Committee Meeting 05/02/2025
Participating: Amanda, Ignasi, Jacob, Jon, Simon, Sofie, Patri, Thierry, Zorn and Komnen
Minutes by: Jon
Agenda:
Inaugural committee meeting
Round table
Holdsport
Rugbydagen
Pitch status
What do we do with grant money?
Other business
Inaugural committee meeting
Unfortunately Sasha is unable to join our first meeting, but she has sent Thierry, who will share the burden of being Social Secretary with her.
We do a round of introductions, and speak a bit about what being in the committee pertains.
Round table:
Zorn – Head of Men’s
Zorn has made an order of supplies for the club. New cones, ball nets, bibs and other things. We still need to find a solution for some things like the tackle mats that were requested during the AGM and a new medic bag.
We have a decent player base currently, at least a full squad and some extras.
We’ve held the yearly Players meeting, which saw us with a new captain in Ander with Ignasi as vice-captain. They’re both new in the role, but with have help on the law side from Gaspard and former captain Yann, who is contemplating leaving the country (booo).
Zorn received information today that RD wants 3 Sundays of development days in the spring.
None of the development games are at our club this year. The 3rd one still needs a location, though we have not volunteered, due to our pitch currently being a building site.
These development days have a positive impact on our new players, so we should make sure to encourage them to join.
Our “Challenger” game have been changed from a home game to instead be away in Aarhus. The game is on the 26th of April, and is on the same date as a women’s tournament, with our guys playing after the women are done. We’ll then join the same bus on the way home.
Jacob interjects with undecipherable nonsense, that fall to a stunned silence.
Our first official game is against Speed, with a friendly against Odder planned the weekend before.
FRK has also contacted us about playing a friendly, but the suggested date is on the same weekend as distortion, and at the tail end of the season, so there’s a fair chance we won’t have a full team.
With the development games we now have a game almost every weekend in the spring.
The men’s team is going on tour on Thursday. This year has a record number of 40 people going. The tour is by plane, and the players will learn where we’re going when they get to the airport on the day.
Jacob – DTU Liaison
Jacob is talking to DTU about when we can get access to the pitch.
Jacob scared his girl away. It seems she fled to Nepal. They still have a good relationship – just like we do with DTU.
DTU Sport have their Repræsentantskabsmøde soon at the 1st of May. It will be in Danish, and Amanda might join as support. It would be nice to raise our problems with the pitch there. Ignasi also suggest bringing up intro weeks, specifically for people doing bachelor degrees. We need to do better at reaching out to those students.
We’ll need to send DTU information about our new committee and approved budget.
Jacob will also work on an application for funds from DTU this year.
Ignasi – Recruitment Secretary
The women’s team got 3 experienced and one new players in the last recruitment in February. Unfortunately, our latest generation of French girls didn’t recruit the next generation from their university back home, so we’ve lost that link to experience players.
But the women’s team have plenty of people, and are looking at having 2 teams. We’re still a bit short to have enough for 2 actual teams, since not all players show up at trainings.
For the mens team Simon is currently taking out new players and coaching them separately, which works for teaching two different levels of rugby.
Ignasi is talking to DTU about Intro fair for master students.
Jon – Club Secretary
Jon attended a RD webinar on how the new license system will be set up in Holdsport. We’ll need all players to fill in their information within March, so we can get licenses for them for the games in April.
Some of the tasks Jon have been doing in the later years, were originally from the communication secretary. With Patri on the role now, Jon will hand over some of those responsibilities, like updates on our website.
Jon has ordered 20 balls to have something for our players, since we’ve run out of new balls. Later we will get a batch of 50 with our logos on. Jean Marc has said he will sponsor some balls again, and Simon will his company logo from him.
He is also looking into team wear along with Zorn, Konmen and Fran.
Simon – Treasurer
Simon says we need to make sure people pay their subs (mister broken record over here)
The women’s national team have found a few sponsors, so we might not have to pay for as many trips as we expected this year.
Simon has paid up some of the national players that were out of pocket from last year, and will get around to the rest of them.
As decided at the AGM, we will fund up to 1000kr for each player, per national tournament.
Nick – Club President
The 195.000kr we were recently awarded, is earmarked to be sued on integration into Denmark, which is what our club is doing. We should make sure to keep documentation to prove that we spend the money on this.
The target is to spend the money pool within the next two years.
And the end result should be 100 paid up expat members after those 2 years!
There are various targets in the budget for this money.
Development teams is a focus. Also social family days and BBQ's, and more practical things like new players kits and a scrummage machine.
Komnen say he prefers to hire some polish guys to scrum against, rather than a new scrummage machine.
Amanda offers to write up stats of masters students who join the club and proceed to stay in Denmark, to have something tangible to hand back to the fund.
Sofie – Head of Ladies
Had team meeting a few weeks ago, about 25 people so we certainly have the members.
We haven’t elected captains yet. First fixture is in a month, so there’s time yet to figure it out.
Regarding coaches, we actually have to many. WE have a head coach, and a strength and conditioning coach, along with an assistant coach and second assistant coach Simon. Simon can help on tournament days, which is great since Dylan and Josh cannot.
We should make sure to get the agreed upon coach compensation for Sean.
Sophie says It’s a lot of work managing this many coaches also, but that she’s slowly figuring out how to handle it.
The women need a solution for their home game, as our pitch currently has no room for warmup, which is a problem for a 7s tournament.
The 7s national team has Amanda and Emily like last year, but Sofie has now also joined!
Will start transferring everything to Holdsport, so we can get licenses for our players..
We have a 15s national team home game on the 29th against Sweden on our pitch.
Amanda – Club Captain Report
Amanda is crying, but Jacob has still got a girlfriend, which made Amanda happy, and stopped her crying.
She is excited to be Club Captain, and is trying to learn all about her new role.
Unfortunately Amanda cannot attend the Rugbydagen on Sunday is planned.
Patri – Communication Secretary
Patri informs us that everyone who has access to our Instagram, also has access to Jacobs private Facebook account.
Normally when I write about Jacob, it’s because we’re playing a joke on him. This here is actually 100% true, and makes it clear that we don’t even have to make an effort to make fun of him.
Social media content wise, Patri has some questions, which the committee tries to clear up.
Instagram stories are mostly for people who are already following it, so not much of a recruitment tool, more for fun. Not only people drinking though – maybe the men’s team should get better at taking pictures when they meet up, and not only when they’re hammered.
It can be a shared responsibility between many team member, so share stories on Instagram.
Instagram posts are the face of the club outwards. Those should be a representation of who we are, for people who are looking at the club from the outside. They should be controlled by the communication secretary.
Pinned posts we can use for temporary commercials.
Komnen – Banding officer
Komnen comes right out the gate with merchandise out of a bag, like he is pitching to Lions Den. He found a Danish supplier of merch who is the reseller of Macron in Denmark, who have sent a bunch of samples.
Their solution is to set up a webshop for our team, where each player can order their own delivery, which will then sent directly to them.
Komnen is talking with Anja about what the women want on the site, and he will check if they also make ties.
They might want some money up front for printing an amount of logos for storage. After the first round of sold merch, this upfront cost should be covered.
Our players get a 30% discount on the merch, compared to buying it directly from their regular site. We have the choice to up that price, and get that extra cost into our club accounts, or just keep it on the lowest – which is what we’re planning on doing. We want everyone to be able to afford it.
They might also do some kickbacks if we sell a large amount.
Komnen identifies the main issues of our old merch was that the price range was a bit high, and the order window was too short.
Both of those issues will be solved with this supplier, as the general price level is lower.
They can also produce full kits, we’ll compare their product with Adrena Sport, which Jon is in contact with.
Regarding sponsorships, Komnen is looking at not just one time or yearly financial sponsors, but also other types of sponsorship.
We can also ask for favours like discounted massages, or someone who would sponsorship a specific event like our summer BBQ.
Komnen has made a spreadsheet of potential sponsors, and is building material to send to them. He is already talking to Mikeller through one of our players who work there. They might share a post on their IG, with 200.000 followers
In return they can get logo on kit, post on socials, link on website.
Thierry asks about whether we have ethical rules about choices. Like if we choose Total Energy, some frenchies would hate wearing that shirt.
We have no rules, but we’ll take each case as it come. We of course don’t want to offend anyone.
Other suggestions for sponsorships come in. Ignasi suggests physios, and Sophie mentions that Lyngby Kickboxing club are getting money from pant machine in Bilka Lyngby.
Thierry – Social Secretary
Thierry and Sasha will be working together to manage the Social Secretary role, especially since Sasha is out of the country most of the time during the coming 3 months. They’ve spent some time talking with Stephanie, to do a proper handover.
They’ve decided to just have only one contact with Greg for Bootleggers, which will be Sasha.
They will both be coordinating room in bars after games.
For 6 nations new players came to have beers, which is important. We should encourage that as much as we can. Women’s 6 nations start on the 22nd of march, which we also want to encourage. We should be able to get Bootleggers Nørrebro to show it without problem.
For BBQ at games, Thierry and Sasha will try to always have someone at the games. They will also try to full the freezer and source beers for the shed. The committee agrees to keep an eye out for discounts in the near future, and to buy while the prices are low.
Komnen suggests a place called Drikkevare Outlet, which might also be a solution.
Sarry wants to do more social events between the two teams, even though the calendar is quite full. Maybe some mixed touch tournament.
Could we put that together with the family day or BBQs events that we want to do for the integration drive.
Thierry want to us to revive the Exiles On Tour on social media, where players post pictures of themselves around the word, in Exiles gear. Maybe to encourage engagement, we will even offer prices for best traveling picture!
Ignasi suggests post match interviews with new players. Patri is already on it!
Sarry have many plans, but don’t want to do too many new things every year.
Holdsport
Zorn and Sophie is on top of getting their teams inside Holdsport, and with all the correct things filled out.
Rugbydagen
On Sunday Simon, Zorn and Jon will travel to Erritsø for the Rugby Denmark Repræsentantskabsmøde, and accompanying workshops.
Pitch Status
Tomorrow is the last day at the pitch at Lyngby. Indoor, or maybe Lyngby pitch, otherwise Gentofte if possible.
Jacob wrote to Thor, who will try to get us access to our pitch as quickly as possible.
By the time these minutes were written up, DTU had gotten back with the good news that we can use our pith already now!
The pitch have been painted and been used by the new 15s women’s team for a practise.
Amanda questions if we can put weight on Lyngby commune about active sport players in our age group, which is a good idea for an angle.
What do we do with grant money?
End of 2026, we have to go back to them and show we have 100 foreigners as members.
We are probably around 60 right now.
Money covers Social Events: 2 “Family events” a year, like summer BBQ and AD&D. Also 2 recruitment events. So these money should go to these events.
Training gear, kit, coaching fees and some advertisements are also covered in this.
Money is also to integrate our current players. Some options here could be courses. DIF have coaching educations, paying some of that could be covered by this funding.
The money can be used on here and now costs, but also investments into our players and their future.
Amanda suggest a Club Fair Package, with all the things you need to bring for recruitment events. Amanda will help make the box.
We should also get stickers printed again, and other small giveaway stuff. Key hangers shapes as Exiles rugby balls are suggested.
Other business
Nothing for other business.
Most of the young people are fly out of the chairs and leave the meeting immediately, while the old folks are too tired, and have to remain seated for a few more beers.