Last night was the final meeting to vote for the ratification of a KCL Fives Club, and I'm delighted to say that it went through! This represents a massive boost to Fives here at KCL because:

1. It allows us to use KCL facilities for publicising the club, include posters on campus and adverts in ROAR: the student newspaper, www.kclsu.org: the union website, and KCLSU-TV: the TV system in the union bars. These can only be used by official sports clubs and the union remorselessly tears down unofficial posters - as I found out last November!
2. It gives us a stall at next September’s Freshers Fayres - one at Guys Hospital campus and one the day after at the Kings Strand campus. Again, these are only available to official clubs, and I expect them to generate a significant proportion of our members. 3. It gives the club a voice (if only a small one!) in the running of the union, and allows us to campaign for better funding and facilities for Fives at KCL. 4. The union has given us £150 for next year (not a lot, given that I asked for £400, but a start). I would like to see a sizable proportion of this money spent on the Freshers Fayre, because unless we can generate interest there we face an up-hill struggle for the rest of the year to find members.

The ratification process also puts pressure on the club to grasp the opportunity presented to it:

1. The union is very keen to de-ratify sports clubs/societies who are not seen to be contributing to union life. At last nights meeting there were no fewer than 9 clubs/societies up for de-ratification! The main problem these clubs faced was not having enough PAID UP members. In order to keep the club running it is therefore imperative that we have at least 25 KCL student members who have paid the £15 subscription for next year. Hopefully the Freshers Fayre will give us at least 10/15 of these members. I am waiting for confirmation that no-one will have to pay subscriptions until next September - there are only 4 more weeks of Fives this year, so the union can't expect people to pay subscriptions this late in the season!
2. The union is very keen to see Sports Clubs with a website. I have no experience of web design and don't know any students who would be willing to construct an entire site - but I am still extremely keen to exploit this opportunity. If you take a look at www.gkthockey.co.uk you will see the kind of site that the union encourages. These sports club web-sites are all linked together on www.kclsu.org and provide a vehicle for students to view the different sports clubs. Would a "London Universities Fives" website, with sub-pages for each individual college team, be a future possibility? In the meantime can anyone provide any help with constructing a KCL Fives club website?
3. The union is also very keen on club sponsorship from outside organisations. It would be great to have something in place before next Septembers Freshers Fayre, because this event will provide would-be sponsors with the chance to publicise to thousands of KCL students. I was thinking of approaching bars and pubs in the Hammersmith/Westway area and also sportswear manufacturers/retailers.

D.H.

(Editors Note – My understanding is that membership of the KCL Club is to include both Eton and Rugby Fives players and will play at Westway and St Paul’s School on two evenings a week).

Fives at King's College by David Hewson
Created 14th January by Mike Fenn
efa@etonfives.co.uk

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