The OSC note today’s statement released by the Ospreys regarding the options for current Season Ticket holders.

The Region, like many businesses, continues to be adversely affected by the Covid 19 crisis and the detrimental effect on finances due to amongst other factors Supporters being unable to attend matches.

The OSC fully appreciate that many Season Ticket holders have also suffered and continue to suffer financially during lockdown and we commend the Ospreys on the options of credit, refund or donation.

However, we hope that many Supporters will chose the donate option in an effort to assist in ensuring the continued financial viability of the Ospreys.

The following information is taken from the Ospreys website and has also been sent to season ticket holders by email:

First and foremost, we hope you and your family are healthy and safe during this unprecedented time. Thank you to all who have already expressed messages of support to Ospreys – it’s been inspiring to receive your well-wishes and makes us proud to be part of this community.

Along with all professional sports in Wales, rugby has been suspended since 14th March 2020 due to the outbreak of COVID-19, affecting all Guinness PRO14 and European Cup fixtures. Today it was announced that the Guinness Pro14 will target 22nd August 2020 to recommence the 2019/20 season. Although professional games will return, we will not have fans in the ground until it is safe to do so meaning it’s likely that the remaining 2019/20 fixtures will be played behind closed doors.

Sadly many of you, whether our Season Members or match ticket buyers, will have tickets to games that we can no longer fulfil.

Know that we are working hard behind the scenes with WRU and the other Welsh Regions to come up with the fairest way for our fans to realise the value they’re entitled to whilst considering the long-term sustainability of our region and rugby in Wales. 

The most likely course of action will be for us to ask anyone with an unused ticket balance to decide between supporting the Ospreys through a donation back into the region, accepting credits to be carried through to next season or redeeming a cash refund. We will reach out directly to those supporters affected with our options in due course.

For any questions, please contact us via email at info@ospreysrugby.com and we will endeavour to respond to all enquiries as soon as possible.

Thank you for your patience, understanding and ongoing support during this challenging time.

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My friend Gary Lewis passed away earlier this month as the age of 52 .  Gary was an Ospreys season ticker holder, Riverside regular and often used the Neath/Bryncoch supporters bus to games.  A group of us would regularly sit together on the halfway line and have a great laugh – win or lose, we’d enjoy each others’ company (normally entertaining each other by shouting non sensical comments at the opposition, advice to the ref (and assistant refs) or endless shouts of “Go on Jeff!” aimed to encourage Mr Hassler and also to make the rest of us laugh).  What was funny was Gary would often say he couldn’t remember where his real season ticket seats were as we’d sat as a group for years but never sorted our tickets out to make it official.  The picture here is of us on the most memorable of away trips to Dublin for the Rabo 12 Grand Final – Gary’s wearing the Neath FC top just to be a bit different!

Gary died of cancer and leaves behind his loving wife Janine, as well as three wonderful children Ellie, Jess and Tom.  Gary will be sorely missed by his friends and family but also remembered fondly for the pleasure he brought to the lives of everyone who knew him.  He was the coolest, nicest and one of the funniest and most handsome mates I’ve ever had.

Gary’s friends have set up a bank account to help raise money for a memorial (perhaps a bench, or a new scoreboard) at Bryncoch RFC where Gary coached and refereed the boys from U7 to U16.

If anyone would like to make a donation to Gary’s memorial fund, please can you do so via a bank transfer (a close family friend has set up a new account specifically for this – so the account name is Sarah Gould but I can vouch that this is legitimate).

Account details:

Name: Sarah Gould

Account number: 63280964

Sort Code 07-16-60

Grant Berni

Vice-Chair

OSC

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As we mentioned in the Saracens programme, this season we will be supporting Swansea Gladiators, as our sponsored charity. Below is a short description of the ethos and function of the Gladiators;  I am sure that once you have read it, you will have nothing but admiration for the work that the volunteers running the club undertake.

Once again, thanks for the generosity that both Ospreys and visiting supporters have shown in supporting our efforts to date!

We will hand over to Matthew Germine, one of the coaches , who will explain why the Gladiators exist and some of the activities they enjoy!

The Swansea Gladiators were formed in 1991 at Fforestfach Day Centre, when a young man who was using the service, saw some of the support staff throwing a rugby ball around on their break, asked a very simple question –

“can I play rugby too?”

Over the next few months, what started out as just passing a ball around at break time, evolved into structured training sessions with tangible benefits for everyone involved.  Our first game against a “Veteran select XV”, in a few short months’ people had gone from being told that they couldn’t play rugby because of their disability to saying I will play rugby because of my ability!

With a strong focus on the social aspect of rugby,  the Gladiators has become a vessel for developing people’s interpersonal skills and physical characteristics. We have been fortunate to have hundreds of people play for us to date – each of them add something different to the club and each of them benefits in a different way too.

During our first 29 years we have we have been based at a few different clubs including Waunarlwydd RFC, Gowerton RFC and, since 2001, Swansea Uplands RFC.  Without this support The Swansea Gladiators may not have had the impact that it has had.

We have been on many tours – something that some of our players may not have had the opportunity to do previously – including biennial trips to Ireland and Scotland during the Six Nations, to Canada in 2010.

In 2017 we  visited the Basque Country and participated in the most recent International Mixed Ability Rugby Tournament (IMART), where we finished 5^th!   We will be travelling to Cork, Ireland for the next instalment of IMART in June 2020 where we hope to go four better!

We train twice a week – every Tuesday at Swansea RFC and Thursday at Swansea Uplands RFC with an average of 20 participants who push themselves and challenge preconceptions every time they lace up their boots.

Our club motto is Friendship through sport, and we try and base everything that we do to achieve it.  Many thanks to you, the Ospreys supporters for supporting us this season!

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Our friend Liz Mellor passed away suddenly and unexpectedly as just 36 years old.  Liz was a huge Ospreys supporter and was one of the most energetic and happiest people you could meet  – she lit up a rugby stadium, let alone a room with her presence.

Liz collapsed and died after suffering with a bad cough and chest over the Christmas period and leaves behind her husband Mike, as well as three beautiful children.

Liz’s friends have set up a GoFundMe page to help with funeral costs and to support the family financially during this difficult time.

You can donate here.

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Representatives of the Ospreys Supporters Club committee and Ospreys Rugby met to discuss various issues that have arisen in recent weeks.

We raised the manner in which the forum was shut down and the Ospreys acknowledge that it could have been handled differently in retrospect.

Going forward, we have agreed that the Ospreys will run 2-3 Q&A sessions each season along with the Q&A sessions run by the OSC committee. This will provide regular opportunities for supporters to engage directly with management and players.

There will also be closer liaison between the Ospreys and the committee going forward to ensure improved lines of communication and open discussion.

The OSC committee will continue to represent all season ticket members and we value any input from members.

To contact the committee, please use the contact form or email address on the link here

#ourbloodisblack

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Following the very recent upgrade to the official Ospreys Rugby website at ospreysrugby.com , we understand that the fans forum has been dropped.  At our last committee meeting in October, a member of the Ospreys management team informed us of the pending website update and of the intention to drop the fans forum.

The OSC agreed with the Ospreys that vehicles for interaction with fellow supporters and the Ospreys have progressed since forums were first introduced and that Social Media platforms are currently the way forward.  At its peak, the forum was a great place to hang out and was used by a lot of supporters (OK, users, not all of them were ospreys supporters!) but over time the place became a lot quieter as people moved onto newer platforms.

We have no plans to host a forum on this website at present as we feel that the way forward in terms of talking to fellow supporters, Ospreys management and players(!), that facebook and twitter offer great solutions.  If you don’t have a twitter or facebook account, then its no different to creating a fans forum account – you can remain anonymous if you like (as do a lot of twitter users in general).  Also, the OSC is run by volunteers and we cannot offer the level of moderation required to guarantee that a forum hosted on this website would be a safe and welcoming environment for all users in the same way that the former ospreys forum was moderated.  This was done by one great individual who is probably known to most Ospreys Supporters whether they used the forum or not!

Some forum stats:

Most users ever online 326 on Monday 21st May 2012 during the week building up to our last Pro12 title

In terms of links to social media accounts run by the Ospreys or the OSC, click on the links below, or if you want to contact the OSC committee and don’t want to use social media, please use the Contact Form on this website.

The forums are dead, long live social media! (until facebook and twitter get overtaken by something else!)

Ospreys on facebook OSC on facebook	Ospreys on twitter OSC on twitter

For those who still like a good old fashioned forum, a keen supporter has set up their own unofficial fans forum.  This is not run, endorsed, moderated or sponsored by the OSC, but if you want to give it a go, click here

We’ve talked about the forum(s) with Paul Whapham, Ospreys Business General Manager (15th November) and will be meeting with the Ospreys next week.  Paul has asked us to share the following statement with supporters to help explain recent events.

The Ospreys understand that we should have notified supporters on the forum that it would be closing down within a sufficient time. However, since the end of June there were changes made by the company who developed the Forum leaving the Ospreys with no way of accessing any information. The Ospreys were unable to post, moderate or add new users to the forum, rendering it unusable from our end

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The Ospreys Supporters Cub’s Annual General Meeting will take place at 18:30, Monday 16th September at the Liberty Stadium.

All OSC members (season ticket holders) are invited to attend and to stand for election to the committee should they wish to do so (providing conditions laid out in the constitution are met – see the link below). If you have the energy, committment and the skills to contribute to the OSC, please email grant@ospreyssupportersclub.com to find out more or to submit an application to join the committee.

Further details about the AGM and committee can be found here in the OSC constitution

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As a friend and sponsor of the OSC, Peter Benjamin is offering a fantastic deal to supporters.

 

 

 

Ospreys Reward Card

In Association with P B SERVICES 

Garage Equipment Company and Swansea Tyre Clutch and MOT Centre

We are offering a unique opportunity exclusive to the Ospreys Staff,Family, Friends, Commercial Partners and Supporters for massive reductions in repair costs for their vehicles, we are offering:-

MOT’S at £19.00

20% discount on labour costs effectively making them Trade rates

20% discount on a 3D laser wheel alignment machine

Courtesy car if vehicle left for work to be carried out

Competitive rates for fuel and engine treatments

Reduced rates for wrong fuel call outs

Massive reductions on service costs

We carried out our first work on this scheme on Friday the customers bill normally for the repair would have been £554.00 under this scheme it was £335.00

This scheme is unique and is open to all Osprey staff, family members, friends commercial partners and supporters just by ringing the garage booking the vehicle in and quoting OSP1, this offer is now live 

We are an AA and RAC approved garage 

Peter Benjamin

General Manager

Get in Touch
Telephone: 01792 477 555

Email: service@swanseatyres.co.uk

Website: https://www.swanseatyres.co.uk/

Postal Address: Unit C, SA1 Business Park, Swansea, SA1 8QY
**USE POSTCODE SA1 8LD in SAT NAV**

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Attendees:

Cardiff Blues Supporters’ Club Sarah Hopkins, Catherine Smart, David Elsmere

CRYS16 Barrie Jones, Ian Lewis, Gareth Payne

Dragons Official Supporters’ Club Dan Hallett, Ryan Price

Ospreys Supporters’ Club Nigel Jones, Grant Berni, Lynne Jones

Welsh Rugby Union Martyn Phillips, Mark Killingley

Agenda:

1. Update on Project Reset and the way forward
2. Player retention/pay bands
3. Communication from this meeting
4. Any Other Business

SH thanked MP and MK for meeting with the JSG so soon after the last meeting. It was acknowledged that things had changed reasonably substantially since the last meeting and that updates from PRB statements had confirmed the change in position.

1 – Update on Project Reset

MP said that it was no longer deemed to be ‘Project Reset’ as the new legal agreement was now in place and was no longer a project. Future reference should be made to the Professional Rugby Strategy which covered the five Professional Entities (the four regions and the WRU).

PRB were focussed on doing right thing for the game and whilst it was agreed that the current position was ‘business as usual’, the facts remain that transformational change is required to enable 4 professional teams in change to be sustainable and competitive.

JSG asked whether consideration had been given to the appointment of a Supporter Director on the PRB. MP said that this wasn’t really on the agenda and that the focus was on appointment of non-exec Directors as they can bring required skills to the board. In addition, it was not possible to make room for all stakeholder representatives on the PRB – e.g. the players also wanted representation which had resulted in far more regular dialogue between the PRB and the Players association (WRPA) and the players themsleves. He confirmed that members of the PRB have fiduciary duties.

However, it was noted that PRB wanted and needed to take the views and feedback from supporters into account, and that the JSG would be the preferred option to do this more formally and on a regular basis together with supporter forums at local level.

MP went on to say that since 2016, there had been an increase in funding from WRU to the regions from £10 to £20m. This totalled around £32m when competition income was included to the four regions, in addition to the clubs’ commercial and ticketing income generated locally. Whilst the improvement is welcome there remains much to do with the 5 entities working interdependently.

There was a detailed discussion in respect of the supporter experience and ticketing. MK said that the research seemed to suggest that the price of season tickets were too low but that the overall price point on match tickets was about right. One of the key requirements for all regions was to drive attendances up. There was agreement from all that regions could and should do better – but under resourced in commercial departments.

JSG pointed out that the structure of the season was not helpful and with regular changes from International periods to league and Europe, the season tended to lose momentum. MP acknowledged that this was a difficult position which was under constant review. MP confirmed that there is Private Equity interest in the PRO14, but that this was primarily a matter for the PRB to consider.

JSG representatives raised some frustrations about regional teams not using players to better leverage their brand and start to build on international successes back in the local areas.  

JSG and WRU agreed that a lot of the media articles written about the regions seemed to have a negative spin – intended to ‘create a good headline’ – which was undermining the hard work being undertaken by the regions and not encouraging people who were not already committed to regional rugby to have a desire to attend. As an example of this, MP handed out a copy of a graph showing the increased funding given to the Regions by the WRU. Funding had doubled since 2016.

MP reminded JSG that there were seven agreed key indicators of success for the regions, Including:

• Welsh International players
• Youth Development and Academy
• Management structure / coaching / governance
• Community
• Marketing

Work is ongoing on a formula based funding model going forward to better link funding to these areas of success.

A question was asked about the commercial structure:

Rugby Board – Team Managers from regions and Head Coaches

Business Board – tasked with reducing costs, leveraging economies of scale and increasing income.

2 – Player Retention and Pay Bands

JSG asked about the recent departures of promising young players and whether the changes to the pay bands were preventing the retention of key talent. MP said that, whilst he was not prepared to discuss individual players, some wanted to seek a different experience and that pay bands were not a factor in their decisions.

JSG asked whether regions were able to ‘top-up’ the pay bandings offered to individual players – thus encouraging players to choose one region over another. MP confirmed that this was allowed, but only to the top of the relevant banding which have been agreed by the Regions and WRPA. There was a further discussion about the perceived value of a player being different to different regions based on their depth in that particular position. MP confirmed that the reason for a band with a lower and upper limit was to cater for this eventuality.

The discussion moved onto whether the first season of working with Premier Sports had been deemed a success for the Pro 14. MP said that feedback seemed positive and that he understood viewing figures for the coverage to be broadly in line with that experienced by the BBC when all games are taken into account. He reminded JSG that BBC did not formally bid to cover the Pro 14. JSG members said that the coverage was good and it was encouraging to see decent exposure on regional rugby, as national media outlets traditionally focused on Team Wales. MP agreed and indicated that the PRB were increasing its focus on exposure for the Professional rugby brands in 2019 onwards.

MP agreed that the focus from the media on Team Wales did not help the regions and that he would prefer to see more balanced coverage. He said that there was work to do to educate many people attending Wales games that the team were successful because of, and not in spite of, the regional teams.

The Union is working with Regions in an effort to cut costs across the board. Savings are being made by agreeing deals where all Regions use the one travel company for travelling arrangements. Kit sponsorship is also being considered, but currently Regions have arrangements in place which end at different times.

3 – Communication from this meeting

Notes of the meeting would be produced by JSG and circulated to the group prior to publishing to members.

4 – AOB

There was no other business and it was agreed that the group would meet again in a few months – date tbc.

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