Committee Meeting 13/03/2023
Participating: Jon, Nick, Signe, Simon, Stephanie & Zorn
Minutes by: Jon
First committee meeting of the year. Unfortunately only 6 of 11 members of the committee, were in attendance for this meeting.
Round table:
Jesper – Club Captain (Absent)
Will not be running for committee again this year.
Simon – Treasurer
Closed the accounts this afternoon.
Last year we had a profit of 17.500kr, which leaves us with 155.000kr in the bank.
The AD&D alone, especially due to the raffle, brought in around 16.000kr.
Simon mentions we have 60 ties in stock, so we need to work to get more of them sold!
Nick – President
Nick thanks the Committee, and specially Stephanie and Simon, for their efforts in arranging the 55th Anniversary AD&D, last year. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, and all the old boys certainly loved being there!
Highlight of the evening, was the mistake of putting Alberto’s name on Alessandro’s trophy!
Zorn – Head of Men’s
Things in the men’s team are progressing as usual. The same coaching team as last year, will continue into this.
Through last year, Exiles have managed to develop a good relationship with CSR and Speed, which makes the communication between the teams easier.
3 players moved from Copenhagen Wolves last season, and 2 more are looking to do so this season.
All of this is above board, and discussed with the coaches at Wolves. We are not interested in stealing any players from other teams. But for players looking for a bigger challenge that they can’t get in the 2nd division, we’ll be happy to give them that opportunity.
This year the match season will look different.
Each side of the country will first play local matches, to decide which teams they will later meet from the opposite side on the country.
Exiles, along with quite a few other teams, are not happy with this new development. However DRU insists on pushing forwards with the new system for this season, so changes will have to wait till next season.
Alongside the 1st division games, there will also be 8 Development games, spread throughout the season. Exiles has agreed to host one of those games, on the 28th of September.
The men’s kit is doing okay, but it requires new socks for the coming season.
Some of the team have mentioned that they’d like to play in our red kit more regularly. But in our constitution § 1.1 it states “ The Club shall be called " DTU Exiles Rugby Union Football Club Denmark " abbreviated to " DTU Exiles R.U.F.C. " and hereinafter referred to as the Club and whose playing colours shall be all black.” So there is no choice in this matter, until we change our constitution!
We do still have a marquise laying in the paint shed, that we should try to get installed this season.
Signe – Head of Ladies
The Ladies team has gotten a new coach.
Emanuelle (Lele) is stepping back, after 5 years on the job. It takes a lot of time and energy to coach a team, twice a week + Saturdays. He has made a huge difference to the women’s team, and will be sorely missed. Huge thanks go to Lele!
In his place, Dylan from the Men’s team, has stepped in to the role. He has agreed to coach 2024.
The team itself looks good this year, with 13 players already from the start of the season.
Practice started this Tuesday at Lyngby Stadium, which didn’t have it’s lights on, and a lot of the pitch was full of ice.
Jon will write the Lyngby Stadium guards, to make sure this doesn’t continue to happen.
Signe is stepping back as Head of Ladies. She has held the position for many years now, and feels now is the time to pass on the torch.
She proposes Sofie from the Ladies team, who is willing to take on the role.
Signe could be willing to take the Club Captain position, which will be empty at the coming AGM.
Stephanie – Social Secretary
Survived arranging the AD&D! Nothing in particular was broken this year, mostly just some drinking glasses.
The party made quite a bit of profit this year, of almost 16.000kr – 11.000kr of that came from the raffle!
People seemed to enjoy the new venue, with room for both party, dining space (that didn’t have to get cleared away for dance floor), and a more calm backroom.
Learnings for next time:
Next time we should also consider asking Vegetarians/Vegans to go up to get their food first. Despite good signage, people would still grab some of the veggie options, which threatened to leave the last vegetarians without anything to eat. It did work out in the end, but only because Zorn was posted as
DTU was a little difficult to work with, and with all the fee’s for renting cutlery and cleaning, the final price is likely close to something like Happy Feet, despite rent being free at DTU.
There was a general consensus in the attendee’s, which was echoed by the committee, that the party probably ended an hour earlier that it should. We had the last bus scheduled for 2 AM. Next time we will close down for 3 AM instead.
We bought way to much wine this time, with 11 boxes left over. It seems most young people just drink the beers from Bootleggers.
Will try to shop a bunch of good quality sausages on discount, and fill up our freezer in the shed. In general we should aim to have better quality sausages and bread for the grill. Other teams charge more, but have better quality, and players seem to like it.
We might also need some new storage boxes for the shed, to hold all the vases and other things we bought for the AD&D.
Greg has mentioned bringing kegs to our home games. We’d have to move his kegs and taps there for each game. Alternatively we could invest in our own tap for the shed. This would of course require cleaning, and might not make sense for the few times we would use it.
Stephanie will look at possible solutions for this.
6 Nations starts on the 2nd of February. We’ll be watching the games at Nørrebro, and Stephanie will be posting about it on Facebook weekly, as per usual.
She will also make sure to post about the Women’s 6 Nations, which take place after the regular 6 Nations.
Ignasi – Recruitment Secretary (Absent)
Intro week's club fair will be the 23rd of January. Since Ignasi is in the Philippines, Sasha and some more are organizing the day.
It would be nice to know if we have any budget for the rookie day, even though being in January I don't think it will be worth it, since no one will stay after practice
he Committee believes that the Rookie Day is usually not held before the team is back on our own pitch, where we can invite for beers and BBQ after the training.
Vanda – Communications Secretary (Absent)
No updates since the last meeting.
Will not be running for committee again this year.
Jacob – DTU Liaison (Absent)
Not too much has happened since last time we met. Our ad campaigns seems to have been successful and we plan on running a new campaign this January, when the new students begin at DTU. Until now we have only spent around 800kr out of the 4.000kr we were granted by DRU.
Once March comes around I’ll start asking DTU when we can use the pitch again.
Jon – Club Secretary
Will be attending an information meeting at Lyngby Stadium on the 25th of January.
Lyngby Stadium is going to upgrade our usual winter pitch from a hockey pitch, to a modern football astroturf pitch. This will likely mean that more footballers will want access to the pitch, which could affect our timeslot allocation.
Some DRU interns have reached out to ask whether some Exiles players and recruitment staff, would be willing to partake in some interviews. They are interested in learning what it is we are doing that works, with regards to retaining players in the 18-29 age bracket.
Jon will learn more specifics about these interviews, and then pass over the contact to our player Recruitment Team.
Alberto – Branding (Absent)
Alberto will step back from the Branding position in the Committee.
This position didn’t exist before Alberto, and is not a position that will be filled at the AGM.
Once training starts up again, he will do a post about his last round of merchandise, to maximise the amount of people.
AGM – Annual General Meeting
The Exiles AGM must be held before the end of February, and must be called 21 days before.
Usually we do the AGM before Saturday rugby games during the 6 Nations, which we will again this year.
We decide that the AGM will be on the 24th of February. Location and time confirmation to follow.
This year we will need some new members for the committee. All positions are up for vote for the AGM, but I just want to write a bit about the newly empty positions.
Club Captain:
Jesper is stepping back after many years in the position. Huge thanks go to Jesper for helping represent our club for all those years.
Signe is willing to step into the Club Captain position.
Head of Ladies:
Managing a team is a lot of work, and Signe is now taking a well earned respite! We’re all indebted to Signe for being willing to hold this position for so long, and are even more thrilled that she is willing to stay on as Club Captain!
Sofie is willing to step into the Head of Ladies position.
Communications Secretary:
Vanda stepped into the Communications Secretary role last year, with lots of eagerness. Unfortunately her available time has since become quite limited, and she is no longer able to dedicate enough time for the role. Thanks goes to Vanda for her efforts during the last year.
There is no one lines up to take over the Communications Secretary role.
Budget
We go through the accounts for last year, and adjust the budget for the coming year.
Holdsport
Jon and Zorn are currently testing out Holdsport, with help from several players and coaches.
The goal is to have a final decision, on whether to switch to Holdsport, by the end of January.
That way we can reveal the new Holdsport app, at the AGM.
Misc
It is discussed whether we should find a gift for Anders, our sponsor and owner of the bus company.
We also talk about possible commercials on metal magnet stickers, on the sides of his buses. Simon will look into acquiring those.
We discuss how the club came about World Cup Tickets, which is something DRU arranged.