{"id":467468,"date":"2018-05-21T08:11:43","date_gmt":"2018-05-21T07:11:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/?p=467468"},"modified":"2018-05-21T11:28:20","modified_gmt":"2018-05-21T10:28:20","slug":"lions-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/lions-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018FOCUS ON THE FANS: Lions Tour 2017\u2019 BOOK NOW AVAILABLE by author Ken Skehan, on www.focusonthefans.com. Raising money for Rugby Charities"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018FOCUS ON THE FANS: Lions Tour 2017\u2019 BOOK NOW AVAILABLE by author Ken Skehan, on www.focusonthefans.com<\/a><\/h3>\n

Raising money for Rugby Charities<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

FACEBOOK<\/a> | TWITTER<\/a><\/p>\n

About this time last year more than 20,000 rugby fans were excitedly preparing to go on what for many will have been their trip of a lifetime \u2013 following The British & Irish Lions to New Zealand for what turned out to be a historic tour.
\nFreelance journalist Ken Skehan went with them. Ken wanted to pay tribute to fans of all sport for the role they play in attracting finance from broadcasters and sponsors. After all, they only invest the sums they do to engage with us fans.
\nHe chose the Lions Tour as one of the most extreme examples of the lengths fans will go to in order to witness the highest quality sport live. Their investment of time and expense to travel half way round the world for extended periods is surely one of the great stories of fan support anywhere on the planet – as British & Irish Lions head coach Warren Gatland was quick to acknowledge to Ken the day after the final test in Auckland.<\/p>\n

The resulting high quality, 255 page hardback book, \u2018FOCUS ON THE FANS: Lions Tour 2017\u2019 is now available. Rugby World\u2019s Alan Pearey in reviewing the book said: \u2018\u2026with nearly 600 photos and 79,000 words he has done a fine job in reflecting the scale and fervour of the lions invasion. Even if you\u2019re not one of the 600 fans featured, it\u2019s a pleasing and unique record of the Lions tour experience\u2019.
\nKen chose to finance the whole project from his own pocket and to print and publish the book himself. That way he could control what happens to revenues, and rather than a mainstream publisher taking a significant cut, a proportion of sales would immediately be allocated to rugby related charities.<\/p>\n

\u00a38 per copy sold from Ken\u2019s website www.focusonthefans.com is being equally split among:<\/p>\n

Wooden Spoon
\nRFU Injured Players Foundation
\nMy Name\u20195 Doddie Foundation
\nBorne (in support of their North Pole Trek that Will Greenwood completed last month).<\/p>\n

Ken chose to support the latter because he had a brother who died soon after being prematurely born, which is the area Borne research into.
\nIn the first few months since publication over \u00a31000 has been distributed to these charities and to Exeter Chiefs Foundation, for whom he did a match day book signing.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nKen is recouping some \u2013 but not all – of his considerable costs from the remaining sales proceeds.<\/p>\n

Ken comments,
\n\u201cThe book celebrates the part fans play in sport, and would be a great memento for anybody who was on the tour. For those who would like to have gone but couldn\u2019t, the book will give them a flavour of the extraordinary experience that is a British & Irish Lions tour.\u201d<\/p>\n

The book\u2019s cover price is \u00a324 + packaging and postage costs of \u00a34.50<\/p>\n

FOCUS ON THE FANS: Lions Tour 2017<\/p>\n

Raising money for rugby charities<\/p>\n

Website: www.focusonthefans.com<\/p>\n

Twitter: @FOCUSONTHEFANS<\/p>\n

Facebook: @Focusonthefans<\/p>\n

Ken Skehan ARPS MCIoJ<\/p>\n

www.throughthelensphotography.net<\/p>\n

Member:<\/p>\n

The Royal Photographic Society (RPS)<\/p>\n

The Chartered Institute of Journalists (CIoJ)<\/p>\n

The International Travel Writers Alliance<\/p>\n

The Bureau of Freelance Photographers<\/p>\n

\"\" \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018FOCUS ON THE FANS: Lions Tour 2017\u2019 BOOK NOW AVAILABLE by author Ken Skehan, on www.focusonthefans.com Raising money for Rugby Charities FACEBOOK | TWITTER About this time last year more than 20,000 rugby fans were excitedly preparing to go on what for many will have been their trip of a lifetime \u2013 following The British […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":467480,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-467468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clubs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467468"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":467478,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467468\/revisions\/467478"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}