The Next Step
Towards the end of season 2017 I decided to try something different. It was the third last game against our eventual Qualifying Final opponent Geelong and they had done a number on the Tiger members for tickets and it was near impossible to get a ticket at the home ground Kardinia Park.
So the question was do I stay at home and watch the game on my 65 inch TV with surround sound or do I do something else? Before I knew it I was swamped with messages asking me what I was doing for the day and then I suggested that my place was available. Big Mistake! Before I knew it I was swamped and it became very obvious my place was too small for the game.
I then suggested that we go and watch the game at the Sporting Globe Hotel in Richmond and agreement was reached and then we decided to tell people on the RTSSG that we were gathering there and everyone was welcome to join us. To my surprise we had over 100 people want to join us which was fantastic as we were able to have our own private area to watch the game. It was a blast even though we lost but a Tigeriffic day was had by all but a seed to the future had been sewn.
As fate may have it we had another away game and this time it was Fremantle so we went with the same thing. This time, more people came and those that were there week had returned once again. This time it was Tiger heaven. We smash Freo by 100 points and the atmosphere was electric! We had hit on something.........
What struck me most was the different type of Tiger supporters who attended the first two functions. Young; Old; Male; Female; Singles; Married and everything in between! Then it dawned on me that we had actually build a bridge over the social divide. We had all moved from the hidden world of Social Media to actually interacting on a personal level and sharing our passion for the Tigers in a shared environment and it was fantastic as I knew I had made life long friends to share my passion with and I remember smiling thinking this was exactly what I wanted when I first started my social media journey! I had to explore this more......... But that's another story