Att 18

The Trust will be holding a race night at the Grandstand Club on Saturday 30th September. Admission will be from 7pm onwards and will be via a purchase of a ticket. Tickets are priced at £1 in advance or £2 on the night. Tickets are available from Rob Urwin and the entrance fee is purely to cover the cost of food that is being put on.
The club has agreed that all the players and officials will be in attendance and press releases are in the process of being sent out to promote and market the event.
So far we have three race sponsors in Scarisbrick Hotel, Southport GB and Michael and Susan Reece. More sponsors are still available at a minimum of £25. Horses and jockeys are also on sale at £2 a go with a prize for the winner and the trust have already sold about 50% of those available. If anyone wishes to purchase a horse or a jockey, they will be available at the online shop shortly or from a trust member on matchdays. There is also a plan to incorporate Irish Bingo into the night.
Tote prices have been set at £1 per bet and the trust are still looking at finding companies to donate the prizes for the winning owners and jockeys.

The trust are planning to hold an Extraordinary General Meeting in the near future (date and venue to be notified at a later date,) to formally elect a committee to help run the trust and make decisions on the day to day running, which are in the best interests of the members. Details of how to apply to become a committee member will be forwarded by e-mail in the next few days and for those without e-mail, details will be posted out or handed out on match days. Also those who wish to put forward a resolution at the EGM will also have that opportunity at the same time.
The trust also plans to issue a newsletter along with this information.

The latest information on the signs is that the Shelbourne Hotel sign has now been completed and the details of the next match just need adding in. Rob and Julia Urwin have volunteered to update the information for the next match. Michael Reece has also offered to make some enquires about putting up a sign or matchday posters at the park and ride.

John Pugh MP has been very active in arranging a meeting with Jon O’Byrne and Haydn Preece regarding signage around the town with reference to directions to the football club, which are currently non - existent. The meeting took place this morning and the trust have been advised that the costing for 4 local signs to the ground would be around £2500 and the seven that were being proposed would be around £4200. Even with football foundation grants and possible funding from the tourism department at Sefton Council, the cost of this project is too excessive for the trust.

The trust is currently looking at ways in which to protest at the excessive prices being charges and may look at raising a petition, writing to the local papers and approaching local councillors to complain as the trust feel that the signs will help promote the town and the council should be more flexible in their approach to the marketing of the town and its attractions.

Coach travel – the first three trips were very successful and all sold out. The trip at the weekend and we sold just 33 seats at a heavily subsidised price of £15 per head.
The next trip to Kidderminster is a midweek game and bookings have been slow for this. Jon will discuss with Elite Travel about providing a smaller coach to cut cost if necessary, but much will depend upon take up at the weekend. If insufficient numbers fail to sign up by the weekend, the trust may have to decide on whether to proceed or not.
One other concern about the Kidderminster trip was the departure time as there were a number of calls that it was a bit tight for time given rush hour traffic on the M6. Again this may be brought forward from the advertised time.

Dan raised a situation that has arisen at the club. He was made aware that the club are looking to outsource the boardroom for meetings to various local businesses including our main sponsors. However the club have a lack of facilities and are looking to purchase a flipchart for use in the boardroom and in the dressing room.
It was decided that at present this should not be an issue for the trust and the club should be accountable for this purchase.

Dan has also been approached by a website called bedsearcher that provides information and bookings on overnight travel and targets football fans. Further research needs to be carried out, but it was generally agreed that we should promote this on the visiting fans site on the web along with the links for the hotel rooms through the buy at site, which also earns the trust commission. It was also recommended that we look at a site called www.spreadshirt.net and possibly incorporating that into the trust. Again this will be looked into before a final decision is made.

Paul Glendenning, has drafted a letter aimed at the town’s migrant Polish population, making them aware of the delights of Haig Avenue. The next stage now is to translate it into Polish.

The trust has also been promised by the club, that they can use the old club shop, that currently holds the spare chairs for the stand, as a permanent home for Trust In Yellow. The building currently requires some work doing to it to make it suitable. Alan Drury has offered to do a survey on it to see what work need to be undertaken and we may also approach trust members with building skills to help with the building work.

The next meeting is scheduled to take place on Thursday 28th September at 7.30pm at the Railwayman’s Club.