Hornets announce break even

Hornets Rugby League logo

The Hornets Board delivered and upbeat message to the clubs members at Thursday’s AGM. Below is the Chairman’s statement: 

Hello and welcome to our 2nd Annual General Meeting.

The accounts presented tonight relate to 2010, the first year of the elected board.

With the Sponsorbank year setting us back, the board and the office staff, led by CEO Mike Banks set about getting the club on an even keel.

Adopting strict fiscal policies and a more pro active selling structure the club has been able to turn around an £100K loss to the point were we are able to announce a break even position. This by any standards is a phenomenal achievement.

A lot of people have contributed a lot of hard work to help with this success story and the club owes a huge debt of gratitude to everyone who "did their bit".

The club also developed excellent working relationships with our sponsors who not only handed over cold hard cash but worked incredibly hard to help promote and develop the club.

Under development officer Terri Davey Hornets instigated its largest ever community programme. Hornets and Rugby League in Rochdale is seeing the benefits of that programme.

All the things we do though are for one reason, and that's for the 80 minutes on Sundays.

The appointment of Head Coach John Stankevitch has proven to be an inspired choice. The team developed reaching the play-offs, before being knocked out by the ill fated Blackpool club.

As we have seen the team has continued to develop, we currently sit just 80 minutes away from a Grand Final.

We are also more than hopeful that next season the club will be running an Under 23`s team

Hornets reputation within the game continues to grow, several new clubs look to Hornets as the way to run a Rugby League Club, and several clubs have already approached Hornets for advice on running a successful operation.
Just this week Hornets have been approached by Hunslet for a meeting to advise on running a fans owned and operated Rugby League Club.

Going forward we have still a huge amount of work to do, its vital we don't lose focus on the things that have given us our early successes.

We need members to become even more involved in the club.

Now we have Hornets running on a stable and sustainable footing we need to task ourselves with attracting spectators in greater numbers, this will possibly be our most difficult task but we have belief in what we are doing.

The work we have done with various charities and good causes has seen our profiles raised across the board. We need to continue to work hard to make Hornets the premier sports club in Rochdale.

In closing it is a great source of pride that Hornets members, the people who own this great club of ours can say with real conviction that this club is going onward.

The phrase Onward Hornets, Onwards has real resonance.

Onward Hornets, Onwards!

Mark Wynn
Chairman
Rochdale Hornets Rugby Football League Club Society Limited.