[Archived] Independent Away Travel Club?

[mark1875]

Not exactly a scandal, and I don't remember you making much fuss about it mark when you were a regular on Birdy's coach.

Even in them days i complained about the price of Rovers official travel, it's always been sky high, last night they proved they don't have to run it that high, don't they profiteer of the supporters enough, all football supporters are entitled to fair treatment and affordable travel should be offered to all, there is no reason the club should not be doing this for its supporters.

I do feel an issue still remains to be addressed in that BRAG repeatedly claims transparency but in reality never reports the detail. Until BRAG addresses this the organisation will always be open to criticism.

Minutes of today's meeting with Shebby Singh will be released when the club have wrote them up. Once these minutes are released you will see for yourself how transparent our meetings with him are, as you'll literally feel like you are involved with the next one Paul.

I'm still not sure how you become a member of BRAG, I asked but never got a real answer. There is no formal membership (unless I'm missing something), so to be a member is the stipulation A you register with the website, B follow them on twitter, C ask to join their secret/closed FB page, D wear a yellow & black t-shirt and shout Venkys/Kean/Anderson/Agnew/Shaw/Singh/Walsh* out or a combo of all four?

HOW DO YOU JOIN BRAG / BRFC ACTION GROUP?

*delete as appropriate

You become a member of the Action Group by emailing a committee member and registering your interest, once you get a reply you will be forwarded more details on how to become a member, this will be more publicised in the next couple of weeks, when we launch a new membership drive ahead of the new season. I'll look forward to receiving your membership request Andy

You don't need to buy a t-shirt to prove your membership btw, save your money, you will receive a shiny new membership card to pop in your wallet, best thing of all - it will be completely free of charge, you can cherish it mate, save you paying for one

[AndyNeil]

thanks for the reply Mark...

[mark1875]

Leeds United v Rovers

[AggyBlue]

TBF Brag / BRFCAG have a duty to report only to its members.

I thought the group started out as representative of all Blackburn Rovers fans.

[OJRovers]

Do you have any way of linking a match ticket to the transport?

[the original david brent]

I can think of at least two other pubs running coaches at or a cheaper price to the coaches offered by the Action Group,

Which pubs? Im not asking to catch you out or anything; im just curious. I know the Ewood Blues will be going from the Aqueduct but who else?

[tomphil]

Which pubs? Im not asking to catch you out or anything; im just curious. I know the Ewood Blues will be going from the Aqueduct but who else?

The Havelock are putting one on, not sure how much it is though.

[the original david brent]

The Havelock are putting one on, not sure how much it is though.

But that is organised by the action group as discussed above. I was just wondering who the other pubs are as oppose to the Havelock.

[glen9mullan]

But that is organised by the action group as discussed above. I was just wondering who the other pubs are as oppose to the Havelock.

Havelock is not organised by the action group, they wanted for us to go there which we wanted to, but they also wanted us to be exclusive to them which we could not as we wanted to continue our good relationship with the brown cow and work with both pubs . Havelock declined and are running this themselves independent from us .

[mark1875]

With tickets for Ipswich Town away now being on full open sale, i thought i would remind people that affordable travel to Ipswich is still available for those yet to make arrangements.

Full Details

Departing 6.30am

Price £20

From Brown Cow, Blackburn

Contact Andy@brfcactiongroup.co.uk

or pop me a pm on here.

[mark1875]

Bristol City v Blackburn Rovers £17.50 return

please email awaytravel@brfcactiongroup.co.uk

[glen9mullan]

Will add that tickets are also on sale for Leeds Away priced at £10 return

email awaytravel@brfcactiongroup.co.uk

A big thank you to those who came down on Saturday to Ipswich, it was nice to take a couple of coaches down there, and the weather was superb. I thought it was a good atmosphere on the bus and it was nice to see so many new faces including the darwen blues all travelling down together as rovers supporters should

[roversfan99]

Was very good on Saturday Glen, thanks a lot.

[glen9mullan]

The BRFC Action Group Travel to Leeds United away has now sold out, sorry to those who have contacted today, but they went pretty quickly

there are still a handful of tickets available for Bristol City away

http://www.brfcactiongroup.co.uk/away-travel/bristol-city-v-rovers/

[AndyNeil]

Quick question regarding the 22 unsold seats for the trip to Ipswich. Given the free membership the group offers, how is the £300 - £400 shortfall covered, gievn the coaches are run at virtually 'cost' (which is very much for the benefit of the fans)?

[glen9mullan]

Quick question regarding the 22 unsold seats for the trip to Ipswich. Given the free membership the group offers, how is the £300 - £400 shortfall covered, gievn the coaches are run at virtually 'cost' (which is very much for the benefit of the fans)?

As we sold 90 seats for the trip, and we have various group sponsors plus a generous committee and a great relationship with the coach company as part of the community support amongst other things, we had no short fall to cover.

Our group has been self funded for over a year, with things in place like bonus ball, football team, football cards, donations for printing cost etc.

Our membership is free, but cost in the thousands to offer.

We have worked very hard working with many people to ensure the away travel remains affordable and open to all

[mark1875]

Charlton Athletic - Saturday 29th September

Nottingham Forest - Wednesday 3rd October

[Rishton blue]

Charlton Athletic - Saturday 29th September

Nottingham Forest - Wednesday 3rd October

This might be a silly question but can you have a couple of 'shandys' on these trips?

[AndyNeil]

This might be a silly question but can you have a couple of 'shandys' on these trips?

That might be a question better sent by PM than in a public forum...

[Rishton blue]

That might be a question better sent by PM than in a public forum...

Thought that once I'd sent it! Whoops

[Paul]

As we sold 90 seats for the trip, and we have various group sponsors plus a generous committee and a great relationship with the coach company as part of the community support amongst other things, we had no short fall to cover.

Our group has been self funded for over a year, with things in place like bonus ball, football team, football cards, donations for printing cost etc.

Our membership is free, but cost in the thousands to offer.

We have worked very hard working with many people to ensure the away travel remains affordable and open to all

As this is the first time, to my knowledge, its been mentioned BRAG has sponsors could we ask who the sponsors are?

I can't see or recall seeing any mention of sponsorship on the website, PR materials, events etc. which strikes me as unusual.

[glen9mullan]

As this is the first time, to my knowledge, its been mentioned BRAG has sponsors could we ask who the sponsors are?

I can't see or recall seeing any mention of sponsorship on the website, PR materials, events etc. which strikes me as unusual.

The group has various companies, individuals who have kindly donated various things as part of our membership package. As we are currenty finalising the membership portfolio to send to our members, we wish to keep these under wraps for now.. We want to give all helpers full coverage and the way to do this is not on a message boards. The work going in behind the scenes is huge, whilst the effort which has gone in to a professional pitch for this help has taken a lot of time and effort from the committee.

Some people would rather remain anomynous, whilst some will get their companies fully promoted as part of agreements/contracts in place.

On events, these will be advertised in good time before them

Why everything we do always gets intergated by those who want nothing to do with the group astounds me, Everyday the same group of people ask us antagonising questions, in an attempt to put the group down or to try and find a hidden agenda or an angle to put us down.

We get that some people have no interest in the group or becoming a member of the group, but really , we dont get these questions off the members .

Thankfully its a minority, we are pleased to have people like Kate Hollern, The Mayor of Blackburn ,MP's and leading business owners as fully signed up members of a supporters group we are proud to be part of

[AndyNeil]

Why everything we do always gets intergated by those who want nothing to do with the group astounds me, Everyday the same group of people ask us antagonising questions, in an attempt to put the group down or to try and find a hidden agenda or an angle to put us down.

I can only speak for myself, however maybe just maybe I'm interested to understand more how the group operates - is that such a bad thing? If you run a group that represents supporters, isn't it only fair to assume you'll get questions from those supporters from time to time about the workings of said group.

IMO questions about membership numbers (when they have been stated to be in the thousands) and corporate sponsors are perfectly reasonable.

[Paul]

Why everything we do always gets intergated by those who want nothing to do with the group astounds me, Everyday the same group of people ask us antagonising questions, in an attempt to put the group down or to try and find a hidden agenda or an angle to put us down.

Good grief Glen it's a very reasonable question. I've often wondered how BRAG activities are funded as what the group does is clearly expensive. I don't see why you have to be so defensive at a straight forward question? If BRAG didn't want people to know there are "sponsors" (in the broadest sense) it shouldn't have been mentioned in the first place - it had not occurrred to me the group might have sponsors till you posted the information.

Apologies if I've caused offence

[glen9mullan]

Good grief Glen it's a very reasonable question. I've often wondered how BRAG activities are funded as what the group does is clearly expensive. I don't see why you have to be so defensive at a straight forward question? If BRAG didn't want people to know there are "sponsors" (in the broadest sense) it shouldn't have been mentioned in the first place - it had not occurrred to me the group might have sponsors till you posted the information.

Apologies if I've caused offence

The group has always been self funded, we do many things to try and raise money, quite often it comes out of our own pockets (e.g my mobile bill averages out at £125 per month which is funded by me) When we decided to launch our 2012 membership we approached many business''s , local authorities etc, to get as much help as possible. This could be in the way of offering reduced cost for services, benefits for members, donations or free services. We now have a number of companies we are working with who are doing what they can to assist us. We are still seeking help, as running a supporters group is a very expensive voluantary job.

So in answer to your question, which when I put it in relevance to the original question from Fernhurst Rover regarding unsold seats on Coaches, Our coaches are run on a non profit basis, and an accumalation of things we do and discounts we got for taking 2 coaches instead of 1, we covered the cost,