The event will be Members only, you can join on the day, but will not be able to vote.
*The first 20 Members to arrive will be offered a free drink.
We are trying to do an interactive webcast for the formal part of the meeting, (but this will be more of a trial) and will be available from the Members area of our website
http://www.castrust.org any queries to press@castrust.org
The formal session, will be followed by a discussion on current status and future direction and then..
Trust Member and former Charlton Chairman Martin Simons will guest for an informal q&a
Free Members raffle
All welcome
Comments
Well done committee, enjoyed it. South african guy eh ? ;-)
PS. Did I win the raffle ?
We have taken on board a lot comments from people both critical and complimentary and we intend to address the former and build on the latter. The only thing I ask is for people to continue to be patient and supportive, and if you are in a position to help please get involved, I think the next year could be more challenging than the last. It would be excellent if by the next AGM we will have made half as much progress
We want to strengthening existing structures and reverse the decline of the post premiership era. I understand a local branch may be restarting, and I hope we can help existing ones maintain or even grow.
If CAFC are serious about future collaboration we could have a significant role. There is a lot of untapped energy and talent in our fan base that can be brought into play not just in a crisis, but in the every day running of the club.
We as a Trust must continue to grow and reach more fans, while at the same time make sure we are critical where necessary, and never forget who we are trying to represent.
We can only build a better future for this club if we make the best of what is in front of us, but most importantly if we stand together united behind the love of our football club - a one nation red and white army if you will.
Were there people from the other supporters' groups?
Glad to hear that there is another local group starting up and is joining the both the long established groups and the other new groups such as Eltham and East Kent.
What were the complmentty and the critical comments and what action does the Trust suggest to build on the first and address the second?
For me the most important headline stat is the number of current members. It is over 800. For a benchmark the Swansea Trust currently has less than 1000 paying members despite the fact that it holds a 20% stake in the club. This is evidence for me of what I have suspected for some time, that only a small proportion of fans at a typical club ( one not a minute away from the midnight collapse) want to join an organization which wants to be involved in the issues of actually running a football club. I personally thought that membership at this time could not get anywhere near this figure, without a clearer indication of the financial crisis facing our club, and I think Raz and the rest of the team of volunteers deserve great credit for their energy and commitment to the future security of CAFC.
@Henry Irving
"What were the complmentty and the critical comments and what action does the Trust suggest to build on the first and address the second?"
I was referring to that sentence mainly.Those are important and reasonable questions for anyone interested in the Trust to ask, but to answer them properly will take a bit of time. Since I couldn't be there yesterday I don't myself know what those comments were (from the meeting) although I know the survey results. It would be reasonable for Razil to kick around these comments with his team before coming on here and shooting off an action plan while watching Match of the Day.
If this was one of the right sites to promote and then add a summary of the AGM then it's the right site to answer questions.
All the questions related to matters raised first by the Trust. And I didn't demand instant answers or set any time frame so not sure what the Match of the Day comments were about.
The Trust is formulating a second year plan and we could cite confidentiality bollux! The reality is that it has not yet been discussed by the Trust board and that the important part is to cover the period December - May 2014. We also await a response from the club about various ideas and activities, which may form part of this plan. Some of which have been informally agreed. So to be clear we need to address the stakeholders first and finalise the plan and budget. What is clear is that members and subscribers want to hear more about the way forwards for the club.
What was great about the meeting was how Martin Simons welcomed the existance of the Trust with various superlatives saying it was good to see new blood - he acknowledged old hands like Wendy Perfect at the meeting but he was very clear in that he felt that success in the Premier League had killed some of the supporter energy / organisation. Therefore a new broad based supporter organisation was most welcome.
Criticism which were way outweighed by compliments but we still take them seriously, altho the recent survey has shown next to none - are around stake holder management and perception largely, that we are trying to take over the world We aren't of course but we need to work harder on that, saturation is another. We will know what people think once we've started renewals. We have doubled in size since June and one assumes that is a good thing. I am very willing to admit we are the new kids on the block and are still learning, I want more contact with individuals like the members of the Fans Forum so we can address that further and learn from them - I am personally very impressed with Ian and Jean et al and Badger who's persistence with Eltham is bearing fruit. We need to do more effective communicating around the critical friend thing its a challenge but one we must overcome.
Again this is a little premature as our survey isnt finished and perhaps we'll do a full report on it but I believe things like our website which seems to be a big hit, ACV and helping Valley Gold have proved popular some of the keener eyes amongst you may have noticed a new partnership is forming there. We want to help branches more but haven't managed to get the functionality working for our website yet, although we have supplied all I believe with potential new members. And through our diary and website have hopefully given them a lot more publicity.
Early days for the webcast element not sure if it reached anyone yet, and not sure if its appropriate with special guests at meetings like this. Martin was an excellent guest and his patronage is very important.
We've grown massively and are trying to undertake activities, but must avoid treading on toes or muscling in perceptions, some of which are unavoidable some are preception some are errors. However our stated intention remains the same of complimenting existing structures, I think our work with grass roots shows this.
Has our influence grown? This is a hard one to measure but our network is big and getting bigger, we have met with CAFC on a number of occasions, and of course we are not the only fans group, but I feel the next 6 months will show that. We have free mag with circulation of 5k last time and a website getting 10k hits a month. Our main aims to begin with were to grow the network, and membership to 1k and we are getting closer to that. Lool out for results of our member feedback soon and another v.important survey on the horizon. Above all however I think we are lacking one or two big hitters on the writing front but perhaps our feedback survey will bear fruit in that department
There were people from other supporters groups but I'll let them identify themselves if they wish.
Prague, please stop putting words in my mouth. I said nothing about expecting an answer last night or gave anytime frame at all for a response. You have just made that up.Seems that you were wrong anyway about CL not being the right place as Razil gave some answers here, for which thanks, and SR says a majority of Trust members use CL.
We covered a number of items which members can read on the website, mostly formalities around auditing.
Some questions covered how we deal with the critical friend relationship and the answers covered acv and millwall, and the challenge of managing that relationship. We also discussed the finance model and the response from the floor appeared happy but willing to accept a limited level of sponsorship of say an edition of tnt.
Simons was very open which we welcome but needs to stay in the room. No revelations as such however.
It's threads like this that make me realise why we have 25 supporters clubs and not just one. I thought the Trust might, just might, become the umbrella organisation that enabled people to put aside the petty wrangling which, I've no doubt, puts people off the whole thing. (It has certainly stopped me from attending as many events as I might otherwise - I can't be arsed with all the petty squabbling shit that this thread emphasises.)
Good luck to the Trust guys though. Unfortunately I suspect they are going to need it.
(By the way, does anyone else find the Trust all a bit unnecessarily pro-Powell? I mean, who would think that a supporters organisation might actually support !)
I think it's important that they take the time to come along to our Branch meetings which will give them exposure and hopefully this will spread the word a bit more and maybe increase their membership.
The trust has been a great help to Eltham Addicks And I look forward to working with them in the future.
Attendance was up
Membership has doubled since the year end 01.06.13
The Trust fans network is now over 4,000 and set to rise thanks to a tie up with Valley Gold
And that this has all been done with a committee of 10 and 30 volunteers. Some sneered at the Trust helping the promotion of the Wigan game but this was hopefully the first chapter in helping promote the club. It also brought 15 new volunteers out to help...and the latest survey has suggested another 75+ fans want to help in one way or another...
So in less than a year the Trust has gone from 20 fans in a pub to 100 volunteers, 800+members and 4,000 fan contacts.
Some are clearly disappointed that this has been achieved without attacking the club which we all support - perhaps they don't understand the simple statistic that the vast majority of fans want a dialogue with the club. And that people might find it difficult to maintain that dialogue if they are being slapped in the face.
So this is an appeal to all those watching / sitting on the fence: the more you engage, the more the club will listen and the more impact we can have whether it is helping to promote the club or fighting a big fire.
I have no problem with any of that personally, I think it makes us stronger as a fan base in a lot of ways because more people participate at a higher level