Proposed Charlton Fans Protest Fund - Your views please

Again, many thanks for the expressions of support, useful feedback and thought provoking questions.

@Curb_It and I have now had a chance to discuss and this is the way we see things. This is for general information but also, in particular in response to the useful points from @WrightCharlie and others.

As I briefly posted yesterday, we don't want this idea to become too bogged down with verification and audit trails - it's meant to be a fairly simple way, based largely on trust, to get money quickly to fellow lifers involved in protest activity. The process would be as follows:

1. The fund is only open to CL members, so we have some degree of knowledge of those requesting fund support.

2. Those seeking funds would PM @Davo55 and @Curb_It seeking personal email addresses. I will email back (to verify the given email address is legitimate) and copy in Curb_It. We would seek the following details:
- name of the protest campaign/initiative
- a brief description of the planned protest activity and dates
- how much funding is sought and for what specific purpose, itemised to a reasonable level

3. On receipt of that information, Curb_It and I would confer. The aim is to get sufficient detail in the initial email request but we would seek further clarity if required. We would then agree whether, and how much (i.e. full or partial funding depending on the case put forward and amount of funds available) to allocate. We would refuse any requests that we believe to incorporate illegal activity but would not intend to act as moral arbiters - i.e. make conditions about swearing etc.

4. Notwithstanding point 3, it will be made clear that the legality and overall conduct of the protest activity is the responsibility of the protest organisers. Our role will be simply to channel CL donor funds and neither we or the donors accept any responsibility in those regards.

5. Curb_It will manage the receipt and acknowledgement of donations and the payment of agreed allocated funds. She will advise me of all receipts and payments and I will maintain an overall record of both.

6. We will not seek to verify that the amount allocated was actually spent as detailed in the original request. This will be taken on trust, with any surplus funds being returned to Curb_It.

7. At least monthly I will update all via CL on funds received (overall figures rather than individual details) and how they have been distributed - name and brief description of protest plus amount allocated.

8. It is not intended that the fund would be independently audted, although full records excluding personal details could be made available to CL Donors on request.

In summary, we are in effect asking you to trust us with your money and make reasonable enquiries and decisions on your behalf. In turn, we will be trusting CL members requesting/receiving funding to be truthful in their requests, use the money for the purpose it was allocated and return any unused money to the fund. We don’t want to get bogged down with administration and oversight - we are a community and this initiative is simply a mechanism to get money quickly to protest organisers. If the fund really takes off we can review details in due course.

To comment on a few other points made on the thread:

We would prefer not to restrict funding to only those protestors who "register" on the CAST website. This is not a mandatory registration process, but rather an information source.

We feel it is not the right time to ask the Trust to lead this initiative. Although they have a ready mechanism, they have made it clear that they do not wish to compromise their pursuit of a strategic dialogue (note, my words not theirs) and we respect that. To be honest, given the level of anti-Trust comments from some fans, asking the Trust to manage the fund might also be counter-productive, deterring some fans from contributing. It may be that this could change at some point in the future.

In respect of any unused funds to go to the Upbeats, there are any number of possible good causes but CL has a strong and proud record of supporting the Upbeats and we felt it appropriate to continue in that vein. Of course, it may well be that there are NO unused funds to hand out anyway.

The idea of a fan led democratic alternative to Valley Gold is interesting, but we will leave that for others to pursue. As @HantsAddick posted, that could take quite a while and is perhaps something to consider for the future.

On @kimbo’s point re Just Giving, I’m no expert but it appears to be different for crowd-funding (where there is no charity status and/or gift-aid). The website terms and conditions states:

“JustGiving fees - JustGiving charges a small transaction fee on every donation made on the Website or its associated services. The fee is currently up to 5% of the gross donation.”

I hope this answers the points raised satisfactorily. All being well, we will launch the fund in the next day or two.

We are launching the protest fund tomorrow (Sunday) morning. Watch out for the launch announcement and details of how to contribute.

Now, let's go and stuff Forest and then the Board.

COYRs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!