Minutes of Society Board Meeting - 5th February 2009

Present: Paul Isenwater, Rob Urwin, Julia Urwin, Alan Drury, Alan Scarisbrick, Phil Carder, Martin Robinson
Apologies: Alan Jones, Paul Glendenning

Matters arising from previous minutes:
Harrogate letter- the trust has received a reply back from the conference, but no response from Harrogate. The reply from the conference acknowledged the letter and advised that all the clubs had received notification on standard procedures for this kind of event. Phil had drafted a follow up letter, which was signed by Alan Scarisbrick and will be forwarded to Harrogate.
Flyers- the trust have received a copy of an order form, but no invoice.

Membership & finances:
Memberships have risen to 206, finances stand at £14340.17 and all bills have been paid. £270 has been received so far from the sponsored walk, with more still to come. The interest rate on the account stands at 0.25% prior to the rate cut earlier in the day. The bank mandate needs to be amended and Phil provided the forms to be amended.

Reconstruction of board – roles & responsibilities
Following the sad loss of Peter, it was agreed that Alan would step up from vice chairman to take the role of chairman. Martin agreed to take on the role of vice chairman. It was noted that there was room for three members to join the board and a request would be put out at the next meeting.

Storage units for seats:
As the spare seats are currently sat in the cellar of Peter’s house, there will be a need to move the seats to a location within the football club. 20ft containers cost in the region of £1100 -1500, however Wilkinsons had some secure units costing up to £700.
It was decided to check the measurements of the trust office for an indication on size, Paul I to check with Brighouses on timescales required before it was necessary to move the chairs and Rob to speak to Charlie/Haydn about putting a unit in and finding a suitable location.

Disabled Facilities:
Martin has found a firm in Todmorden that provides a wind up lift. The cost of which is either £6800 + vat for a 1.5m lift or £7400+ vat for a 1.8m lift. The club have received photos of the lift and they are imported from Canada with a 6-7 week lead time. We await a sample to arrive before demonstrating to club officials. The sample is expected mid to end March.

Coach travel:
Bookings for Telford were healthy and would be £10 if the coach was full. Kings Lynn was struggling for numbers and a decision would be made after the match on Saturday.
We would look for publicity on the coaches in the local papers.

Events:
An event has been booked for 17th April. It will take the form of a forum with formers players organised by Steve Haw and a quiz. Eric Redrobe has expressed an interest in attending and the event will be a charity event for the Jedi festival which raises money for charity CRY.
Band nights – three under 18’s events have been organised with the first on 28th February. These are trust events of which £673.55 has been ringfenced for improvements to the grandstand as previously agreed.
Veteran’s day – we have asked to provide the shoot out for the event which will take place towards the end of June in Victoria Park. The shoot out is also going out to Ainsdale CE and is available for hire. It was also suggested that we look into sponsoring a primary schools football competition and Julia would investigate further.

Community Activities:
Paul I has been in communication with supporters direct on funding for two projects that the club and the trust have been looking at.
Haydn has been working in liason with Sefton Council on providing a classroom to provide an alternative curriculum for secondary school children who had issues with punctuality, attendance and behaviour and also to provide a community officer.

The feedback received from supporters direct was that applications for grants would have to come through the club as the classroom would be on the club’s premises and the payroll would be through the club. It was suggested that the club apply for grants through the football foundation, the council or the national lottery. Grants would be taken favourably if it could be shown that community activities had been successful previously and this was showing development.
Supporters Direct also suggested if the trust wanted to take on activities, the best place to start would be a soccer school of which funding could be received through the council.

Supporters Direct Training Course:
Rob and Phil recently went on a Supporters Direct training course and feedback was very positive. Two things which came out of this was a membership package that was free for the first year and could cost up to £350 for future years. This was a web based application, which would simplify the database and issue mailings easily. It was decided to discuss at the next board meeting. Also SD had set up a wiki which has lots of ideas from other trusts.

The website:
There were concerns that the website was not promoting the trust properly and there had been problems with it in recent weeks.
It was requested to remove the shop from the website as there are odd bits of orders coming through for stock we no longer have and the future of the forum was discussed as it is not really getting used.
It was suggested that we put out a request in the newsletter for someone to help and advise on web design.

AOB:
Martin advised that he would sent a newsletter out to the Visiter.
The trust has negotiated discounted tickets for the Sportman’s Dinner, please contact a board member for further details.
It was suggested that we arrange a follow up meeting with the club – Paul I to follow up.
Fans Forum – the trust would look to arrange a fans forum before the end of the season – Rob to discuss with Haydn on suitable dates.
Accounts sign off- Phil to chase up with James, the AGM is provisionally booked for 14th May, Rob to forward updated membership to both Phil(for accounting purposes) and Martin.
Chairman&trustinyellow email – Paul I to check with Dan where it is currently directed and to move to Alan Scarsibrick’s e-mail address.

Next Open meeting – 12th March
Next board meeting – 23rd April

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