General Meeting Minutes - March 2024

Present: Raylene Easton, Tony Allocca, Joey Fahey, Liam French, Cherie Roe, Paul Simper, Nick Staniforth

Marcus Crocitti (RFC) joined the meeting by 'phone

Apologies: n/a

Minutes from December 2023 and February 2024 approved:

December 2023: moved Tony Allocca, seconded Joey Fahey

February 2024: moved Cherie Roe, seconded Paul Simper

1. Conversation with Marcus Crocitti (RFC) on Supporter Groups Guidelines

At invitation of Capital Tigers, Marcus joined the meeting by 'phone. The purpose of this conversation was to work through concerns we have with the 2024 Supporter Group Guidelines. These concerns were expressed to Marcus via an earlier email from Raylene, but it was felt that a conversation involving the whole Committee would be helpful.

A more detailed record of this conversation is included as an attachment to these Minutes.

In summary, Capital Tigers expressed concerns that the 2024 Guidelines appeared overly legalistic and prescriptive, appeared to be focussed more heavily on financial benefit to the Club rather that wider aspects of supporter involvement, gave little credit to the work of volunteer supporters and were being imposed on Supporter Groups without any real input from/consultation with us. The Guidelines did not appear to try to reflect the local circumstances of each Supporter Group and, in our case, the lack of any actual presence of any RFC teams in this region.

Marcus indicated that he did not think the Guidelines had changed much over the years, but was prepared to go back through previous iterations and see. He indicated that he was happy for Supporter Groups to provide feedback, but was constrained by the fact that the Guidelines were developed through processes within the Club, including legal clearance.

Marcus regretted that we were feeling alienated from the Club, and thanked us for our efforts to date. He also undertook to consider a set of revisions to the Guidelines, and to follow up on issues we raised about memberships payment and ways the Club could support us, such as by pull-up banners, etc,

Capital Tigers to:

- send Marcus a 'marked up' version of the Guidelines, setting out the kinds of changes we would like to see;

- send a design idea for a RFC 'pull-up' banner.

Marcus to:

- check back through previous Guidelines and see if there have been significant changes;

- follow-up Joey's issue with payment for membership;

2. Fundraising activities -- footy tipping

A number of tipsters are yet to pay their $50 entry. Liam and Cherie have identified these, and Liam to advise them via iTipFooty manager's messages to make payments asap if they wish to continue in the comp. Nick to do a matching Facebook message.

3. Game day promotion

Nick to continue Facebook posts for each gameday, and also to explore other avenues, such as Ginninderry Community Switch

4. Absences from future meetings

Raylene will be away 10 April -- 5 May, so will miss 15 April meeting

Tony will be away 19 April to 23 May, so will miss 20 May meeting

Next meeting

Next meeting: Next meeting scheduled for Monday, 15 April 2024 at 7:30pm, Eastlake FC, Kingston

Meeting closed: 8:36pm