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Joint statement from CAFC & CAS Trust marks new era

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  • Well Done to all with the progress, any chance of joining up at the Bromley SC meeting or it is online only?
  • Thats do able
  • so 2,400 hits here... 1,500 hits on castrust.org and twenty new members... that will pay for another 4 pages in Trust News for next weekend!
    Seriously, we are running on a shoe string so we need people to pay their fiver and donations to help us push into the thousands as quickly as possible
  • there s another problem though red people are also thinking
    what's a fiver gonna do probably gonna be a time when your need to ask for monthly donation
    were portsmouth putting a grand in each
  • We have got this far by spending about a grand! Yep that's all! So imagine where we could get with five or ten grand?

    At the moment we have no plans to raise millions to save the club... The current board have put in 2 x £7m in loans to get us to 9th in the table in just two years... and we expect them to do the same next season or find other people to support the club.

    All (!) we are trying to do is to network thousands of fans via the internet and email to collectively put their weight behind the club. Not to sit back in our armchairs and at our keyboards critiquing the playing staff and substitutions but taking part in activities to build the club and make it ours.
  • razil said:

    fold out russian doll - no challenge for the STIG

    Is that Mrs Smertin?
  • STIG STIG STIG STIG STIG STIG
  • Another big step for the young Trust which as people have said has come a long way in a short time.

    Well done to the Club also in seeing the value in working with fans.

    I'm glad that the misapprehension that the Trust was set up to attack the board and aimed to have an antagonistic relationship with Club can now be put to bed.

    Let's hope it can act as a "critical friend". The real work starts now.

    Of course, some of those same people who said "the Club will never recognise or work with you" will now say "you've got into bed with the Club, they are just throwing you a bone" but some people will look for a negative in everything while at same time doing absolutely zero themselves.

    Well done to Razil and Seriously Red, RichardJ, Pico and all the others.

    Now it just needs some more people to step up and help out with the boring admin jobs that need to be done if the Trust, like any organisation, is to survive and grow.

    YOUR Trust needs YOU.
  • A couple of questions from me.

    I am still unsure about the Fans Forum and Supporters Trust link. I pay nothing to the FF and they provide an opportunity for me to put questions to them to raise with the board and management of the club. I understand that the meetings have been less frequent lately but that this could be put down to internal re-structuring.
    Will the ST meet with the board and management more than the FF does now that the relationship is formalised. What can the ST do with my £5 that the FF does not for free (given that no investment opportunities currently exist).

    When asked about what an ST can achieve the response is often: look at Swansea, Arsenal and Barca. But this does not explain what exactly their trusts did. How did having an ST save Swansea, what impact can a ST have in a club as large and commercial as Arsenal and Barcelona?

    I understand the how The Trust needs people to be successful but I ultimately still need to understand why I need IT. I get that in the future there may be a risk and I am still of the opinion that if the day comes when that risk is there I will be there stamping my feet waving my banner and paying any amount of money you want. But I don't feel that is now.

    Please feel free to try and convince me that the time is now, or ignore me in the knowledge that when the crisis hits, I'll be there.
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  • How did having an ST save Swansea

    Hopefully this link will take you to TNT, the newsletter/magazine published by our Trust. Contained in there is a good article on the problems facing Swansea after the club changed hands several times and the role the Trust played:

    http://www.castrust.org/news/newsletters/


    I get that in the future there may be a risk and I am still of the opinion that if the day comes when that risk is there I will be there stamping my feet waving my banner and paying any amount of money you want. But I don't feel that is now.

    Hopefully we'll never need the Trust toride in and save the club and it can exist alongside this site, the FF and other similar initiatives. But, if we do then it'll be ready. But we are living in an era when we have owners who are investors and not necessarily supporters and they are looking for a return on that investment. The next set of owners might be even more remote from the club - both physically and in terms of why they are investing and perhaps then we will see a value on having a conduit between the club and us supporters.


  • the fans forum is entirely dependent on the club for its existence and even for a meeting of any kind. It is not a mass membership organisation with members, does not conduct research, does not produce publications, is not subject to external audit and governed by nationally accepted rules, is not capable of fund raising in the same way, nor does it have a website, etc etc. It does put on events, has a tightly controlled remit, has no committee or executive structure in the same way, and is primarily concerned with the match day experience plus end of season events.

    That is not to say it doesn't have value, it is an excellent way of getting all groups round the table, and in essence represents a kind of senate for supporters groups which are no longer all under the banner of CASC

    The trust is independent and has all of those things, and gladly particpates in the FF.

    For more on this please read our next edition which amazingly is free and will be distributed by Programme sellers and barmaids..

  • The barmen aren't having any of it !
  • And correct me if I'm wrong but aren't the FF members members and supporters of the Trust?
  • Shame on you!
  • indeed several of them are, its not compulsory though..
  • DRF said:

    A couple of questions from me.

    I am still unsure about the Fans Forum and Supporters Trust link. I pay nothing to the FF and they provide an opportunity for me to put questions to them to raise with the board and management of the club. I understand that the meetings have been less frequent lately but that this could be put down to internal re-structuring.
    Will the ST meet with the board and management more than the FF does now that the relationship is formalised. What can the ST do with my £5 that the FF does not for free (given that no investment opportunities currently exist).

    When asked about what an ST can achieve the response is often: look at Swansea, Arsenal and Barca. But this does not explain what exactly their trusts did. How did having an ST save Swansea, what impact can a ST have in a club as large and commercial as Arsenal and Barcelona?

    I understand the how The Trust needs people to be successful but I ultimately still need to understand why I need IT. I get that in the future there may be a risk and I am still of the opinion that if the day comes when that risk is there I will be there stamping my feet waving my banner and paying any amount of money you want. But I don't feel that is now.

    Please feel free to try and convince me that the time is now, or ignore me in the knowledge that when the crisis hits, I'll be there.

    Perhaps we should have a whip round for you ? :-)
  • DRF said:

    A couple of questions from me.

    I am still unsure about the Fans Forum and Supporters Trust link. I pay nothing to the FF and they provide an opportunity for me to put questions to them to raise with the board and management of the club. I understand that the meetings have been less frequent lately but that this could be put down to internal re-structuring.
    Will the ST meet with the board and management more than the FF does now that the relationship is formalised. What can the ST do with my £5 that the FF does not for free (given that no investment opportunities currently exist).

    When asked about what an ST can achieve the response is often: look at Swansea, Arsenal and Barca. But this does not explain what exactly their trusts did. How did having an ST save Swansea, what impact can a ST have in a club as large and commercial as Arsenal and Barcelona?

    I understand the how The Trust needs people to be successful but I ultimately still need to understand why I need IT. I get that in the future there may be a risk and I am still of the opinion that if the day comes when that risk is there I will be there stamping my feet waving my banner and paying any amount of money you want. But I don't feel that is now.

    Please feel free to try and convince me that the time is now, or ignore me in the knowledge that when the crisis hits, I'll be there.

    But why, for £5 - the cost of a pint, do you need so much convincing?

    The aims of the Trust are, at this stage, pretty general but that is to be expected in it's early days - unless there was a major crisis behind which we needed to rally. For me, and many others, that is not important. What is important is that joining the Trust shows respect and support for other fans who are trying to get the fans voice heard in the way our club operates. For the sake of a fiver, I am prepared to back my fellow fans - and trust that the aims and objectives get sharper over time. The Trust needs funds and support to continue to achieve critical mass. Time to join up and stump up. If in due course you find that the approach and goals do not align with your own thinking, bow out then.
  • I respect DRFs point of principle,

    Mainly the £5 helps us build mass membership and establish the trust with the fans and the club in the first year or maybe two depending on success. In the next phase we look again at that fee and decide what the membership fee need be and what schemes are likely to be, etc
  • edited April 2013
    I’m kind of with what DRF is saying as (at this stage) i’m not overly sure where this is going.

    From the statement it has put out the two things that first struck me were:

    1. Recognition from the club of the Trust as a CAFC supporter entity. That’s positive news, bearing in mind the club wouldn’t even let them put meeting dates in the programme not too long ago. It also means the recent non-playing arrivals seen potentially keen on additional fan involvement, another positive
    2. The relationship between the club and the Trust has the potential to be the relationship of the Club and the original Fans Forum from 4/5 years ago, where the club gain a pool of people carrying out things that they haven’t got the resource to do, can’t be bothered to do, or to put a positive spin on their decision making. That would potentially be a negative (in my eyes FOR THIS VEHICLE).

    The ‘collaboration’ stuff is something i think has to be carefully managed.

    Let’s be honest and go back to what kick-started this all in the first place last summer:
    that there were concerns about the financial strength of the club,
    a deep distrust of the owner,
    concern of the secretive and convoluted ownership structure of the club in general,
    a distrust of the chairman and his legally-sound spin,
    worries of the long-term preservation of club assets (Valley, training ground etc)

    All big things. Or potentially big things.

    What 10 months on i’m unclear on are what the big ticket objectives of it all are.

    To me (and this is just my opinion) i’m happy for a Trust to be either a largely dormant vehicle that has the right structure / people in place so that fans as a collective group don’t waste precious time splashing around without a raft and paddle when / if the time comes for them to be properly organised (which it looks to me like its achieved already), or it has some form of grand scale investment plan to secure a protection / ownership stake in the club. I just don’t see that with the current ownership structure, but there is no reason that can’t be the case in the future. Without the latter, i really wouldn’t get too focussed on members numbers as I can’t see how you ‘work’ would change if you had 200 members or 2,000.

    What I don’t think it needs to do though is get caught somewhere in the middle. Websites / fanzines / surveys / t-shirts etc are all well and good, but that too me is not what a Trust should be about. Looking into catering stuff etc are things that should be covered by the Fans Forum (which the Trust already attend) for example.

    ‘Flood everything’ is only an approach that can work successfully for a limited timespan imo, you then have to be a bit more selective on the frequency of your message / outputs as there is a possibility that you will start alienating people. And when that happens, it then will come a lot harder when you do have a real important message you want make / progress.

    This is rushed, could be set out a lot clearer and I hope doesn’t come out as a moan / rant when it isn’t intended to be.

    What i would like to say is a huge congratulations to so many people who post on here (seriously red, SE9addick, Pico, Prague, seth, ken and others to various degrees) who have taken something and run with it with such vigour, particularly Razil. I think you’ve all done a brilliant job so far, i’m delighted with been able to promote you and get the message out there so much (even if Razil does my head in at times!), and I hope it continues on as a great success.
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  • Yeah you take the credit smudge and besmudge poor razil in the process its all about you you you and charlton life

    What next henry claiming the upbeats as his own




    8)









    Joke for those that want to get picky
  • Ha, just read it back. Shocking stuff that Henry would be proud of !
  • Yeah you take the credit smudge and besmudge poor razil in the process its all about you you you and charlton life

    What next henry claiming the upbeats as his own




    8)









    Joke for those that want to get picky

    Shame on you :-)
  • edited April 2013



    What next henry claiming the upbeats as his own

    I wonder what the odds are on this? 1000/1?
  • I'll answer this at length later,if my fellow board members will allow before commenting - but as usual Bart comes up with some excellent points as do others on here, sadly so few of us can spare the time to drive the trust so we are short on leaders in the group (and I don't mean that in a bitchy way and in no way disrespectful to those our team).
  • can't we employ some more
  • The more members joining an organisation the more credibility it has to back any position it takes.
    The more members also means there may be a greater skill set to plunder if and when, and the more likely it is that tasks can be shared around.
  • AFKA

    I think you are, amongst other things, worried that the Trust, having been recognised by the Club, is now going to do for free everything and anything the Club asks.

    No chance.

    Not everybody wants to be bothered with how the club or football generally operates as a business. The Trust does, because we have worked out that English football is currently dysfunctional and a lot of clubs are at risk. Maybe not ours just yet, but when the collapse comes it could come quickly for any club.

    We are educating ourselves on the business of football. We know the revenues don't cover the costs, so if we can help increase revenues, we will. But not unquestioningly. We are building our own ideas of how a club can be run sustainably and successfully. So that it is there for your nippers to enjoy when they are older. Right now I'm on holiday in Germany, and taking every opportunity to find out more about the German model. Several others are doing loads of other research, so that we get to a point where we really understand the business of football. That of course helps us with the current Board, and helps us decide where we are going to help them with individual projects. Equally it helps if in the future the whole thing goes pear and we need to find some people with deep pockets. We will be able to show them that we are not, e.g. the type of people the country saw on the pitch at Molineaux at the weekend, but level headed people who took the time and effort to find out what it takes to make football happen at The Valley.
  • is anyone from the trust getting to bromley meeting early Wednesday
  • some of the Trust people have said they will be there
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