Update - Berkshire Rangers Supporters Club, ‘The Royal Loyal’

As we start to look forward to our first anniversary as a supporters club I wanted to bring you all up to date on current progress regarding the development of the ‘Royal Loyal’ and indeed to make you aware of recent items covered at our Committee Meeting held Tuesday 9th February 2010 attended by Sandy, Derek, Steve and myself.

Unfortunately Rob was unable to attend due to the pressure of business and his pending wedding. He does hope to be at the Red Lion for our game against Celtic today, (Sunday 28th February), and we look forward to seeing him there.

When we started out last year we had a lot of interest in the formation of the club and following on from our inaugural meeting we had close to 60 Rangers Supporters who indicated their wish to become founder members.

As of today we have 46 paid up members and Ceri, Steve and myself have been in contact from time to time with those others who indicate an interest but who have not yet formalised their membership, (i.e. paid their £25.00 first year’s membership)!

There is clearly a lot of support for Rangers in Berkshire and we have seen many new faces at games televised at the Red Lion over the season, so much so that we reckon that we have had over 100 Rangers fans at televised games which clearly open the door to canvassing for new members.

We know that we need to do some work to make people aware of the club and we have also had some good ideas generated by members both in terms of ‘making people aware’ of Berkshire Rangers Supporters Club and also of new social events etc., which we could do to bring the Rangers fraternity more together.

Communication is important and we appreciate this however this is a two way process and responses to emails issued over the course of the year have not met with an overwhelming response.

This could be because some of our members do not use the internet and as such we will look to doing a regular update which can be posted out to members if they wish.

In terms of those ideas that have been generated and indeed with regard to what the committee have been working on I have set this out below together with an update on our current financial position.

I will start with an update on our most recent committee meeting which was held on 9th February and in particular to highlight the actions undertaken by those present.

In this respect we discussed the possibility of acquiring tickets for the forthcoming League Cup Final, Steve had previously circulated the offer of tickets but as of the date of the committee meeting he had received only three replies.

At the request of the committee I agreed to speak to Jim Hannah about getting tickets – since at the time we had no detail of ticket allocation Steve had set a cut of date for members expressing interest as the 17th February and a formal application for 10 tickets was registered by Steve on 21st February for those members who had requested a ticket.
We were successful in obtaining an allocation of six tickets and will continue to work closely with Jim Hannah at Ibrox and with other Supporters Clubs to obtain as many tickets for games as is possible giving priority at all times to members of the Royal Loyal
We also discussed an end of season ‘do’ and I took it on board to speak with Jim Templeton about arranging a visit from Colin Stein – ideally a Friday or Saturday somewhere between the 22nd May and 5th June (between end of our season and the World Cup).
It was agreed that If we can get Stein’s agreement then we move on venues etc. and when I spoke with Jim he said that Willie Johnston and Stein tend to do Supporters’ nights together. (Jim Templeton knows Stein from his time as President of the Rangers Worldwide Alliance).
Unfortunately when we spoke to Colin Stein he advised that he was unable to do any dates during the summer months. He is now back at his trade as a joiner and finds it difficult to do a Friday night (especially for a visit to Berkshire from his home in Lothian and as he is now captain of his bowling club he is committed pretty much every Saturday during the Bowling Season!
Colin was disappointed that he couldn’t do a summer event for us as was Willie Johnston and both would be happy to make a visit later in the year, (most likely September or October).
This they reiterated to Steve MacLeod when he met them at an event at the “Wee Rangers Club” recently.
We now have the option of going for an alternative speaker or arranging a ‘Sportsman’s Night’ in the autumn when Stein and Johnston would be available and Stein has already said that this would be a possibility.
In the event that we go for an autumn ‘do’ we will look at doing something at the end of the season for paid up members.
At the meeting we discussed the possibility of a day at the races with M4 Bears which was suggested previously as a good idea in principle and it was agreed that we would progress this to establish a suitable date for one of the Summer Meetings. We will progress this in early May with a target July meeting.
Swindon Loyal has a new website and are happy to host a forum for us, updates etc – put the Swindon RSC contact. Steve has contacted Marc Alexander at Swindon Loyal and is targeting to put him in touch with David Anderson to talk about websites and how we can develop our website.

If anyone can help David in developing the site please let me know. He is keen to receive new ideas and any help etc., to make the site more sophisticated.
At our meeting the Committee requested Steve and Ceris to meet to prepare a financial statement showing the Club’s financial position to date and details of this are shown on the attached summary.
Further detail of this will be posted on the Clubs Website at www.royalloyal.co.uk together with a copy of this note.
We have had some comment regarding boosting the clubs profile and we would welcome ideas on this which please send to either myself or to Steve, (Stephen Macleod smacleod69uk@yahoo.com), or indeed to any of the Committee Members.
In particular we have had suggestions that more awareness is given to the club in the Red Lion where we meet and having a Club Shield displayed in the Bar area is one idea which we should perhaps progress, (assuming of course that we are given permission from the management of the pub that this is displayed). Again any feedback on this would be appreciated.
In terms of other ideas raised I have listed these as follows together with the committee’s response.

Pre end of season trip to a game at Ibrox – We are in a good position to secure tickets for games at Ibrox and prior to the discussions on attendance to the League Cup Final we were looking at possible options. We are happy to revisit this if members would like a Berkshire RSC ‘day out’ to Ibrox. We will however need to move quickly to agree an appropriate match and speak with Jim Hannah at Rangers. Anyone interested, please contact myself or Steve.
Availability of tickets for Club Members travelling up to Glasgow and wanting to attend games – We are happy to speak with Rangers and secure a ticket however previous conversations with Jim Hannah have highlighted that for most games tickets are available direct from the clubs ticket office on an individual basis and this is most likely the most direct way to receive a ticket. For games where tickets are not so easily available please contact us and we will do our best to secure a ticket.
Provision of a Supporters Bus to Games at Ibrox – This has been raised as an option for us to consider but to date the numbers interested deem that it is not cost effective for the club to look to fund this. We have spoken with Rangers Supporters Clubs in Scotland, (where the journey time is not as lengthy as the 400 miles from Reading to Ibrox), and also to the local Liverpool and Manchester United Supporters Clubs and they all tell us the same thing, that it is imperative that you have the numbers and that they are committed to travel and where buses are being organised on an adhoc basis that those intending to travel are committed to pay for the trip, (usually in advance).

We can revisit this as a discussion point for future meetings and are happy to give what support we can to any member who is happy to act as transport convener and to organise a bus for members who would be interested in travelling together to games. We would not however wish to see club funds used for what could be a costly exercise which would not be to the overall benefit of club members.

Provision of a Berkshire rangers Supporters Club Shield / Flag – We will look at the cost of both and would ask members to bring us their suggestions for design which could follow the design of our current ‘Royal Loyal’ logo. We will advise on costs before any decision is taken on production.

With regard to displaying a ‘Royal Loyal Shield’ on the wall of the Red Lion we will raise this with the Pub and would expect them to be supportive of this given the number of our fans who attend the televised matches.
Hot off the press – at a recent business meeting in London where it just so happened that there was a fellow blue nose in attendance I was asked if we had ever considered doing a Burns Evening and I was assured that an appropriate guest speaker would be happy to attend if we were thinking of doing this.
I am following up on this to see what this would require, (I have organised Burn’s Nights in the past both Gentlemen only evenings and ones where the ladies are present and will do some work on this before putting details to the committee and the members.
Finally I would remind everyone that a copy of the club’s constitution is available on the Club’s Website with the aims of the club as originally stated being:

To find a pub where we can watch all televised Rangers games with no problems encountered for our club members and fellow Rangers supporters.
To help in securing tickets for Rangers games for club members and their families.
To organise events such as Club Evenings with former Rangers players and officials.

Best wishes to all for a successful season.

Tom, Steve, Ceri, Sandy, Rob, Jimmy and Derek

Financial Statement and General Overview Berkshire Rangers Supporters Club as at 23rd Feb. 2010

General Overview.

The Willie Henderson Evening at the end of last season highlighted the coming together of a ‘band of brothers’ in Reading, followers of Rangers Football Club. That event funded at the outset by Stephen MacLeod established that there was indeed a desire as well as a need to have a formal Rangers Supporters Club in Berkshire and since then we have registered the club at Ibrox, been accepted as a Member of the lengthy list of official Rangers Supporters Clubs with a recognised Club Logo.

We have our club pin, (which every member should now have), and our club polo shirts and are guaranteed to see every televised Rangers match at the Red Lion in Reading.

At the present time our finances are fairly healthy and our present plans to hold an end of season event with guest speakers worthy of the name of Glasgow Rangers should still leave a healthy balance in the Clubs Accounts even with the tickets for existing club members being heavily discounted.

In future years it is our intention to reduce the annual dues for existing members while retaining the cost of membership for new members at £25.00 while still being able to run successful events to bring the Rangers family in Berkshire and surrounding areas closer together and to promote the development of a strong relationship with other Rangers supporters in the surrounding areas and indeed across the U.K. and further afield.

Financial Statement

Dues for current season £1,085.00

Less Website / Name Registration 25.00

Less cost of 100 badges 160.00

Balance Currently at the Bank 900.00

*Additionally there was £32.00 held in cash to be lodged for badges purchased, where the monies collected has yet to be banked. Badge stocks are running low and I have reordered an additional supply.

**The current supply of Polo Shirts was originally funded by Steve MacLeod and an order for more stock has been made which will now be funded through the club as normal .