Quinssa event: An Evening with David Ellis

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015:01:14:12:42:19 by The Prof.

Succeeding in a Competitive Environment

Tuesday 13th January 19:00 in the Debenture Lounge at The Stoop

We are pleased to announce that David Ellis has agreed to provide an insight into the strategy behind what the Club does from a commercial perspective. He will focus on what the Club does, how they manage commercial partners and day to day operations, how they compare to other competitors, and what he sees happening in the future.

A Q&A session will follow. You can submit a question in advance should you wish.

Doors open at 19:00 for a 19:30 start. There will be a cash bar available and we will conduct a raffle with proceeds going to the Academy Fund.

This event is free for Quinssa members, and if you want to bring a guest - it will cost them £3 at the door on the night.

To allow us to plan for numbers, if you would like to attend, please RSVP to 'warren@quinssa.org.uk'

Excellent . Now I can ask him about the Saracens away game and why it's always us plays them.

Quote:

DOK
Excellent . Now I can ask him about the Saracens away game and why it's always us plays them.

As long as you submit your question in advance!

A good opportunity for all the Ellis haterz on here to confront him. Not that they will of course.

Why in advance? Are they to be vetted? Diva Ellis...

"You can submit a question in advance should you wish".

Quote:

DOK
Excellent . Now I can ask him about the Saracens away game and why it's always us plays them.

I think you'll find the Saracens away game will always involve us and Sarries. It sort of has to, really. But ask him anyway - he might not be expecting that one.

BB

Haven't Sarries already stated publicly that they want this to become the London rivals game. You could read between the lines and say that we have a large support/travelling support it makes sense for them go for us. Also coming after The Big Game any casual supporter can be targeted for another experience.

QUIN KONG

Quote:

Brown Bottle

Quote:

DOK
Excellent . Now I can ask him about the Saracens away game and why it's always us plays them.

I think you'll find the Saracens away game will always involve us and Sarries. It sort of has to, really. But ask him anyway - he might not be expecting that one.

I'm sure you know DOK means their Wembley game always involving us in the future, I belive that's what has been said.

Just a guess but I wouldn't be surprised if it had something to do with not raising any objections to us always having a home game just after Xmas



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014:12:31:10:26:09 by akb1.

Quote:

I'm sure you know DOK means their Wembley game always involving us in the future, I belive that's what has been said.

Of course I do.

BB

as long as Sarries don't want to reciprocate with Big Game becoming part of a London home and away fixture

Quote:

Brown Bottle

Quote:

DOK
Excellent . Now I can ask him about the Saracens away game and why it's always us plays them.

I think you'll find the Saracens away game will always involve us and Sarries. It sort of has to, really. But ask him anyway - he might not be expecting that one.

That made me laugh

O Fortuna, velut luna statu variabilis,
semper crescis aut decrescis

Cheers, Jammy!

BB

Well I'm glad we sorted that out. Yes, it's the question "Why do we have to always play Saracens at Wembley for our away game against them in the premiership"?

I admit the first answer that springs to mind is "Have you seen Allianz Park?", but all the same.

I can see what's in it for Saracens, lots of people turning up, London Derby, bit of bragging rights etc... but what is in it for Harlequins? Are we just doing this out the kindness of our hearts to help bolster Saracens' crowd figures? Is there a cunning plan that we need to grown rugby in London? Do we get a cut of the gate? Do we not really care since it's an away game? I'd just like to know the thinking behind it from Harlequins point of view.

My problem with the Sarries game is that it's always immediately after the 6Nations games. So, all the England players will probably need a break. Last year we rested Chris . They have a large enough squad to be able to handle it without too much trouble. We'd be potentially without first choice at Loose Head, Flanker, Scrum-half, Winger, and Full-back for a game where we probably need our first choice players to be playing and playing well in order to beat them. Why do they get to specify when they play certain opposition?

Agreed FF

I'm looking forward to seeing what david Ellis has to say. I normally find him interesting to listen to, it's clear his focus is driving up season ticket holders, increasing the image of the club and market it in the best way possible, plus maximise the use of the stoop so to get a continuous income (if only we had a casino and other entertainment to makefile easier for income streams).

He obviously leaves the playing side to COS. Which it should be.

But they are linked, if the club finishes 8th this season and continue to plateu then it will be harder to increase the income from commercial partners which could in turn mean losing players if other clubs offer more cash if we cannot continue to pay up to the salary cap.

Pressure is on COS in a couple years when the current commercial sponsorships come up for renewal and we have not improved.

I have every faith we will improve though. The club is developing but our strength in depth has to improve in quality. You can see we are missing Tom Guest, fa'asavalu and others.

Quote:

Fearless Fred
My problem with the Sarries game is that it's always immediately after the 6Nations games. So, all the England players will probably need a break. Last year we rested Chris . They have a large enough squad to be able to handle it without too much trouble. We'd be potentially without first choice at Loose Head, Flanker, Scrum-half, Winger, and Full-back for a game where we probably need our first choice players to be playing and playing well in order to beat them. Why do they get to specify when they play certain opposition?

The LDH fixture has also been manipulated, so that we only play Wasps, or Irish!
We've only ever played Sarries once at the LDH....

I assume that Quins let Sarries "manipulate" this game in return for supporting Quins "manipulation" of Big Game. Similarly, if Wasps, say, wanted a home fixture on, or, close to April Fools day as a salute to their supporters, Quins and Sarries would agree.

I would like to know why Quins have had to play more Friday night games than any other Premier Club and Friday night Away games to the 'top' Clubs (i.e. Bath, Saracens, Leicester, Northampton and Gloucester ~ all fortresses to go to.) The Players are having to play with very few Supporters as Supporters cannot get to Friday night Away games and driving to a Friday night Home game is a nightmare. Also we have had to play these Friday night games without our top Players (they were in the friendly internationals) and further, Sponsers will not turn out on a Friday night, so as a Club we must be losing financially ?
Don't tell me it is because Twickenham is being used, because we could play the Friday night games Away on a Saturday.
Dont tell me it is television because we are not the only tele-friendly Club.
Is it because we never complain and we are therefore the 'fall guys' ??

In the past we've actually asked if the TV company could go show a different match so that we could get out of a silly fixture time. So to say we never complain is a bit harsh. We've made it known to the TV companies before that our preferred games are on Saturday 3 pm, I'm sure the current companies are aware of (and ignoring) our preferences.

didn't we used to get complaints on this board that we were not getting a fair share of our matches televised?

The TV companies put a lot of money into rugby, so, not surprisingly, they want to have a big say in the scheduling of games.

Perhaps logically, they/we could say - o.k. We have six Premiership games every (normal) weekend, so, let's have two on Friday evening, two on Saturday afternoon and two on Sunday?

Could I live with that? At a push, I suppose so.

Why then do we have to have games kicking off at 19:45 on a Saturday evening?

Excellent evening. Well done yet again QUINSSA

An informative evening ..... to allow for more reflection regarding the various figures produced I forgot to ask the name of the Company used for our trading income / expenditure.
Perhaps a fellow poster would provide.

Sorry I couldn't make it in the end... last customer was late for my appointment at his house.... if anyone fancies a bit of a summary I'm sure it would be gratefully received :-)

Peachey it was PWC (highlighted on the screen)

Any chance of a summary for those of us who could not attend? Glad all involved had a productive evening.

It was a pretty informative evening -

some good info re: where the money comes from - sponsorship only accounts for 10% of the revenue
the club gets the largest percentage from tickets, think it was around 33% and then central funding which was about 26%.

Leicester are the most moved club in terms of friday night fixtures having been moved 100% of the time according to the figures, quins have been moved 40% of the time.

I don't mind, i like Friday night fixtures!

A full Big Game attendance is the equivalent of 3 full home games in terms of money for the club.

More confirmation that we are committed to spending up to the cap, however as the cap keeps going up, the club has to find more money to keep up with it.

Plans for the new stadium, to be confirmed and sorted in the next 18/24 months - this will take capacity up to 20,000 - we will never be able to be any bigger than that - infrastructure and physical boundaries make it impossible.

Club are looking into installing a 4g pitch somewhere on site for communities to use, but will never get rid of the grass.

They are hopeful of posting a profit next season, i think

last season the loss was £2million.

N.B - all this info is from the top of my head - i hope there will be a more informative and accurate response but thought it might help people out.

Still on the trail of the Quins Limited Company. PWC are Auditors and Financial Consultants.

Really appreciate that NLB! Interesting that we're not as picked on as we thought with regards to moving our games to Fri nights.

Was there much said on squad seniority or recruitment other than the commitment that we would spend up to the cap if we could find the cash?

Quote:

peachey1
Still on the trail of the Quins Limited Company. PWC are Auditors and Financial Consultants.

Unless it has changed, I believe it is 'BLUE SKY LEISURE LIMITED'

Quote:

peachey1
Still on the trail of the Quins Limited Company. PWC are Auditors and Financial Consultants.

Blue Sky Leisure Limited

Company number 03213073

Quote:

Nev's Left Boot
It was a pretty informative evening -
some good info re: where the money comes from - sponsorship only accounts for 10% of the revenue
the club gets the largest percentage from tickets, think it was around 33% and then central funding which was about 26%.

Leicester are the most moved club in terms of friday night fixtures having been moved 100% of the time according to the figures, quins have been moved 40% of the time.

I don't mind, i like Friday night fixtures!

A full Big Game attendance is the equivalent of 3 full home games in terms of money for the club.

More confirmation that we are committed to spending up to the cap, however as the cap keeps going up, the club has to find more money to keep up with it.

Plans for the new stadium, to be confirmed and sorted in the next 18/24 months - this will take capacity up to 20,000 - we will never be able to be any bigger than that - infrastructure and physical boundaries make it impossible.

Club are looking into installing a 4g pitch somewhere on site for communities to use, but will never get rid of the grass.

They are hopeful of posting a profit next season, i think

last season the loss was £2million.

N.B - all this info is from the top of my head - i hope there will be a more informative and accurate response but thought it might help people out.

Thnaks, v informative. Where are the stadium improvements? North?

Quote:

RodneyRegis

Quote:

Nev's Left Boot
It was a pretty informative evening -
some good info re: where the money comes from - sponsorship only accounts for 10% of the revenue
the club gets the largest percentage from tickets, think it was around 33% and then central funding which was about 26%.

Leicester are the most moved club in terms of friday night fixtures having been moved 100% of the time according to the figures, quins have been moved 40% of the time.

I don't mind, i like Friday night fixtures!

A full Big Game attendance is the equivalent of 3 full home games in terms of money for the club.

More confirmation that we are committed to spending up to the cap, however as the cap keeps going up, the club has to find more money to keep up with it.

Plans for the new stadium, to be confirmed and sorted in the next 18/24 months - this will take capacity up to 20,000 - we will never be able to be any bigger than that - infrastructure and physical boundaries make it impossible.

Club are looking into installing a 4g pitch somewhere on site for communities to use, but will never get rid of the grass.

They are hopeful of posting a profit next season, i think

last season the loss was £2million.

N.B - all this info is from the top of my head - i hope there will be a more informative and accurate response but thought it might help people out.

Thnaks, v informative. Where are the stadium improvements? North?

It's all part & parcel of the proposals for the new campus/free school that Quins are a partner in. Some details are on the Offy Here. It doesn't detail exactly what the changes to the Stoop would be, but the general assumption is that it would be the North end.

OK, sure - had seen that, just wondered if there was any new info - "sorted int he next 18-24 months" - does that mean stadium completed, or plans completed?

It can't just be the North Stand though can it? That would require a stand about 1.5 times the size of the current South Stand to achieve.

You can't really do much with the West stand, due to the river and the houses behind. Would we want to rebuild the whole East stand? Could it be that the New North stand isn't straight, but has some "corners" on it, semi-filling the spaces there?

It will be a double tier stand upwards in other words. But we won't do it until over 10'000 season ticket holders (sorry members)

Also DE mentioned more players re-signing to be announced in next couple of weeks.

First time I have been to a meeting with DE when whole senior management team supported him and spoke.

On subject of Saturday at 3pm matches he also stated he would rather a drop in TV revenue than our 40% tv shown matches move. Tigers are incandescent about their 100%. Problem caused by no club now preferring Friday and Sale cannot play now on Friday at AJ Bell. They want us as they like our brand of rugby but more sucess means more tv. However hopeful that in last batch we will get more Saturdays. Also he wants to know earlier on TV schedules.

On double header no decision on who or when but not keen to play it between end of World Cup and Big Game as this could dilute big game.

Well done Quinssa for arranging thank you.

Forgot salary cap

We absolutely stick to cap and have been cleared. On England players the difference between here and France is not that great excluding Toulon if you take into a/c what they get for playing for England plus Club salary.

Club expects additional revenues next season to cover increase in salary cap although following season could be problem. But our owners expect club to pay their way. We have 39 senior players and COS has to juggle up to the cap. Obviously the more England players we have the more difficult it will get so we may in the end not be able to keep everyone if the Academy continues its success. Academy players is the right way to go but in the final analysis could be more expensive. That is why we need to increase size of ground to allow us to continue spending up to the cap.

Quote:

Monte
Forgot salary cap
We absolutely stick to cap and have been cleared. On England players the difference between here and France is not that great excluding Toulon if you take into a/c what they get for playing for England plus Club salary.

Club expects additional revenues next season to cover increase in salary cap although following season could be problem. But our owners expect club to pay their way. We have 39 senior players and COS has to juggle up to the cap. Obviously the more England players we have the more difficult it will get so we may in the end not be able to keep everyone if the Academy continues its success. Academy players is the right way to go but in the final analysis could be more expensive. That is why we need to increase size of ground to allow us to continue spending up to the cap.

Does this imply that others aren't and haven't been cleared?

Thank you re Company details.

Other mentions from the Meeting;-

All Catering space re Ground surrounds now sub let to Jolly Hog.

Guilford Training / Medical Centre £2.2m 25 year Lease

Our Season Ticket ( Members ) now 8800 apparently Northampton have 12000.

Comparisons with Prem Clubs;-

Quins 6th in operating profit
3rd Ticket Sales / Membership

Unless it is all under wraps I was suprised that no preview of converting the World Cup to a nice little earner for Quins. Plenty of mention of nice / sociable / worldwide afiliates.

This is a one off plans re our involvement ?

Fur sty no but he believes it should be properly policed. PRL meeting yesterday so maybe some info from EG in press on this - he has gone quiet! But no one asked a direct question!

Plans in the pipeline for World Cup - Adidas gives us access to ABs yes we have to make money but also gave the impression wants to include members particularly when Robshaw lifts the Web Ellis!!! Now there is a dream!

Any information about anymore potential signings?

Nothing about signings mentioned
Although did comment that good too see Wallace re-sign, but mentioned that the player side is down to coaching team and not management

How did he cope with the ravening hordes demanding his resignation / explanations of typos in emails / 50% off all season tickets

O Fortuna, velut luna statu variabilis,
semper crescis aut decrescis

JG, don't forget this was a questions in advance evening!!
Plus the fact that these sort of things quite simply do not happen at the club. If you think they do, you are seriously mistaken.
RleQ

Quote:

RleQuin
JG, don't forget this was a questions in advance evening!!

Cheap shot... Questions in advance was to allow those not wanting to ask directly or too shy, a chance to have their questions answered....

The vast majority of the evening was DE & team taking q's direct from floor...

Oh dear, like I care.
I have had my fill of people dodging the real issues at the club.
They lie and stab people in the back.
RleQ

Quote:

RleQuin
Oh dear, like I care.
I have had my fill of people dodging the real issues at the club.
They lie and stab people in the back.
RleQ

I am at a complete loss as to the point you are trying to make, Safri-quin simply pointed out that you were incorrect in your assertion that there was a requirement to submit all questions prior to the event.
Who are the people dodging the real issues (whatever they are) at the club, the club management or us posters? Who are the liars and backstabbers?

It is personal and goes right to the top. At this moment in time, I am not prepared to comment any further.
RleQ

OK, understood.

RleQ - given your comment above, feel free not to answer, but what do you see as the real issues at the club?

Quote:

RleQuin
It is personal and goes right to the top. At this moment in time, I am not prepared to comment any further.
RleQ

Thank God for that!

Grins - constant mistakes and no one listens. They set out on a course of action and nothing will deter them from it even when they are proved to be wrong.
QP - Hahaha, you are so funny!!
RleQ

Quote:

RleQuin
Grins - constant mistakes and no one listens. They set out on a course of action and nothing will deter them from it even when they are proved to be wrong.
QP - Hahaha, you are so funny!!
RleQ

For a start, COS decided that friendlies don't count as 1st XV appearances. Can you believe that? Madness!

BB

now, now.

Ho Ho Ho!
RleQ



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015:01:16:00:46:46 by RleQuin.

Somebody needs a sense of humour.

Quote:

RodneyRegis
Somebody needs a sense of humour.

Some common 'sense' needs to be applied by those at the top end.

I'm sure, but that doesn't excuse your bro's response to BB's well-observed quip.

Quote:

RleQuin
It is personal and goes right to the top. At this moment in time, I am not prepared to comment any further.
RleQ

What does "At this moment in time" mean"?

Do you mean "At this very precise moment in time"?

Bah!

Humbug!

I quite like what Quins are doing as a club. The only recent false steps have been on the announcer last year and the removal of the LV= girls.

It means what it says. Perhaps one day the whole sorry saga will come out!
RleQ

"Oh my god... you'll never believe this... oh sorry can't tell you."

Schoolground.

I don’t think JTH has ever really fully recovered from the injury he sustained a couple of years ago .

If Walker does leave I certainly don’t think it will be a case of the club letting him go, rather than another club (Exeter?) has offered significantly more than we could given the salary cap restraints and the need to strengthen elsewhere.

Patience!! I never said I can't tell you, I just need to get a few things sorted out before I can!
RleQ

Quote:

RleQuin
Ho Ho Ho!
RleQ

I prefer your second response; as RR pointed out, it was only intended as a light-hearted, if slightly mischievous remark (cheers RR!).

BB

Sorry BB, was in a mischievous mood myself at the time!!

RleQ

Quote:

RleQuin
Sorry BB, was in a mischievous mood myself at the time!!
RleQ

Fair enough.

Cheers

BB