The New Season ....

[Mick]

Normally we are criticising the efforts of players and coach during the early part of the season, whilst commending the club's marketing for their best endeavours.

Well as the dust settles over the early season "result wicket", there are plenty of accolades for the players, not least:

Foster, for a real captain's innings and a couple of smart catches,
Porter, for his splendidly obdurate batting and promising bowling. He faced more balls in the match than both our openers added together in both innings,
Napier, for me the biggest "sea change" in the match was when he arrived at the crease and attacked the bowling,
Ryder and Smith  taking over half the wickets between them.  Ryder adding another 6 to the 13 wickets he took off Kent last year. Smith continuing his transition from a batter who could bowl a bit into a bowler who can't bat.
Mickleburgh - one of only two batsmen to produce two half decent innings in the match; the other, inevitably, Stevens.

So well done to the team.

Off the pitch, things have fared less well. The marketing people are continually claiming to be trying to improve the "matchday experience" for members.
What have we been treated to this year?
A poorly thought-out and unnecessary scanning system, the use of which appeared to be erratic at best and changing on a daily basis.
A "super-duper" electronic scoreboard that failed embarrassingly on day one and when it was working on day two provided less information than we used to get from the old scoreboard. Presumably someone at the club specified our requirements to the supplier? Well, it was the wrong person. Worst of all the electronic scoreboard updates much more slowly than the standby "manual" one  ... technology eh ?
Car parking charges (which I personally don't object to).
Reciprocal admission arrangements have been swapped from counties many people are likely to go to, to ones that most people are very unlikely to visit.
The same monopoly of not universally popular Kent beer in the Pavilion (even Shepherd Neame tied houses are allowed guest beers!).
The mantra of "we've listened, we've acted" wears a little thin when it applies to correcting the most blindingly obvious of mistakes.


Anyway, on balance, I'll happily take a whole season of wins against a background of perverse scanning systems and a not fit for purpose scoreboard.

[nat]

Normally we are criticising the efforts of players and coach during the early part of the season, whilst commending the club's marketing for their best endeavours.

Well as the dust settles over the early season "result wicket", there are plenty of accolades for the players, not least:

Foster, for a real captain's innings and a couple of smart catches,
Porter, for his splendidly obdurate batting and promising bowling. He faced more balls in the match than both our openers added together in both innings,
Napier, for me the biggest "sea change" in the match was when he arrived at the crease and attacked the bowling,
Ryder and Smith  taking over half the wickets between them.  Ryder adding another 6 to the 13 wickets he took off Kent last year. Smith continuing his transition from a batter who could bowl a bit into a bowler who can't bat.
Mickleburgh - one of only two batsmen to produce two half decent innings in the match; the other, inevitably, Stevens.

So well done to the team.

Off the pitch, things have fared less well. The marketing people are continually claiming to be trying to improve the "matchday experience" for members.
What have we been treated to this year?
A poorly thought-out and unnecessary scanning system, the use of which appeared to be erratic at best and changing on a daily basis.
A "super-duper" electronic scoreboard that failed embarrassingly on day one and when it was working on day two provided less information than we used to get from the old scoreboard. Presumably someone at the club specified our requirements to the supplier? Well, it was the wrong person. Worst of all the electronic scoreboard updates much more slowly than the standby "manual" one  ... technology eh ?
Car parking charges (which I personally don't object to).
Reciprocal admission arrangements have been swapped from counties many people are likely to go to, to ones that most people are very unlikely to visit.
The same monopoly of not universally popular Kent beer in the Pavilion (even Shepherd Neame tied houses are allowed guest beers!).
The mantra of "we've listened, we've acted" wears a little thin when it applies to correcting the most blindingly obvious of mistakes.


Anyway, on balance, I'll happily take a whole season of wins against a background of perverse scanning systems and a not fit for purpose scoreboard.

Spot on that man.

[Starfish]

To feedback on above,

See separate thread re scanning and the plan going forward, to re stress we will continue to review and listen.

The scoreboard was unfortunate, we will add the how out details for the next game all being well. It is major piece of kit which had some teething problems I admit. The screen will be a huge improvement on the old one especially for T20 games. Please advise other content / data ideally required.

The county reciprocal arrangements are out of our control. We spend time every winter spewing to other counties to get best offers we can. Other counties Memberhsip is dearer than ours so those counties less willing.

Parking, little we can do about, the £1 charge is to recover just some of the council charges.

As for Shepherd Neame, we tender the pouring rights every two years or so and time after time the investment and range of supply from them outweighs, by some distance, other suppliers. They are long term supporters of the club and hugely valued. We are lookng at options for occasional micro breweries supply via Shepherd Neame.

Me and the Commercial team and the club as a whole take feedback very seriously and want to improve the experience, hence focus groups, us responding to these comments (often out of hours so to speak), social media, questions email, suggestion box etc.

Thanks, as always I can be contacted on match days and non match days to listen to further ways we can improve. Thanks, Danny

[Valentines Park]

We spend time every winter spewing to other counties

I guess there must be plenty of Shepherd Neame left over if you spend every winter spewing.   

[squarelegumpire]

"The Commercial tean and I", please Danny!

[Starfish]

Was typing whilst working, walking the dog, mowing the lawn!

[squarelegumpire]

My comment would have been even better if I'd written "team"!

[Mick]

Was typing whilst working, walking the dog, mowing the lawn!

I hope he/she is microchipped ....  Now that's a proper use for scanners!

[Perov]

Don't forget no voucher book this year either.

[Mick]

Don't forget no voucher book this year either.

I took that to be an improvement !

[Starfish]

There will be exclusive members offers online in coming week or so, also welcome suggestions of companies we should approach for disocunts and offers, thanks

[vim]

I used the voucher booklet to service my car at a discount. Unfortunately a lot of the members do not drive, or own a property to take up other offers and live in Chelmsford to take up the non match day meal offers.

[Starfish]

As stated above we will target any company with a serious suggestion to join the scheme. We want to give Members the opportunity to save money when being a Member. Thanks

[IlfordEagle]

My only problem with the Voucher book was that most offers were for in & around Chelmsford which is fair enough I suppose but I live in Ilford 25 miles away which means I cannot really take advantage of them.

[Mick]

The scoreboard was unfortunate, we will add the how out details for the next game all being well. It is major piece of kit which had some teething problems I admit. The screen will be a huge improvement on the old one especially for T20 games. Please advise other content / data ideally required.

Without knowing the capabilities and limitations of the new technology and its software, it's difficult to answer that.

The first requirement, whatever data is displayed, is for it to be accurate and quickly updated (I guess this is doubly important in the faster moving T20 matches).

You then need to strike a balance between as much information as possible and clutter. It needs to remain clear to see the information displayed.

Names rather than numbers would be good, at least of the current batsmen and bowler.

Obviously the "how out" requires elaboration (how did that slip through the net in the first place?). Number of balls left in the over was an improvement that arrived part way through day two.

Displaying the fielder, where appropriate, after each ball is normal practice.

Go to the Oval next week, go to Lords sometime. See what their scoreboards do and then work out which features could be mapped onto our specific system. Don't be too proud to copy something decent. In an ideal world these actions would have been taken before going live with something which on day one frankly looked cheap and amateurish.