A Letter From Our Managing Director
June 12, 2020 - 3 years ago
Dear Members,
After 89 days in isolation, I can tell you that we are beyond happy to have a start date for our return to leagues.
Back in March when we decided to pause all leagues, like everyone, we faced a very uncertain future. But we did what we know best, we stayed busy and we kept working towards keeping our members engaged.
REACT
In the months of March and April we worked on finding new ways to keep our members busy. We ran a Bingo Challenge which was a chance to keep people testing their skills, and staying active. We also introduced e-Leagues, which are still running today and will continue to remain a part of our services. We tried to promote Play Vouchers, and also used this product to give away some special vouchers to deserving front line staff. We also ramped up our social media, including investing in Tik Tok, not only is it creating more engaging content for you, it's helped keep us happy and distracted as a team.
We continued to stay connected with our Event Hosts. We ran an "Ideapalooza" in April that was essentially and online drinking event. We had so many hosts online and we excitedly got lots of feedback from the "frontline". In April we also introduced The Event Host Hall of Fame which is for the influential hosts of our time, past and present.
IMPROVE
As we entered into May we started looking at what we could do to make our members experience better. Some of our ideas have flopped, and some we are yet to learn the success off. We started by running a member survey which helped uncover some really interesting stats about you guys. How you communicate, what you like what you don't. But from there we decided to build, and improve and update a lot.
- We went to each of our partners and got access to "lockdown friendly" perks which included access to some new deals at our partner clubhouses, and also our Tennis and Golf facilities.
- We added a new member perk for individual players by offering a seasonal subscription, allowing them to play in new teams for free by using our "UR Draft".
- We programmed and hosted Sports Training Events which we are currently running while the public orders allow. These events are run wither for free, or a small fee for any of our members looking to stay active while we wait for leagues to launch. We are undecided on the future of this programming, but if the demand is there, we would continue to offer this as an add on.
- We created and trained 40 staff on how to host and run sports in the new Covid-Clean world, we created a new essential training program and we continue to roll out educational pieces for our members. There's going to be some fundamental changes to our kit maintenance, and your responsibility upon arrival at your games to enable us to do contact tracing and ensure your safety.
- We conceptualised a brand new ambassador program which will be rolled out at the end of the year, which will see thousands of dollars go towards making sport accessible to all Aussies, including the minorities. Once announced, this means a percentage of every registration will be going directly to an association to help meet our main objectives as a club.
- We introduced a new first point of contact for welcoming new members to help guide them through the decision making process when choosing a sport, a location and league that suits them.
- We revisited the criteria for recruiting Event Hosts who are your main point of contact each week. We wanted to make sure we are selecting the most invested, reliable, knowledgeable and likeable people we can.
THRIVE
With all these new perks and additions in mind, we are excited for the end of 2020 and all that we hope to offer. We are now looking to run some big corporate tournaments, as well as our regular flagship social events in the Spring time.
For the remainder of 2020, we will rely heavily on our existing teams and members, as our marketing budget is decreased, and we turn to our members having the best experience possible, and word of mouth doing the heavy lifting.
The end of this year should see the Ambassador Program launching, and hopefully some new Pub Leagues, new events announced, and new ways for you to pay.
As a club we would like to continue our expansion though Sydney. We would like to see our leagues in The Hills and North Shore continue to grow, and we are actively seeking new opportunities in the South, and South-west areas of Sydney. Our club was on track to grow 100% this year, but our current forecast would be to simply meet the same amount of leagues and teams playing as we had in 2019.
We anticipate 2021 to show more consistent growth and we would be looking to launch into new cities throughout that year.
It's with a ton of proactive thinking and a lot of financial planning, that we are able to land on our feet with all our staff on salaries protected. Although we know the ramifications of Covid-19 could still be fierce, we feel we are so equipped and so ready to take on the responsibility of getting you back into sport safely.
Yours in sport,