ThrudBall 2025
Annual Report

WIP

Welcome to Thrudball’s annual report for 2024. This covers income and work done by the organising team from mid-August 2023 to mid-August 2024.

Following a record-breaking 2023 from which donations totalling £14,000 were made, the team agreed at an early stage not to spend the year overworking themselves in what would probably be a futile attempt to break that record. Instead, the focus was on putting in place organisational and financial structures to enable Thrudball to sustainably raise funds without burning out volunteers.

As always, the team would like to express its utmost gratitude to Thrud’s creator Carl Critchlow for his ongoing support.

We’re very grateful to the entire community for their generosity this year, without which any of this would have been possible. Sources of income for this year included:

• Some income from late payments for the 2023 Orction - c.£400

• Thrudball 2024 event tickets

• Thrudball 2024 Orction (£10,601, of which £338 will be included in 2025 totals). A table with winning bids for all items can be found on the dedicated webpage here.

• Thrudball raffle - c. £960

• Abi_Moon’s PWYW bits suitcase (not possible to have definitive figure as most PayPal payments across the weekend did not include a note saying what they were for, but at least £200)

• Eldritchfox’s SquadChaos dice (£340 donation)

• Charity t-shirts - these raised a profit for the charity of c. £325

• Road to Thrud FUMBBL tournament - £161.89 raised

Although we ask everyone to donate using Friends and Family on Paypal, which means that we avoid fees, this is not possible for everyone. This year the total fees paid on donations came to £129.74.

The organising team made the decision that two items in the Orction, which had originally been produced to support two charities as part of different Blood Bowl tournaments, would continue to support those charities. Proceeds from those two auction items have therefore been donated to Movember UK and Prostate Cancer UK respectively. 

Following Thrudball 2024 and the payment of all outstanding invoices and expenses we have now made the following donations, for a total of £17,765:

• Mind, the Mental Health Charity - £8,832.50 (link to receipt)

• Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation - £8,832.50 (link to receipt)

• Movember - £55 (link to receipt)

• Prostate Cancer UK - £45 (link to receipt)

The following donations were made earlier in the year after the online auction:

Mind, the Mental Health Charity - £675

Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation - £675

The total amount donated across the year is therefore £19,115. Payment receipts can be found linked above, and the annual balance sheets can be viewed here.

The team was very aware of delays with the catering on Saturday lunchtime, which caused a subsequent delay to the running of the timetable as well as a very long wait for food. This was despite offers to the venue of assistance from the admin team. During the rest of the afternoon, the team spoke with the venue and it seemed to us that lunch on the Sunday was smoother and better.

We also received (both in person and through the feedback forms) comments on the unacceptable standard of the vegetarian food served by the venue. It simply wasn’t good enough.

We’ll be working with the venue and any other caterers used for 2025 to try and cut these problems off at the pass. Coaches are with us for a substantial amount of time across the weekend and have limited access to other food, and so catering is something we want to get right, in quality as well as quantity. We’ve read all of the feedback given to us on the food side of things, and will be referring back to it in the coming months as we speak to the venue and consider catering options for 2025.

There are a number of things people said or commented on which we’d like to provide specific responses to at this stage:

• A number of people suggested that we open up the smaller rooms as additional table space, so that we can increase the number of available tickets. This is something we’ve considered over the years, but the team consider that having a quieter room available for those who need it is a significant advantage: the main room can and does become very loud even as it stands. Additionally, extra people would mean extra pressure on showers and toilets, and we have challenges there already which need to be fixed.

• Balancing the length of the auction is a really tricky task, and we’re always thinking about how to get it right. In no particular order, the things we consider are: how we can raise the most money for charities, how we can ensure interest by providing a wide range of items, how we can provide a range of probable selling points so that everyone feels they might be able to win something, the flow of the event and finally, and this is a biggy: the overall length of the event after a very long day. We’re grateful for the recommendations and feedback of your experiences too as bidders - we’ll be bearing it in mind for next year.

• The Internet and access to signal is an ongoing thing which we discuss every year. We are limited by the venue’s connection, as well as the signal in the area. We’re going to be working on this again this year to try and identify possible improvements.

• A few people noted that it would have been good to use both screens, especially during the Orction. We would have very much liked to do this, but sadly the venue was experiencing technical issues with the screen behind the stage. With any luck we’ll have both up and running next year. 

Whilst we’ll be considering all of the feedback as we put plans in place for next year, we are happy to say that we’ll definitely implement the following improvements (which didn’t require much if any discussion to agree on):

• We will provide a dedicated laptop or tablet which may be used to enter results on/check round listings. We will ask for this to be a last resort though, and that the first attempt be made on the coach’s own device 

• We’re going to improve spot prizes by doing two things:

  • Listing them per-round on the schedule online in advance

  • Ensuring that they’re available to all races

• We’re going to work with the venue to improve the cleanliness of all toilets and bathrooms. We don’t yet know what that will consist of, but we will do what we can to make this work better and to try to help them remain pleasant throughout the weekend.

• We’re going to review the timetable to ensure that coaches have enough time to find their matchup, identify their table, and set up. 

• We are going to make it clearer that the smaller rooms are available for other games during the Orction - communications on this will be improved.

• We’re going to generally review what information we’re communicating and how we’re doing it. This especially applies to information for those who use the campsite, such as the showers and our control over noise levels.

• We’re going to think about how online bids are presented during the Orction. We’re very grateful to our online bidders and the interest we receive from around the world, but we are also keen to ensure that the experience of people in the room is also protected. 

If something isn’t on this list, it doesn’t mean that nothing is going to happen as a result of it, just that the team wanted to have a fuller discussion at a later meeting.

Thanks to everyone who’s been a part of this year’s work. We’re really proud of what we’ve achieved, and are very excited to keep Thrudball going long past next year’s 20th Anniversary! We’ll share more information on plans when we have it!