Serious chant chat.

Okay. We need to talk about chants.

Finding a time is going to be tricky, but here's a proposal:

Sunday September 21st @ the Backbencher @ 12pm.

How does that work? I need commitments to come along...and I need them NOW :)

Agenda:

1. Chants we like.

2. Chants we hate.

3. Learn the chants.

4. Get more people chanting?

5. A few sneaky lagers/ciders/rbvs

I am in.

I'm tentative at this point.

I am in.

Wrong answer.

Sorry, unable to make it. 

Geographically Challenged!!!

6. Needs More Tifo, Pyrotechnics and Posnan!!!

In.

Inski.

In.

I am planning on being there. Please note, I did post up a couple of chants recently, still no feed back. Didn't think they were that bad.

I think thats exactly why a meeting like this is a good idea. People like you can come up with some new chants, but you're not always in the feverzone to try them out and introduce them to people. The forums never really get much traction with new chants as its hard for people to imagine how it'd actually go, plus you tend to just get people criticising or at best saying "thats good" then forgetting about it. 

This way you can introduce it at the meeting, we can all have a few beers and try it out. We should also get back into trying new chants at the bencher before games. 

It can also refresh chants in the minds of people, and perhaps build peoples confidence in chanting (or even starting chants) on game day. 

Just no chant sheets being handed out at this or on game days please....

I try occassionally to get Aisle 12 to do something but they are an unmotivated bunch.

I'll be there. I'm don't normally sit in fever zone, but keen to learn the chants and drink..

I'll try and make it even though I'm not really in the zone.  I sit (stand) one row closer to the halfway line mainly because my eyes are so crap that I have trouble enough seeing the action at the other end of the field.  But our group of 3 or 4 always join in and sometimes try and start chants.

In, I feel like being more active once again.

I see you have cottoned on to the major KPI.

Happy , happy minutes ....

Free chant book for gold members then? 

Chants in match day programme.

Our deep shame.

There is something deep up there but it ain't shame.

Are you having a dig? I don't get it?

Will try to attend as I was going to bring the topic up anyhow, from my observations there are a few problems.

Not being funny here just making a few points and I hold myself as much to blame as anyone for lacklustre chants.

1)  New chants are only known to the YF exec and assorted YF forum regulars/ hangers on and are only sung up around the top/middle of Aisle 21. I'm deaf and I don't read the chant forum and would not have a clue what is being sung half the time if a new chant is started.

2) The lack of new folk - I reckon the amount of people chanting has dwindled and the rest of us have gotten older and would appreciate some of the younger folk taking over. I'm actually over not being able to speak properly for 3 days following a match.

3) There is a small vocal element dotted around the zone that I don't think read the forums. It's how you engage these people.

Soultions would be to post a new "chant of the week" on the front of the website page and also the Nix forum. I'm guessing most people don't go to the chant section very often - it's not working anyhow, so lets amalgamate it into the Nix thread.

I'm also thinking you'll need a small group of around 3-4 people to move around the zone and start new chants. That means repeating a chant 3 or 4 times and then moving on to another part of the zone.

Practice before the match at the BB. Choose one or two.

Some of the chant suggestions are ludicrous in their complexity really. Why is "Oh Wellington" so popular? - it's easy.

Keep it simples....

1. I think most people agree we could be doing better at:

(a) getting chants started in the Fever Zone

(b) getting more people to join in once chants are started

(c) getting people in the Fever Zone and not in the Fever Zone to learn/know the words to chants, in particular new chants.

2. Annecdotally various people at various times have commented that they would be willing to join in chants, but they don't knwo the words and don't know how to find out what the words are.

3. The level of engagement/interaction in the chants threads in the forum is limited, and is really (usually) only limited to a select few of forum regulars, some of which are not regulars in the Fever Zone.

4. We have heard various opinions in the forums for and against things like chant sheets, chant leaders with mega phones, etc. I have not really ever had confidence that these points of view represent the views of ALL fans... for one, the people in the Fever Zone are a little different from your average punter - they want to stand up and sing and chant - and secondly the people who are active at all, and in particular regularly active  on the forums are an even smaller subset of the community.

So - I think it would be a good idea to canvas opinion more widely. If we want to get larger numbers engaging in chants (both in and outside the Fever Zone) we need to find out:

(a) What the people who do NOT chant perceive are the main barriers to them joining in

(b) What we can do to overcome those barriers

and

(c) What causes the people to sometimes join in chants and sometimes not bother decide to join in, or not.

I think Fourteentimes solutions above are good ideas.

In addition I suggest two further things:

i. Conduct a survey, via multiple channels (the website, pandemic email out, and hard copy fliers handed out at the gates of the games) asking (things like - let's discuss):

• Which Aisle do you usually sit in:
• Do you join in chants? (Always, sometimes, rarely, never)
• What barriers are there to you not joining in the chants? (self conscious, don't know the words, don't like chanting, others - do we need to add more?)
• Which of the following would help you learn the words to chants:

1. Printed chant sheets
2. Youtube videos of the chants, advertised on Facebook, Twitter, the YellowFever Website
3. Coming to the Backbencher before the game to practice the chant(s) of the week with the Yellow Fever
4. Chant leaders nearby demonstrating/leading the chants 
5. Other

ii. Add a tab on the website on the top menu next to "Forums" that reads "Chants". In that section have the listing of chants, plus YouTube videos of chants for people to watch and learn the words - these could be filmed at games, at the backbencher, or specially filmed as chant demos for the website (I favour the later).

Choir practice .... ?

bwtfc you're a bloody good bloke, but are you volunteering, or just criticising?

Love your ideas. They aren't new and have been on these forums many times, but nobody has put their hand up to actually do them.

Which things can you do?

Bwtcf, different idea. Get to the pub early, take ale, join in. Do you really think people here should have to do a survey? This is a football club

I dunno about this bwtfc guy, but if you mean me (bwtCF), then thanks.

Yes, I am happy to volunteer.

• I can draft a survey. (Happy to incorporate people's ideas and inputs to modify the straw man I posted above)
• I am happy to provide and/or coordinate the production of written and video content for the Chants Tab.
• I am happy to contribute to production of content for the Pandemic email and or fliers.
• I am happy to contribute content for chant sheets and or survey fliers for at the ground.
• I don't know how much value I can add for actually organising said hard copies to be printed, but could probably work it out unless someone else can help there.
• I am happy to contribute time to hand out and collect survey fliers at games.
• I am happy to walk around and ask people.interview them at the ground at games.

I think we should discuss these concepts at the get together. I've probably got half of it wrong or arse about face in many people's opinions. I adon't mind the model/idea being critiqued. I won't be offended...  I am just putting up ideas to get people thinking.

I am not saying that people need to do a survey.

I am saying that the views we are exposed to here are a selected version of the views of a very specific minority of the people who go to games (Active Yellow Fever members who (a) read and (b) post on the forums regularly) and that if we assume that everyone shares the view of that specific minority we might be very very wrong. 

I am suggesting a survey is worth doing because we might learn something about how the vast majority of fans who do not stand in the fever zone and do not (generally) join in chants see things. I suggest that it is quite possible (even likely) that what motivates them is quite different to what motivates people who naturally want to stand in the Fever zone and sing and chant.

__IF__ we can learn some things about what would make those people chant - and it might be really simple things like they don't know the words and don't know how to find out about them... THEN we might get some new ideas on how to grow the culture.

We also might not. That's possible. We might actually know everything there is to know already. But nothing ventured, nothing gained.

As a footnote, I would also be willing to bet money that there will be quite a divergence of opinion within the fever zone. I know that the views held by a significant number of people from down near the front of the fever zone that I often stand with are often diametrically opposed to the conventional wisdom re. chanting that you read in the forums.

I'm in. 

I sit in Aisle 23 with Rammtallica and we usually join in. My main gripe is that we only ever chant 2 bars and then stop.

bwtcf: happy to help you out where I can

Love it. 

bwtfcfccfffc would it be possible to do a straw man of your survey and circulate by email? I'm planning to promote this chant meet up via Pandemic and it would be neato if we could send the survey link at same time.

There are some video issues - mostly to do with sound and the angle from the pitch - but we can chat over a beer.

Thanks Liberty_nz.

Yes, will do Smithy. When do you need it by?

Chat over beer is a good idea.

Sometime this week or next would be sweet...

Okay, sent.

That's probably fair, but at the same time I think towards the back end of last season, some of us were struggling to 'get geed up' for the games given what we'd seen on the pitch for the past 2 seasons.  Probably not the way it should be, but I think it had an effect.  I also thought that for Football United the zone was spread out a lot more and it made it tougher to get anything going.

Hopefully with better play on the pitch we might get a bit more vocal.  "We only sing when we're winning"