Thursday 26 July 2012

SkullDozer's musings on life, love & merchandise

Dear friends,

I’ve been Head of Merch with Manchester Roller Derby for two years now and have seen it grow from a few t-shirts ordered on the spur of the moment to a fully functioning, profitable business. Bearing this in mind, now seemed like a good time to write a little blog about merchandise, its importance and how it can help your league. It’s good to share!

While working through the initial ideas that every league has (Which logo do we use? What colours should we have? How should we organise ourselves?) one of our members decided to take the plunge and order a few t-shirts, just to see how they would look. Needless to say they were an instant hit, if only with ourselves – OMG! We have our new league ON A T-SHIRT!! Newer leagues thought of all that PR stuff before they’d learnt to skate together but we took things slowly, step by step, and figured it out as we went.

The t-shirts proved popular and soon made the money back, although didn’t make any profit initially as they were sold at cost price. The next order we put in had our names on the back and these arrived on the day of our first bout. You can imagine our excitement! We had ordered a few extra to put out on a stall at our first game and made a little profit with that. We put this profit back into the club and placed a larger order next time. Through this process we slowly, slowly built our monetary reserves with a small profit each time, and gradually began to expand our range of merchandise.

First off, we invested in badges, and then stickers. Now we stock fridge magnets, keyrings, tote bags and we are expecting our very first delivery of embroidered patches any time soon! We found that little cheap things sell the best, the “pocket-money” priced things. Everybody wants a souvenir from the game, especially if it was a particularly exciting game or your team did a win - and not everybody can afford £10 for a t-shirt.

My advice to new leagues is to DO merch. Do a decent range and do it early. Build up your pennies by small profit margins at first, increasing this as you get more established. Use your money wisely – see what other teams are selling and constantly research suppliers. New supply companies are popping up all the time and you can often benefit from the new deals they use to lure people in. Loyalty is a great thing and it’s easy to find a company then stick with them, but if you find somewhere that prints the same quality shirts for cheaper, or they can offer you other advantages, move to them.

It’s very easy to get caught in the trap of “Well I want it, so why wouldn’t anybody else?” but think carefully before you order 1000 custom-made onesies, or glittery deely-boppers – ask the rest of your league to see what everyone else thinks! Pay attention to what the public ask for at your games and if you’re not sure – don’t order.

Legally you must declare your takings for taxation purposes, but only if you earn over a certain amount. Work closely with your treasurer, write down absolutely EVERYTHING that’s sold and keep records. Excel is amazing, I keep everything on a spreadsheet and report back to the treasurer once a month. Keep ALL your receipts and don’t spend your own money if at all possible, your treasurer should have a process in place for requesting funds, so follow them and work things out together.

It’s also useful to have a sub-committee to help with the organisation and research. We recently set one up, which means I only deal with three people ordering personalised t-shirts, as opposed to 70! Set up something similar and delegate to them. It’s much easier to ask one person to research keyrings, someone else to research promotional items such as pens and another to look at posters, rather than bog one person down with all the research and consequently end up with nothing. Derby is a life-eating hobby as it is - its easy to ignore the seemingly less important aspects!


Another thing: have an online shop! So many leagues only sell their merch at games and they really are missing out. If time is an issue, give another member a selection of stock and ask them to post out items bought online. It’s important to think carefully about postage costs – don’t underestimate them as your league will lose money, but don’t overestimate them either; no-one wants to pay £6 postage on a £10 t-shirt! Consider selling a goody bag for the small items - its pretty pointless listing a badge for 50p, then charging £1 postage on it. Always put a postage policy on there and state your responsibility for items lost in the post.


Finally, work with a web developer to build a decent platform for your online shop and have a photographer take photos of your merch items at their best! Consider using real people to model the clothing - you’ll probably find you have quite a few camera hogs in your league and this will show off the fit so much better than a plastic dummy or laying it flat on the floor.

If you are lucky enough to have a sponsor, work closely with them also, find out what works for you both and use it. We are sponsored by Extreme Largeness who are currently listing our products on their website, you can see our stuff here.

We are currently working on our website and building our own online shop, come see the results so far and see what you think! http://www.manchesterrollerderby.co.uk/

love,
SkullDozer

Photographs taken by Shirlaine Forrest, featuring SkullDozer and Penny Pinch'er of MRD

Wednesday 18 July 2012

AmsterJAM: MRD fundraiser band night


So, when we said we'd play the Amsterdam Derby Dames away, logistics were not at the forefront of our collective mind. As has often been the way at MRD, we like to jump in feet first and work it out as we go.

Hence, we're holding a band night at Manchester's beloved Roadhouse on Newton Street - a cosy/sweaty venue where you'll have seen many a band over the years - to raise pennies that'll help us towards the cause.

We've got three fantastic local bands playing and there'll be skaters galore milling about, trying to look all comfortable and aloof off eight wheels.




BANDS

Incassum "blend a vicious combination of melodic vocals, snarling growls and screams with a hint of face tearing riffs".
valkyrianmusic.com

Pocketknife "mix chunky distortion with scratchy chords, with vocals influenced by Pj Harvey and Brodie Dalle. Their stop-start clipped style cuts through the full sound to create a semblance of a band who aren’t bothered by making listening to them difficult. But it’s certainly worth it".
alaintolhurst.wordpress.com

Twin Planets "amalgamate the best of their New Wave & Post-Punk idols with a contemporary, alternative dynamism (and) are - without doubt - going to continue to rise."
Alex Mortimer-Jones, Top Hat Magazine

E-tickets are available from our website, here, and they'll also be available on the door for the princely sum of £5.

AmsterJAM takes place on Thursday 2nd August 2012 at The Roadhouse, Manchester - doors open 7pm. Your local roller derby club needs your support!

Monday 9 July 2012

What's going on at MRD right now?

Good question! I believe LOTS is the answer.

This blog post will provide a brief summary of events coming up that you may (read: will / should) have more than a passing interest in. We know that there's nothing worse than finding out something very exciting happened yesterday or last week and you weren't involved - so we're doing you a favour!

Saturday, 21 July 2012, 6pm - 8pm
MRD ROLLER DISCO at Sporting Edge
Skates! Music! Cake! What more could you want? Fancy dress encouraged (we're going with a spaceman theme... let your imagination run wild). Children are welcome if accompanied by an adult and skate hire is also available. Entry is £2, you can RSVP to our Facebook event here.

Thursday, 2 August 2012, 7pm
AmsterJAM - An MRD fundraiser at The Roadhouse
We are proudly hosting a band night to help raise money to get us to Amsterdam so that we can bout the Amsterdam Derby Dames this October. Bands TBC very soon (but should include Incassum and Pocketknife, amongst others). £5 entry, Facebook event here. E-tickets will be available via our website very soon.

What else?
In addition to these largely social affairs, we will also be involved in some skating and hitting. This will take place on Saturday, 28 July 2012 in the form of the GREAT YORKSHIRE SHOWDOWN (GYS). It really is great, you know. This will be MRD's third year in the tournament - the first year being MRD's first ever bout and the first ever GYS. This time we have a full squad of skaters new and old and cannot wait.

Also on the weekend of 28 July (as if it wasn't busy enough!) our amazing men's team, New Wheeled Order, will be heading over to Birmingham for the first ever Men's European Roller Derby Championship. It's kind of a big deal. Like them and we will like you.

Then MRD has a bit of a break (I think...) until mid-September when we host another roller derby double-header in our beloved hometown. Think we shall save that for a blog post of its own though, eh? Can't harm to RSVP though, gwan - Facebook event here.

Is that the crazed scribbling of important dates in diaries we can hear?


Finally, although not exactly in-keeping with this summary of forthcoming events - MRD would like to say a massive WELL DONE to our B-team, the Phoenix Furies, for fighting so furiously in their bout against Liverpool Roller Birds on Saturday. You did yourselves and MRD proud!


Monday 2 July 2012

Skatanico on the Phoenix Furies...

As Manchester Roller Derby is growing at a fantastic rate, we now have three established teams; New Wheeled Order (our all male team), Checkerbroads (all-female A team), and I am very proud to be a skater with the Phoenix Furies (all-female B team). The Furies work closely with their dedicated captain Ma Rollin’ Munster and vice captain / aspiring referee Undutchable to develop strategies and ensure game play is included in practice sessions in the run up to bouts.

Phoenix Furies’ first bout against Preston Roller Girls (PRG) on Saturday 21st April was an absolute delight! As far as I’m concerned, no one would have guessed that this was some skaters’ first bout as the scores were very close all the way through. A couple of skaters had played in a rookie bout hosted by MRD called Bonfire Fight on 5th November 2011.


In the end Preston took the well deserved win at 148-115. Every single skater for the Furies was on top form and both teams were forced to work equally hard throughout the bout. We had a few 15 point jams from Faunication, and Spozilla received a well-earned ‘Best Jammer’ award! Both teams enjoyed the game and the day as a whole, gaining friends as well as experience. It was amazing to have our very own Checkerbroads watching and cheering us on, as well as some skaters from our neighbouring league Rainy City Roller Girls.


Since our first bout the league has had another intake of skaters, and our training manager Tori Bee has nurtured many of these new skaters through their minimum skills. They have now flown the nest to get their feathers ruffled in scrimmage and to become beautiful bout-ready Phoenixes! Everyone at MRD has been massively impressed by how quickly the new skaters have adapted to the addition of game play and strategies, with all of them excelling in MRD’s mixed fortnightly scrimmage (and often stepping up to the jam line!).


It’s clear to see that our newest Furies have fallen victim to the inevitable bite of the derby bug, and their determination and perseverance is paying off. Now that they have had a taste of scrimmage they want to sink their teeth into a full-on bout and we will be so proud to be stood with them on the track when they do so during our next game against Liverpool Roller Birds B-team on Saturday 7th July at Greenbank Sports Academy!


For more information and for ticket links, visit the LRB event page here.


- Skatanico