Supporters Trust AGM

[Three of Diamonds]

On Wednesday at 8pm in Strikers bar. Anyone going (I should be) ?

[Pigman]

I'm not a member, so nope - have a good time, asking any meaty questions??? ;)

[Three of Diamonds]

I'm not a member, so nope - have a good time, asking any meaty questions??? ;)

It's £17 pay on the door for non-members so you can still come along ;) :lol:

I'm interested to know why the Trust doesn't help subsidise away travel, how that shift came about. At the end of the day we merged two travel clubs into the Trust (I still haven't met anyone from the old RDISA who voted for it), and it seems to be cast aside to look after itself. I also think that membership is too expensive.

[Formic]

I think this is the most important Trust meeting there will have been for several seasons. The relationship between the club and trust is bound to be changing, given changes in personnel and ownership. Couple that with the fact the Trust will have had its membership boosted by the ticket discount offer, and it should be a time to consider the direction the Trust is going. It might also be a chance for some of the people who did excellent work for the Trust in the past to get involved again.

I assume there are vacancies on the Trust board if anyone wants to take an active role.

[Three of Diamonds]

You make some excellent points there Formic, especially with attendances dropping off we probably need the Trust as much as we ever did.

[davealbon]

I only just remembered about this. Did anyone on here attend?

[Three of Diamonds]

Yes, I attended. Steve Beasant was there from the football club and was allowed to attend the meeting on their behalf. There was a frank and fair exchange of information about how the Trust ended up passing the assets to KC (who, by the way still has them). The current owners of the club have a 3 year lease option to buy the assets and they also had a meeting with the Griggs recently for whom they have high regard. The BANK (not the Griggs) still have the covenant on the land regarding selling part of it for redevelopment, according to Mr Beasant. . My impression is that the current owners will do a full review of their relationship with the Trust and how it will work, INCLUDING the entrance prices, which Mr Beasant claims that due to the discounts the Trust receives actually costs the club around £68,000 in lost revenue per season. This despite the £20k+ the Trust puts into the club with donations. Seemed to me their preferred method was to have a set price across the board to get around this unseen Conference ruling, perhaps at a lower level. I like this man's reasoning.
On other topics, the Trust board will be looking to integrate the Trust Travel Club and Diamond Minors with the possibility of SOME subsidised travel, and perhaps use some of their committee members to top up the Trust board. Canon Roger Knight spoke well and made some excellent points that the Trust now needed to re-examine it's role and report back to the membership (which stands around the 570 mark, I think they said).
Mr. Beasant also said that the boxing evening was a sell-out and the club will be doing more to encourage the community back to using the club & facilities. Amen to that.

[Pigman]

Did they reveal how many of those Trust members were new, the rise due to the entrance fee hike? I'm just curious. Glad to hear there will be a review of prices, the current rates are bloody ridiculous and will not help the club to attract new fans. Oh, and I see you say "unseen Conference ruling", surely the new owners have seen it? Can they challenge it?

I'm curious as to why Steve was there, this may be my ignorance, but I didn't think he was (or could be) one of the ownership team - or have I got that wrong?

Thanks for the summary Robin, while I'm not a Trust member, I'm certainly interested in who really owns our assets, it looks like a bit of a tangled web is being woven with KC remaining owner of the assets, if not the club itself !! Interesting !! Does he hold any loans against the club as well I wonder?

[bedforddiamond]

Is this guy 'Steve' in addition to Liam ? If so what 'position' does he hold at the club? And then there's Ken Wilde, it's a shame the club have not explained on the Official site who's who and what there roles are. Especially as these guys are all new to the club....

[Trek]

Is this guy 'Steve' in addition to Liam?

IIRC Steve is Liam's father and was involved with Gary Calder in an unsuccessful bid to take over Weymouth before George Rolls took over the Terras.