I think your safe giving the trust your email address, i have not been spammed, unless those emails about enlargement or watches are from the trust? :-)
I think it was valid to take up this topic in this formative period. It helps in establishing credibilty with the club's board, giving them useful "grass roots" feedback on issues on which the FA etc is sure to seek thier views. It doesn't detract from taking on other issues more pertinent to the fans relationship with the Club.
So why don't you do it for us then? We need people to help in all areas to spread the load. This board is teeming with professionals (whos input I completely respect) and give time voicing their opinions about all kinds of things, what an organisation we could be if we could tap into that successfully. We are unpaid and not specialists in these areas, having said that we do take advice and do a pretty decent job of it I think considering all that.
Incidentally this system records the number of incomplete surveys and it is very low 4 out of 175 I think so far, and all of those were due to a formatting issue re 2 pages which I fixed very early, and all answered the safe standing question. I appreciate there will be some like yourself who don't even attempt for the reason you mention, just as there will also be some who refuse our face 2 face approaches. However if the former were significant I would expect there to be incomplete surveys on the email address field alone and there aren't any.
Anecdotally I wonder how many football fans are going to be put off having their two penneth, they do not have to give their name and address either, not many I suspect. We do however consider this very point, and will continue to in later surveys.
I did go to complete it and got to the bottom and then pressed back as I didn't want to give my email address so that can't account for everything.
I don't want to take a bigger part as I am not convinced we should have a ST. Does this mean I shouldn't give an opinion? And this is a genuine question. If people don't back the idea in the first place they will give skewed results. Should you actually just ask Trust members what they want the trust to do?
I'm not saying never and if there is a crisis I will be totally involved in any fight back. I'm just not convinced its this answer or this time. And therefore I probably shouldn't be given a vote on how you spend the money of those who do believe in it.
In seriousness good point too, its not like we are just some random marketing co, another reason a lot would trust us and rightly so I think
And let me clarifiy, its not a worry of you spamming,. its more a paranoia of there being an 'in' list and and 'out' list. Propbably not rational but fears rarely are.
DRF you are not alone! Around 10-15% of the survey replies to date choose to give no email and/or to indicate that they do not want further information from the trust. We fully recognise that there are those who wish to "wait and see" and those who do not want to participate.
Given that we are now at 200 surveys that is around 20 or 30 people. We also have around 100 members responding so far and 80 non members who are new to this or showed some interest before.
The trust needs to know what the members think and just as importantly what others think so that it can be relevant to you and precise when dealing with the club.... whether it is about season ticket pricing, the risk of year on year losses or whatever is the priority.
We are aiming for 4-500 surveys which might give us 200 new people's emails who have an interest as well as telling us what people think. And we will be able to differentiate these opinions by where people sit and how long they have been coming to the Valley.
After the work of getting the trust off the ground we know that, as we engage with the club and publicise activities, that the Trust will be open to the accusation that it is a small unaccountable group. But it is growing rapidly and it is listening.
Without giving details away that might give bias to the results, the newer people (non members) who are interested are casting much stronger votes when it comes to trust direction and safe standing - we need a lot more votes to ensure the survey is true and we need more face to face interviews at games to ensure that we cannot be accused of only representing this board and/or the current membership of the trust.
This thread has 800+ views but we have 130 surveys filled in online so far! Please complete the survey and put in comments especially if you have time or ideas to help the trust develop.
Remember people will be looking back here just to read new comments.
Anyway, did the survey and have since signed up. I haven't really got much to add that hasn't already been said, but would be interested in attending if there is another meeting.
our AGM is coming up soon, which will probably be the next public meeting, we have smaller sub cte meetings on skype con calls sometimes.
Not to correct @seriously_red just to say we are determined that sort of criticism will not be justifiable, we want to find out what fans think in order to represent them, plus we are committed to be independent, and open and democratic - we have had and continue to have widely publicised meetings, minutes available, and adhere to a strict code of conduct laid down by Supporters Direct.
I believe any survey that is started and incomplete (back button or not), will register on the stats, but I will check that out. We will certainly not be in or out listing anyone (not sure what that means nor what we could possibly gain from it).
This organisation is committed to represent Charlton fans as a whole not any particular grouping, or interest, as challenging as that may prove.
Just completed. One small thing for the security conscious - asking for first three digits of postcode and email address may put some off. If your email addy contains your name your postal address can easily be deduced from your three digit postcode if your phone no is not ex-directory. Just saying. Also, being slightly pedantic, the available answers for the question about trust membership are very black and white. Its either no I'm not interested or no tell me more. Im just a "no". I'm warmer than not interested but have all the info i need for the moment. Intended to be helpful rather than picky. Keep up the good work.
its ok to say no, you can come in later, all it means is we can segment those who are members, subscriber, interested and not interested (whether indefinitely or not) however I guess its nice to have the further subdivide.
In terms of security we aren't going to be doing anything insecure with this (full members give us far more info than that, but again I take your point).
All I would say is if you are at all interested and think Trusts are a good idea, sign up at least for the first year - surely far better to have an established functioning Trust network in case the worst did happen. We weren't around when the club go into severe difficulties so couldn't assist in any way, like Swanseas Trust did, and look how well they've done. You can always quit after that, nothing ventured nothing gained, but it will mean CAS Trust has the best chance to get established.
Just got an email asking me to complete the survey, and clicking on the link it allows me to do so even though I have already completed one. There was a cookie left after the previous response which didn't allow this, but by sending out a new link it now lets me do it. This is a big problem. This survey isn't a big deal but if you are looking in the future to getting a response to an important issue, by allowing this, the survey will be able to be skewed. Please take this into consideration for the future. I understand the importance of getting responses but the integrity of the survey must be paramount
If you think about it you could enter it twice in two different places anyway couldn't you. I had disabled a feature briefly to fix a problem since most online surveys are in.
Not to mention that we ask for email addresses for verification.
So I can assure you we put plenty of safeguards in.
If anyone wants to help us perfect our operations and influence what the trust does please do come along to meetings, and stand in the AGM, or even write to me in person i like to think I'm a good listener but I'll let others judge that.
Ticket prices are a national issue being campaigned on by FSF should we not ask fans what their views are - for me that and SS are all part of legitimate enquiry as they could directly affect attendance levels, match day experience, etc
The fact that we can't sell out our stadium in the championship and need to look at ways of addressing that seems to me personally to very close to home. And from the feedback we are getting I would say we are justified in looking at all and any issues affecting fans today. But again if you want to influence directly what the trust does come to a meeting or two, we deliberate on pretty much everything with often quite disparate views.
Personally i think that a safe standing area should be set aside at ALL grounds for those that wish to do so. It's okay for some grounds to have terracing but not for others? Whats the problem with problem with making the covered end lower standing only.
If anyone wants to help us perfect our operations and influence what the trust does please do come along to meetings, and stand in the AGM, or even write to me in person i like to think I'm a good listener but I'll let others judge that.
Just an update - two thirds of the Trust membership have filled in the survey online and we are close to 300 entries...
So to complete the survey we need more face to face interviews at the Forest game.
Early indications are that randomly chosen fans give very different answers to those who chose to fill in the survey online. On questions like Safe Standing and which websites they use... but their priorities for the trust are not much different to the membership.
By getting these numbers right we can show that we know how to do this and that we care about the whole of the Charlton fanbase. Good news is that statistical theory suggests we only need a small sample and not thousands!
So please in box me or Razil if you can spend some time before or after the Forest game helping to approach our fellow fans - they only take 5 minutes each to fill out.
This way we can gather and publish valid results and move on with the development of the trust - more on that later!
Comments
In seriousness good point too, its not like we are just some random marketing co, another reason a lot would trust us and rightly so I think
I don't want to take a bigger part as I am not convinced we should have a ST. Does this mean I shouldn't give an opinion? And this is a genuine question. If people don't back the idea in the first place they will give skewed results. Should you actually just ask Trust members what they want the trust to do?
I'm not saying never and if there is a crisis I will be totally involved in any fight back. I'm just not convinced its this answer or this time. And therefore I probably shouldn't be given a vote on how you spend the money of those who do believe in it.
Given that we are now at 200 surveys that is around 20 or 30 people. We also have around 100 members responding so far and 80 non members who are new to this or showed some interest before.
The trust needs to know what the members think and just as importantly what others think so that it can be relevant to you and precise when dealing with the club.... whether it is about season ticket pricing, the risk of year on year losses or whatever is the priority.
We are aiming for 4-500 surveys which might give us 200 new people's emails who have an interest as well as telling us what people think. And we will be able to differentiate these opinions by where people sit and how long they have been coming to the Valley.
After the work of getting the trust off the ground we know that, as we engage with the club and publicise activities, that the Trust will be open to the accusation that it is a small unaccountable group. But it is growing rapidly and it is listening.
Without giving details away that might give bias to the results, the newer people (non members) who are interested are casting much stronger votes when it comes to trust direction and safe standing - we need a lot more votes to ensure the survey is true and we need more face to face interviews at games to ensure that we cannot be accused of only representing this board and/or the current membership of the trust.
Anyway, did the survey and have since signed up. I haven't really got much to add that hasn't already been said, but would be interested in attending if there is another meeting.
Not to correct @seriously_red just to say we are determined that sort of criticism will not be justifiable, we want to find out what fans think in order to represent them, plus we are committed to be independent, and open and democratic - we have had and continue to have widely publicised meetings, minutes available, and adhere to a strict code of conduct laid down by Supporters Direct.
I believe any survey that is started and incomplete (back button or not), will register on the stats, but I will check that out. We will certainly not be in or out listing anyone (not sure what that means nor what we could possibly gain from it).
This organisation is committed to represent Charlton fans as a whole not any particular grouping, or interest, as challenging as that may prove.
its ok to say no, you can come in later, all it means is we can segment those who are members, subscriber, interested and not interested (whether indefinitely or not) however I guess its nice to have the further subdivide.
In terms of security we aren't going to be doing anything insecure with this (full members give us far more info than that, but again I take your point).
All I would say is if you are at all interested and think Trusts are a good idea, sign up at least for the first year - surely far better to have an established functioning Trust network in case the worst did happen. We weren't around when the club go into severe difficulties so couldn't assist in any way, like Swanseas Trust did, and look how well they've done. You can always quit after that, nothing ventured nothing gained, but it will mean CAS Trust has the best chance to get established.
Not to mention that we ask for email addresses for verification.
So I can assure you we put plenty of safeguards in.
If anyone wants to help us perfect our operations and influence what the trust does please do come along to meetings, and stand in the AGM, or even write to me in person i like to think I'm a good listener but I'll let others judge that.
The fact that we can't sell out our stadium in the championship and need to look at ways of addressing that seems to me personally to very close to home. And from the feedback we are getting I would say we are justified in looking at all and any issues affecting fans today. But again if you want to influence directly what the trust does come to a meeting or two, we deliberate on pretty much everything with often quite disparate views.
Whats the problem with problem with making the covered end lower standing only.
So to complete the survey we need more face to face interviews at the Forest game.
Early indications are that randomly chosen fans give very different answers to those who chose to fill in the survey online. On questions like Safe Standing and which websites they use... but their priorities for the trust are not much different to the membership.
By getting these numbers right we can show that we know how to do this and that we care about the whole of the Charlton fanbase. Good news is that statistical theory suggests we only need a small sample and not thousands!
So please in box me or Razil if you can spend some time before or after the Forest game helping to approach our fellow fans - they only take 5 minutes each to fill out.
This way we can gather and publish valid results and move on with the development of the trust - more on that later!