#89 Posted July 31, 2008 Share Posted July 31, 2008 I've noticed a few suggestions, complaints and a couple KUDOS for St John Fisher training camp. I'm willing to pass them on to the right people but please do not make this a joke thread. If you want the site to remain the #1 Bills fan based site lets keep some class. I will ask the mods to keep this clean and delete the jokes and off color posts. This will be sent on Monday to the Bills office because I'm off all weekend to the Hunter's Hope Ball and to training camp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bladiebla Posted August 1, 2008 Share Posted August 1, 2008 *bump for good thread taht hasnt gotten attention it deserved* The reports on http://www.billszone.com had a few comments; i think one was the busses not being airco-ed and the other one was about the trainingcamp book that became a newspaperish thingy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kasper13 Posted August 1, 2008 Share Posted August 1, 2008 The bad: Always been this way at SJF. The directions in the newspaper are not so good to put it mildly. Have to get directions from Google Maps to be assured of not getting lost. The "veer to the right" on 96 is very tricky. Met up with a carvan of fans at a convenience store last year looking for good directions. Bad idea. Eventually found the parking lot by pure luck. Good map this year from Google and no problem but I still heard people complaining. Part two of this is the lack of parking at.near SJF. Why do I have to drive 15 minutes past camp to park, just to have the bus take me right back where I was? That has always frustrated me about SJF. Can't blame the Bills but the camp program is now a newspaper but it's still $2. The guy from the Rochester D&C said they were trying to save money. Where are all the vendor tables & all the freebies? 6 tables. Two empty. Two M&T Bank tables. Half the area taken up by Verizon. Used to be tons of vendors and you could get all kinds of free schedules, stickers, magnets and so on. Kids loved it. Old School Yellow Buses. No AC, bumpy ride, very cramped. Again, not the Bills fault. I heard the company w/ the shuttle buses pulled out of their deal just a couple days before camp started. They had to scramble to get buses at all. All in all, not a huge fan of SJF. I liked Fredonia better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LabattBlue Posted August 1, 2008 Share Posted August 1, 2008 While this is a very nice gesture on your part #89, wouldn't it be easier for the Bills to have an employee walk around asking people a few survey questions regarding camp? This is of course assuming that they care about the fan experience at SJF. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Philster Posted August 1, 2008 Share Posted August 1, 2008 They dropped the ball when they didn't invite the Jills as well. 48 beautiful ambassadors for the team and you don't bring them in? dumb omission Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lurker Posted August 1, 2008 Share Posted August 1, 2008 They dropped the ball when they didn't invite the Jills as well. 48 beautiful ambassadors for the team and you don't bring them in? dumb omission IIRC, the Jills are not paid employees of the Bills outside of the home game appearences. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OCinBuffalo Posted August 1, 2008 Share Posted August 1, 2008 Reading through the thread here...I dunno. Maybe I was just so excited to actually be there that the little things didn't bother me. I agree with the busing thing to a degree = it's annoying driving around trying to find the lots, especially when they end up being full and you have to find the next one. I got past it the first day, but I had to ride it the next. I can see the reasons for it. I'm guessing that the Bills probably got some heat from the locals who don't want "strangers" parking on their streets. Especially for the night practices. Also, the way things are laid out there I can see where it might create a traffic nightmare, especially once practice was over. This would be no biggie if it was one or two days, but creating traffic problems for a month would be mighty annoying to me if I lived there. Then again, if I lived there and all I had to do was walk to practice, I'd probably tell myself to STFU and enjoy it, and take the extra traffic in stride the one month out of twelve that it's a problem , plan accordingly and remember that life is too short to get worked up over somebody parking their Honda FIT on my street. Somehow I don't think that's the likely attitude in Pittsford, though. Once the bus got going the windows were down so I didn't really think it was oppressively hot or anything. I suppose air conditioning would be better, but I don't think it's necessary for a 10 minute trip. The bus was a bus = what I expected and I didn't think it was bad at all. The one suggestion I would have is: we went to three bus lots trying to park and only found a spot at the last one. We had three cars of people and that was a giant pain in the ass driving around with all the nonsense lights, etc. It would make sense if the Bills did a promotion of some kind that told you which lots were full and where to go next. If you already have this, nobody knows about it. You could do it on the radio kinda like this: "Hey this is DJ Bob and the Mendon Lots are full, you've gotta go to Sutherland. You can get directions on your mobile phone by using google mobile maps and (insert directions here = I think by next year that feature should be ready if it isn't already). This camp lot report is brought to you by D-bag Chevy, come take a stroll through their lots...." Whatever, I'm not a marketing person, but you get the idea. Or you could do it as part of the text alerts that the Bills send out on phones anyway. It wouldn't be hard, and I know it's not, to configure the system to only send texts to people who sign up as "training camp" users, and toggle that status on and off so they only get the messages the days they go to camp. Give them a login as part of their Bills Backers account, or whatever, there's a lot of ways to do that. It would be even easier and better in terms of custom functionality, to simply set up a part of the website for mobile users and have a system that could do real time data, was designed for handhelds and could allow Bills employees, or players for that matter, to get people any info they wanted easily and instantly. (so here's where my pitch comes in pm me if you want to know how ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Philster Posted August 1, 2008 Share Posted August 1, 2008 IIRC, the Jills are not paid employees of the Bills outside of the home game appearences. They don't even get paid for games..nor are they sponsored by the Bills at all. But the Jills being at training camp is usually a given. I was stunned when Steph told me that they weren't even invited to be there. I know some of the girls were looking forward to camp...they were waiting for the sign-up sheet that never came Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike32282 Posted August 1, 2008 Share Posted August 1, 2008 I gotta tell you, I've been more disappointed each year with the training camp. When Wegmans ran it, it was one of the best ones in the league. A merchandise tent full of merchandise, plus a vendor tent that had at least 4 or 5 different food samples, so you could get something to eat. I miss the Zweigles guy, but they replaced the Zweigles hot dogs with Sahlens... I also miss being able to get a drink each day in the tent, plus free popsicles, bison dip with pretzels, milk, all kinds of different snacks. They also got rid of the Xerox booth where they handed out football cards for a few years and then started making sweet posters that were perfect to get signed. The Buffalo Jills are definitely missed as we don't have a nice spot to see them and get a picture taken with a Jill. Like what was said earlier in this thread, the team used to have tons of different sponsors that would give magnets, notebooks, stickers, free Bills Digest magazines, mini footballs and many other things. I don't know why the vendor tent is empty but it's pretty sad. The biggest thing of all is the parking situation. I don't know why Nazareth pulled away, but it was the perfect situation. It's down the street from St John Fisher and also had a lot of room for everyone to park. If we could somehow get this back, it would settle the parking problem at East Rochester where lots of people end up parking on the streets. The other main problem is the school buses. They are so small and uncomfortable, especially when traveling from one of the high schools that isn't just down the street. The fact that they have no air conditioning just makes it worse, but that's not my main problem with them. I'm 6'4 and cramming myself into a school bus really sucks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just Jack Posted August 2, 2008 Share Posted August 2, 2008 About directions, my GPS (Garmin) took me right to the Pittsford/Sutherland school parking lot. Keep that in mind if you have one to use it, I found it listed under Community/Schools. Vendors, twice I've been there, seen the Perrys Ice Cream booth completely empty. Nice way to intoduce your new Bills themed ice cream Perry. On Tuesday the Pepsi booth wasn't manned when I arrived, it was when I left. And today, no one there at all. If the Bills are going to give these vendors space, they ought to require people to be there, or they lose their spot to someone else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OCinBuffalo Posted August 2, 2008 Share Posted August 2, 2008 About directions, my GPS (Garmin) took me right to the Pittsford/Sutherland school parking lot. Keep that in mind if you have one to use it, I found it listed under Community/Schools. Vendors, twice I've been there, seen the Perrys Ice Cream booth completely empty. Nice way to intoduce your new Bills themed ice cream Perry. On Tuesday the Pepsi booth wasn't manned when I arrived, it was when I left. And today, no one there at all. If the Bills are going to give these vendors space, they ought to require people to be there, or they lose their spot to someone else. Yeah, I have one too, but it didn't tell me which lots were closed. And I forgot to set all three addresses into it. So it didn't help me once we had to go to the next lot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sds7973 Posted August 2, 2008 Share Posted August 2, 2008 Two Points.. The yellow school buses are because the city of rochester is funded by the federal goverment and can no longer "bid" to provide busing for private events. This has been a total pain in the arse in rochester. Where for every major event in rochester (JP Chase Race, Lilac Festival, etc.) we have had to ride the majic school buses. It is really nothing the Bills can do about it. As for few vendors giving out freebies, has anyone heard of the thing called a recession? During one of these recessions companies try to do things to save money like not give away free stuff! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
#89 Posted August 4, 2008 Author Share Posted August 4, 2008 Thanks all suggestions have been sent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
#89 Posted August 4, 2008 Author Share Posted August 4, 2008 here is the answer to the pm about the family tent from my guy in marketing They originally moved the family tent to be closer to the player locker room and exit area from field. The families loved this but ultimately preferred to be closer to the corporate tent - so it was moved back next to the corporate tent. The note must have been based on before the move back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts