The selling of our club to the next generation

[lemmon]

Re: The selling of our club to the next generation

When I was a young Lad we would have players come to our school at least onse a year I remember a young Scotty West, Brad Johnson and Adam Contessa running PE having a kick with us during Lunch Time. My Primary School was in Altona Meadows.

And my High School had Gia there for 6 years straight talk about commitment, though at the time he was promoting the Hawks.

Ah another St Pauls boy, good to see. What Primary school was that mate?

[Wally G]

Re: The selling of our club to the next generation

I work in a local primary school and my experience is that when you get past the gate keeper (no easy experience) they are generally fantastic, but it is too corporate and too hard to organise for the average hard working primary school teacher to bother with.

[LostDoggy]

Re: The selling of our club to the next generation

I had some discussions with a friend of mine last night about the state of our club and where it is heading.

He lives in Werribee and has a young family, his oldest boy is 6 and is a very passionate Bulldogs supporter ( He may even rival young Seb as our keenest young fan).

Well now...that's a big call LOL jokes aside... We all know there are lots and lots of youngsters who are just as passionate for the dogs as each other!

All really really good points in this thread. But why does it have to be promoted in the western suburbs only? I do understand that the idea is to get more members coming out of the western suburbs, as it's been stated before that there is a majority membership in the east. BUT, there are enough players to go around to send a couple out east occassionally.
Especially since it's much much harder and time consuming for us out here to get over there to catch training with our kids. Or to just 'pop' into the whitten oval (or bulldogs shop). It would be great for the kids on the east side of town to have access to what the west side and get much quicker and easier (if that makes sense?) Actually in saying that, it is virtually impossible to get ANY Dogs merchandise out east, it's all Richmond, Saints and Essendon gear. It's so annoying!

So getting to kids at an early age is important - as we've seen with Seb. Seb's been lucky enough to be noticed by the club and this will hopefully go along way to nurturing a long lasting relationship. It's just that we feel so far away and so out of touch with what's going on at the club. It's only because of WOOF and our hours of trawling the web that we are able to keep abreast of what's going on over there in the West.
Funny this should come up actually, cause just yesterday we were fanticising about the Dogs making Waverley their home

Anyway it's all relative to the area you live in, but those who follow teams not in their home suburb (or state) for that matter should be given thought whne it comes to marketing for membership too. It all come down to money I guess!!

[Missing Dog]

Re: The selling of our club to the next generation

Quite right GoDoggies we are a little selfish with our posts on this thread maybe the Dogs can train once a month in suburbs across the westgate to allow our friends from afar the privelege of watching them train

[Prince Imperial]

Re: The selling of our club to the next generation

The team does train annually in Glen Waverley in the East West day in March. I've lived in the east of Melbourne most of my life and Dogs supporters are pretty thin on the ground - I can well remember being the only Footscray supporter in my entire school.

Our club has limited resources and players can only be expected to spend a finite time on fan development exercises (in fact the AFL Collective Bargaining Agreement places limits on appearance work). I've got no problem with the club focusing on the West.

[Go_Dogs]

Re: The selling of our club to the next generation

I think the Bulldogs are a very young, exciting team and certainly very marketable to the younger generation. My little brother (12 years old) has become a very big Bulldogs supporter in our Crows supporting household at home. I think the attraction for him is that the side is full of young players (particularly a few from SA helps too) and play an exciting brand of football.

We are well positioned for the future imo - not many people dislike us, and with some success over the next few years the club can really consolidate it's position.

[LostDoggy]

Re: The selling of our club to the next generation

The team does train annually in Glen Waverley in the East West day in March. I've lived in the east of Melbourne most of my life and Dogs supporters are pretty thin on the ground - I can well remember being the only Footscray supporter in my entire school.

Our club has limited resources and players can only be expected to spend a finite time on fan development exercises (in fact the AFL Collective Bargaining Agreement places limits on appearance work). I've got no problem with the club focusing on the West.

PI - do you have kids?
There are more and more supporters in the east, possibly more than you think! Most of them young kids. And it's dissapointing for them that just becasue we live on the wrong side of the westgate that we can't even get merchandise without buying online (not eveyone has computer/internet), waiting for game day (which we may not be able to make it too) or travelling to the west. This doesn't necessarily effect me, but I know a few doggies supporters who find it difficult to get stuff for their kids and/or can't affor the time or money to travel to the west.
I'm aware of the ONE training session in Glen Waverley (if you can call it that!!). But is it enough, for an entire district. Perhaps it could be spread out with just a couple more, is all I'm saying.
Totally understand that the club has limited resources (and the whole AFL collective bargaining thing), but I think there should be slightly (I'm not saying HEAPS) more involvment than just one light trianing session in March.
We couldn't even get an AFL layer to come to our Auskick clinic this year. We usually get someone from Richmond, but not one club would ablige this year. I would have thought perhaps the Dogs may have jumped at the chance to promote themselves, they could have sent someone like Roughhead or a player who doesn't get heapd of games and is not in as much demand. It's wouldn't take much!!

[Missing Dog]

Re: The selling of our club to the next generation

PI - do you have kids?
There are more and more supporters in the east, possibly more than you think! Most of them young kids. And it's dissapointing for them that just becasue we live on the wrong side of the westgate that we can't even get merchandise without buying online (not eveyone has computer/internet), waiting for game day (which we may not be able to make it too) or travelling to the west.

I agree with some of your points.

To have a retail outlet on your side of town would not be commercially viable.

If someone doesn't have the internet, they can ring the shop and order over the phone.

[Prince Imperial]

Re: The selling of our club to the next generation

PI - do you have kids?
There are more and more supporters in the east, possibly more than you think! Most of them young kids.

No I don't and I hope you are right and that there are a heap of kids in the east now barracking for our club but I'm a bit sceptical about how many.

The "East" is a massive area with the large majority of Melbourne's population and it must be difficult to identify which parts of it in particular would be worth servicing. The West is the state's fastest growing area with a lot of young families and I think we are better concentrating school/Auskick visits etc in that area to grow our supporter base.

[cambo]

Re: The selling of our club to the next generation

I was over from WA during the last school holidays and went to an OPEN training session hoping for myself and my daughter to see our great players, get a few autographs etc. Whitten Oval probably had 200 kids there that day as it was school hols in Melb as well, do you know how many players bothered to come out and see the kids? 2 Tim Callan and Shaun Higgins both of whom were injured at the time. I left a very dissapointed member along with a host of angry parents. I rang the club and all they could say is the players give enough of there time during the year to members and supporters? Why would they not give the kids there time during school holidays? You do wonder if the marketing department etc are doing enough for the supporters and members when you see something like this. Sorry to ramble on but it was not good enough for our small club!

[alwaysadog]

Re: The selling of our club to the next generation

I had some discussions with a friend of mine last night about the state of our club and where it is heading.

He lives in Werribee and has a young family, his oldest boy is 6 and is a very passionate Bulldogs supporter ( He may even rival young Seb as our keenest young fan). Anyway we were talking about the fact that in his his time at school he is yet to have a visit from any Bulldogs players which is upsetting to him. (He has had visits from players quite a few other clubs)

So the question I ask is, Is the club doing enough to promote our team & it's players in the fastest growing region in the west? We hear all the talk that we are the lowest supported team in Melbourne, etc, etc, but one would hope that the club would be trying to do something about it.

Is the school part of the Bulldog Friendly Schools Program? I'm pretty sure the club sends players to every school that gives them the opportunity. I've heard that a few principals who support other teams can make access difficult.

[LostDoggy]

Re: The selling of our club to the next generation

Ah another St Pauls boy, good to see. What Primary school was that mate?

Queen Of Peace. Yourself lemmon?

But on Topic with efforts like the last two weeks the sales to the next Gen will take care of itself.