Sharks hungry for action Recruiting uni students

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Sharks hungry for action Recruiting uni students

Authored by: Stephen Alomes
on Wednesday, December 30 2009 @ 09:26 am ACDT

It would be good to get a variety of reports on recruiting university students

1. how and when ? noticeboards, orientation weeks, other sports clubs in the off-season, email, facebook, websites
2. training those without any experience, especially when there is a shortage of players and umpires with experience
3. social activities in keeping up participation and membership (many other sports have a 'play and go' approach only) eg Farumn and the cafe-pub in the earty years
4. keeping up membership eg when students finish studies and sometimes have to do weekend work (eg Japan and the Gokong graduates' team, now renamed).

Social and cultural variations will abound but good examples can sometimes help.

We need your reports for a happy footy new year.

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Stephen Alomes

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Stephen Alomes

Sharks hungry for action Recruiting uni students

Authored by: TimSmith
on Wednesday, December 30 2009 @ 10:18 pm ACDT

Hi Stephen,

I've written a piece to someone in Leeds (UK) who is setting up a university team there. Perhaps I could adapt this and make it into an article for WFN?

Universities are a great way to expand the sport of aussie rules football, especially in the UK where most commonly people move away from their home and live at their university often the other side of the country. When people come to university its like a new start, and many are eager to start a new sport. Each university has its own Sports Fair at the beginning of the academic year making new sports very accessible to people. For example, you find that sports such as lacrosse are very popular at university level, but clubs seldom found outside of unis.

And the beauty is, when we break up in late May, there are now 22 guys who have got well into footy through training and friendlies in the spring, and some of these players make it into the national leagues with their local home clubs, strengthening UK footy even further.

The only issue is, clubs at unis are all student led - someone has to have the drive and the ambition, and be prepared to take a few financial risks (as well as take on a massive extra workload!) to make it happen.

I believe over the last 4 months we've created a really good sustainable sports team here at the University of Birmingham and addressed all the issues you've mentioned above which means that the society should survive long after I graduate in 2011. As I said, if you believe a (long) article on 'Creation and Sustainability of a University Footy Team' or something along those lines would be good then I am happy to write it! :-)

Cheers,
Tim Smith
President, University of Birmingham Sharks

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Stephen Alomes

Sharks hungry for action - Recruiting uni students

Authored by: Stephen Alomes
on Thursday, December 31 2009 @ 02:07 pm ACDT

Tim and everyone
We definitely need your report, and lots of others, about how to recruit and keep students, and that can include the cost factor. *
I think we need reports on what has worked for different people and places - new students discover footy at stalls, on the web, via Twitter and Facebook etc, or a sign in the uni bar and perhaps a complimentary drink?!
Perhaps your report will lead to a lot more reports.
Since the best way to get a good idea is to copy, and modify it (ask Apple about Nokia or is it vice versa) we need a bigger Information Exchange.
Regards

Steve

(*French and Japanese students can't always afford a weekend of travel - Tokyo to Osaka, or Paris to Perpignan - for reasons of money, time, part-time jobs; and international and interstate flights and trains can cost).

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Stephen Alomes

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Stephen Alomes

Sharks hungry for action Recruiting uni students

Authored by: Brett Northey
on Saturday, January 02 2010 @ 12:35 pm ACDT

Hi Tim,

These days there's so much information available, often conflicting, that what is needed is something that shows up early in someone's searching, gives them some good initial ideas that makes them think "yeah, this is helpful", and points them in the right direction to easily follow it up further.

I think the best value would be a shorter summary of what you find useful for establishing and maintaining a Uni club, and having that as a story, and making it clear more advice and more detail is available by contacting you.

I reckon have a chat to our Europe man Aaron who you have spoken to before and organise a summary article with him. If you're super keen to have something longer then I'm not against it.

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Brett Northey - Co-founder and Chief Editor of WFN

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Brett Northey - Co-founder and Chief Editor of WFN

Sharks hungry for action Recruiting uni students

Authored by: TimSmith
on Sunday, January 03 2010 @ 01:54 am ACDT

Thanks for the feedback all,

In the next few days I'll put together a summary article focusing in particular on the procedures for creating a UK university team - I am in the process of creating a 'UK Footy Portal' which is aimed to bring together the previously fragmented London, ARUK & University games so that material will be useful for me to put together for that too.

Then in the future I will put something together about how to involve students sustainably into regular aussie rules teams, as this also seems to be an issue. There is no reason why clubs in cities across the world cannot tap into the plentiful student market, I'll just reveal some of the tools that can be used to do so! Then then opens up the issue for as much feedback as possible about techniques people use.

Cheers,
Tim

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Brett Northey - Co-founder and Chief Editor of WFN

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