After our week’s break, we now enter the homebound run of the season. Consecutive matches at home to York and Bradford could decide our fate, but we will be doing everything in our power to muster the victories required.

Due to a family wedding abroad, I am missing both those fixtures but I’m hoping that my non-attendance follows the trend from other fixtures I have missed and we get a victory. There is a very real possibility that I am a jinx.

Off the field, things aren’t stopping. I have had to produce a financial plan for both retaining and losing our Championship status. It’s not about pessimism, it’s about prudent financial planning and with our position entrenched in the bottom two, it is something we have had to do.

What this has got across to me is that we must do everything in our power to create extra income through the RFL KPIs. There are two KPIs that are directly as a result of our fans’ actions and you can our help in some little way.

Attendances are one criteria and the fact that our average attendance has remained relatively high is going to help in the long run. The RFL want to provide more funding for those clubs that attract more fans to the game and you can understand the logic.

The second criterion is related to media. We have made a massive effort to get more of what the club is doing out there to our fans so they can engage with what we are doing.

Hopefully you will have seen lots going on at the club, our community work and our valued commercial partners.

The real difference you can make is by joining our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages, joining the OuRLeague website and selecting Barrow as your team and also providing details to us of your name and contact details, as clubs that have the ability to engage directly with their fans again get more funding.

We hope that there is enough information coming out about the day to day business of the club. I’ve said before that I’ll engage with anyone to discuss the future direction of the club and will try to answer any questions thrown my way, except perhaps personal financial information, like salaries.

With that in mind I am pleased to announce that our AGM will take place in the Raiders Bar at 7pm on Thursday, August 15. As well as presenting the 2018 accounts, I welcome any questions from our members.

We also have some events lined up. We are hosting a PRIDE event at the ground on Saturday, August 24 and some top, top acts have committed to perform on what promises to be a great day. Barrow Raiders are committed to an equality and diversity policy and welcome all groups to use our facilities.

In September, we have our rescheduled CancerCare Day and there is also the first Barrow Raiders Charity Golf Open taking place at Barrow Golf Club.