Barry the bird bogglerDirk Gently
3. I believed that STAR was slowly dying as an organisation through lack of new-blood coming through. STAR had never had an election and didn't have a membership which was properly representative of all Reading supporters. That's not down to STAR, as it represented its members, but that was a by-product of the fact that STAR's members primarily join to travel by coach (*). I felt STAR had never found a way to answer the question “I don’t travel by coach, why should I pay a tenner to join STAR?” - and that was damaging them as an organisation and shaping their policies in the wrong direction. I believe STAR needs to open its membership wider and cheaper (possibly via a zero-cost, e-membership, or maybe a very low-cost membership with "top-up" for "Travel membership") so that it will be more attractive to *all* Reading supporters. With a larger membership, it'll be more effective, more representative and it'll have a much larger talent-pool of people who will, hopefully, participate more.
That is an excellent idea and just what the organisation needs to bring fresh blood into the organisation. I'd even be happy to help administer such a scheme if it got the thumbs up.
As every members has a £1 share it cannot be a zero cost membership. And given the problems that the FSF have had following a zero cost membership, I personally would never advocate it and I certainly don't think that anyone should expect to get all the benefits at the expense of their fellow supporters. £10 is probably less than most spend per game after the match ticket so it is not exactly a fortune.
As far as commmunicating with non-members we experimented with an E-newsletter level of communication last season without much publicity as we wanted to see how it went from just website hits. I think it may well be publicised more this season as most of those subscribing have joined this season so presumably they got more from it than travel and fans forums as those weren't open to them. It is on the website on the right under sign up for our newsletter.