition on the site.

If we could find some advertisers for the website, we would be able to reduce the cost further, only requiring a nominal registration fee at the beginning of the season. Potential advertisers please contact either Richard Arney richard@briefclick.com) or me

(rogerrees@dsl.pipex.com).       Have a successful 2009-2010 season.

Roger Rees