Most of you will be aware that I was appointed as Chairman of the ESTFA at the last AGM in July 2012.Since my appointment, I decided to review everything within our association and it was quite clear that one of the biggest issues had been the shear lack of resources made available to the previous board.
At the beginning of August I published a 10 point strategy plan which was designed to completely restructure the way our association has been managed.
The strategy plan was as follows:
- Agree on a transparent England Qualification process.
- Set up a new bank account.
- Change our name to the “English Subbuteo Association”.
- Create a new feature packed website with our new name English Subbuteo Association.
- Increase the volume of members (all age groups).
- Find a modern day venue for the new National Finals.
- Introduce online payments for membership and tournament entrance fees.
- Attract sponsorship and web advertising revenue.
- Increase membership fees.
- Improve communication to all members including (events, membership issues etc).
http://subbuteoassociation.co.uk/articles/3/ESA-STRATEGY-2012-2013
I am pleased to confirm that the ESA Board has delivered on every point and this has meant that no only do we appear to be more professional but we have started to attract a lot more interest in our sport.
In addition to the above we have started to make progress in completely new areas to help grow our sport. This has included the following:
- Appoint a Head of Sales and Marketing.
- Appoint 2 x Welfare Officers.
- Agree a sponsorship for England Shirts for the forthcoming World Cup.
- Allow members to publish their tournaments and articles about their events on the ESA website.
- Launch a tournament organiser for ESA events on the website. This is now available to all organisers.
- Bring all formats and players of the game together by promoting FISTF, TSPA, Old Subbuteo, WASPA and Subbuteo.
- Launch a Facebook page.
- Increase the number of events.
Overall I think we have had an extremely successful year and we are hopeful that the foundations are now in place to help take our association onto a new level.
We are still experiencing some issues particularly with point no.6. FISTF do not support our views to help promote all formats of the game and they have a particular issue with the ESA being supportive of WASPA.
The ESA is very clear in that we do not want any more divides in our game and we want to support all formats of the game. We have made this point to the FISTF Board and we trust they will respect our wishes.
So what are the plans for the new season:
- Continue to grow the membership and attract new players.
- Introduce a fully functional shop facility allowing the ESA to resale equipment, teams, accessories etc
- Complete the tournament organiser with groups and knockouts being the final project.
- Increase the number of ESA associated tournaments.
- Find sponsors for our major events.
Just on a final note, I would like to thank all of our members over the past year, because without your financial support we simply could not grow and its important that everyone has a part to play in helping to increase awareness of our great game.
Thanks for your support.
Justin Finch
Chairman
English Subbuteo Association
