DFC 1883 wishes to announce a change in arrangements for P.R., Media liaison and communication. DFC 1883 wishes to announce a change in arrangements for P.R., Media liaison and communication. DFC 1883 wishes to announce a change in arrangements for P

http://www.darlofc.co.uk/news.php?NewsID=823

Is there a cost involved in using this firm - or are they doing it for free - sort of good PR for themselves - a friend of Darlo FC?

can anybody remember when that God awful Graham Robb spent a time with the club? The club does have to have good PR activity its something we have never had since moving to the stadium, even when they have done good things its been over looked by poor PR

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I really hope this isn't Graham Robb and Recognition PR again.

I'm sure there's enough of us fans out there who work in public relations who'd be willing to volunteer.

I thought doug and shaun were great spokespersons for the club. on the face of it I feel this is a loss to the new co.

What isn't clear from that release is the capacity which doug and shaun will play moving forward? They are stepping aside from DFCRG, which ok has been dissolved, but what is their capacity in DFC 1883 Ltd, they surely have something!?

It'll probably be Martin Walker from Mantis Media - he has Craig Liddle interviews on the Aycliffe Today website.

In principle I have nothing against this, but we can forget having match highlights again, unlike even Chester City.

Also, it is his business so surely he'll have to charge, can we really afford a PR firm?

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these PR services have been offered - that implies at no cost for the services.

It might be on a basis where it is a free service but expenses can be claimed for out of pocket costs.

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I personally don't know the company in question but we've got this far on goodwill and goodwill alone, so it would surprise me if the agreement means paying for the services.

Vividly. A Question and Answer session and interesting exchange between Martin Gray and Mr Robb at the Arena about the purpose of youth development. I recollect Mr Robb querying Martin Gray's assertion that youth development is not all about winning games. Mr Robb "You don't really mean that do you?" Moment's awkward silence. Gray, short and sweet, " EErh YES".

One of the interesting moments in the Arena when professional knowledge comes into conflict with PR.

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This empty sanitised shell of a stadium, a cathedral to the vanity and narcissism of one man. It’s very difficult to fall in love with football amongst the rows of empty seats. The notion that a stadium has worth beyond its potential commerical value or it’s proximity to transport links – as a spiritual repository of the hopes,fears and agonies of generations of supporters, or as a physical manifestation of the football club in the community, is a dying one in football (Sam Volkman)

Hopefully not Recognition PR and Graham Robb. He's slime and shouldn't be allowed anywhere near our club again after advising Houghton on our last admin. They also did a shoddy job when they had the account.

If we're actually paying for day-to-day PR I'd say it isn't worth it. It's an expendable service. Doesn't take much to knock-up statements and press releases when you want to announce something and office staff can be trained to put on press conferences and upload information to the website.

However, if we're getting this service for free from someone like Martin Walker then it is a very good gesture. Hopefully the company will involve fans on a volunteer basis as well though so that we can have a good service. Things like video highlights aren't difficult to do but have been neglected over the past few years.

It's really not as simple as you think, otherwise why would people like myself spend years studying a degree and then more on-the-job training? It's one of them things that everyone thinks they can do but, when they're put their hand to it, they really struggle.

I'm sure we have a few fans who would be willing to do some of this on a voluntary basis.

In regards to the highlights/Quaker World issue, it's something I'm keen on getting up to a good standard due to the potential money that can be made from subscriptions and also the exposure it will give sponsors. As far as I'm aware this is being handled separately to the PR.

This is a real opportunity for us, I remember posting what seems like ages ago that if we were going to return to match highlights we should try and get local business sponsorship for a highlights package on line. Better bet for me than subscriptions, simpler to administrate and makes the match highlights more accessible for people who might then consider attending.

Unfortunately our deal with PTV would mean that any highlights must be done on a pay subscription basis via Quaker World

And what percentage of the profits would the club keep?

Do we know when our PTV deal runs out, because in all honesty - the sooner the better.

Sorry to be bombarding you with questions Divas but, what is the situation with the catering? Will it be out-sourced or will we be doing it ourselves.

A question I'm waiting to find out the answer to Hilly. I'm also unsure as to whether we were paid an upfront/recurring fee.

In regards to what we get from subscriptions I think it's around 50%

Thanks.

Certainly for the rest of the season it will remain as is. From then on I'm not sure at the moment, it's one to be discussed a bit later on.

Oh dear. I'd rather hoped that if we were operating as a completely new company then we would have no obligation to continue the deal. Is that not the case?

I've just fired off an email to see what our obligations are.

Why would we want to get out of it if we get 50% of the subscriptions? Lots of other clubs use PTV and I don't see them scrambling to do their own sites?

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As far as I knew, we had about three subscribers, and they seem to think it was crap. If we're making a mint then fair enough let's keep it, but I'm hoping we can get low cost/ volunteered filming combined with business sponsorship. Increasing the exposure to our scintillating highlights seems better than restricting it to the one man and a dog subscribers?

It seems from what I gather they offer the platform for free and make money by taking half of what is made from our subscriptions.

It depends whether we think we can provide the platform for less than that ourselves. At the moment I'd say we have very few subscribers so they're probably getting very little from us. However if we can expand the service, hosting our own site would allow us to keep all profits minus hosting charges of course. A lot depends on whether we'd be able to provide an adequate payment/subscription option.

It's one where we need to look how the numbers/contractual obligations stack up before we do anything, but either way it's a no brainer that it can be a decent additional revenue stream as long as we can attract more subscribers by having some good content Inc. highlights. Given it'll be the only place you'll be able to see darlo home highlights it has a fantastic USP straight away

The issue was that in the past QP promised all but delivered jack all really.

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It was only really worth paying for when we were in the league and the radio commentary wasn't free.

Incidentally - if we do go down does anyone know if BBC Tees will keep covering us like they do now? If not then maybe live commentary is something we could arrange ourselves and make a bit of money from it.

Be a shame not to be able to listen to the "Voice of Darlo" again if we go down.

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You Are My Darlo!

we're all in it together!

If you have any nagging questions or concerns contact the CIC direct at contact@darlingtonfc.org and give the directors an opportunity to respond to you.

You can also keep in touch with the CIC on their Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/DFCCIC

and you can also use the suggestion box at the retail outlet in the Covered Market.

Several of the BSP clubs offer excellent highlight packages hat are free to view. Sure they would give us the info on how/ why they do it that way. I still think we should look past a subscription service, if we are hoping to reach out to the community we should find a way of letting everyone see some highlights. It's PR, talking points, maintaining interest that we can gain from it. Keep the offering very simple, a few minutes highlights each week delivered consistently.

If I were a local businessman I'd pay more for an advertising slot (that can't be skipped) on this package than an advertising hoarding for the season.

So if we aren't obligated to continue to PTV tumbleweed platform, that's how I'd do it.

I was reading this interview with the first person to raise money via CrowdCube...

http://www.crowdcube.com/blog/2012/02/1 ... bble-balm/

It's worth reading what she says about constantly promoting your pitch and driving people to the CrowdCube site. Interesting that they brought their deadline forward and created a sense of urgency about it - and she got 50% of her funding in the last 2 weeks before the target date from people who'd been sat on the sidelines.

She also talks about how important it is to have people monitoring the CC forum and answering potential investors questions. Do we have people doing that?

I saw one interesting thread on the forum called "What is holding investors back" which is also worth a flick through as it raises and addresses a couple of concerns - though the nagging one in my own mind is that there is no incentive for regular investors to come on board with our pitch, they'll be looking for some kind of return on their investment - unlike us, who just want to see the club survive.

Are ways being discussed to make investing in a football club a more attractive proposition to people who have no connection to the town (or even to the sport)? I think people could be attracted by the novelty value of owning a share of a real live football club - in a similar way to how you can buy a plot of land the moon and give it as a present to someone. It could all be marketed like this... http://www.moonestates.com/

Mention is also made on the CC forum of an appearance on a BBC programme talking about crowd funding, and I was thinking that this is exactly the sort of thing that the BBC2 lunchtime business news show (if it's still on?) would be interested in - I mean, "crowd" funding sounds like it's made for football clubs doesn't it, and how topical is saving football clubs at the moment?

_________________
You Are My Darlo!

we're all in it together!

If you have any nagging questions or concerns contact the CIC direct at contact@darlingtonfc.org and give the directors an opportunity to respond to you.

You can also keep in touch with the CIC on their Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/DFCCIC

and you can also use the suggestion box at the retail outlet in the Covered Market.

Yup. Craig McKenna is doing that.