Just thought I would let you all know that members of the fans forum got togther last night in the Oak at Charlton. We thought that we would get together in an effort to progress matters after the inaugural meeting in December. Progress is being made and to perhaps to give some indication here's some important points from what was a productive evening.
Dave Rudd is in the final stages of putting together a fans forum website which will enable us to keep everybody informed with whats going on, and more importantly a point of formal contact. We agreed last night that we will try to meet at least once a month, outside of the official forum meetings with the clubs employees and directors, the next get together will be at the Valley in Bartrams at the CADSA AGM 6.30pm. We will also be available at the NW Kent Supportes club quiz night...not sure of the exact date as yet, but I think it was 20th March...we will confirm once the website is up and running.
We will be working towards setting up a meeting point in each of the stands on match days, so that fans can approach us with any queries....we thought that perhaps 30 mins before kick off and during half time would be sufficient. Once we have formal clearance from the club, we will make sure that the designated area is clearly advertised and displayed. We are getting together a draught this weekend to send to the main board in an effort to get a formal statement of intent as regards the clubs current plight...this before the Annual AGM which is at the Valley 11.30am next Wednesday 28th January. We will make everyone aware of the reply via the website and on forums such as this and ADU.
We are endeavouring to make sure that at least one member of the forum will attend all meetings in relation to the club, starting with the target 40,000 AGM this coming Monday when Gary Davenport will be the rep. Gary himself was a child of the succesful Target 10,000 campaign back in the 90's. 40,000 may well be pie in the sky at the moment, but there is nothing quite like planning for a brighter future. Just to finish up, its all a work in progress, nothing as yet is cast in stone and of course if anybody has any constructive ideas to help the fledgling forum along, we would welcome them.
Please feel free to contact any of the forum reps, regardless of their postion in the stadium, we are all trying to pull together and improve the communications between us as fans and the club.
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Comments
was you able to get served at the bar?
:-)
BTW Minutes of last meeting contact details etc all here
http://www.cafc.co.uk/newsview.ink?nid=33648
Just to confirm the key point - we believe that fans desperately need a 'Statement of Intent' from the Club regarding the short, medium and long-term strategy. Do we plan to gamble to beat relegation, are we planning for a League 1 future next season, are the Club considering administration and is there an active programme to attract potential financial suitors etc etc?
In order to draw this 'Statement of Intent' from the Club, we believe that the Fans' Forum needs to prepare a formal communication on your behalf to the Club covering these (and other) specific points, and we intend to produce a draft over the weekend and then finalise, deliver and widely publicise early next week. This should allow an opportunity for response at Wednesday's AGM and at other opportunities in the near future.
Weegies alternative plan of action has been online for perhaps a couple of hours.....at the time of posting its had 43 comments......all in the main negative....
Yet here we have a vessel that will be bought to the attention of the main board by the fans forum and we have 12 comments, and four of those are from me! :-)
Why not turn your attention folks to positive thoughts, that just might get listened to?
Here is Dave Rudds Post again.......
We will be completely ineffective chaps if you dont give us your thoughts and input.
So, lets hear from you guys.......We need to put this in front of the club by Monday.
that said if you are after input then I will be happy to add some.
Then once something is there, then open it up for views etc, otherwise there is the risk that things go off at a tangent, and not concentrate on the specifics that would benefit you.
:-)
The forum is about you as fans, not just the opinions of the 6 or 7 representatives...please feel free to make some suggestions
1. There appears to be a great deal of emphasis on looking for further financial investment in the club. To those from afar it would appear that this has led to the board taking the eye off the ball with regards to working towards success on the playing side. Do the board accept this view and what steps have been taken to ensure this does not continue?
No, we pay you to come up with ideas and then we shoot them down. That's how it works. : - )
If we are looking for a statement of intent then that should be turned round to something like.
While we will continue to seek further external investment we remain committed to running the club on a balanced budget with no further debt while aiming to build a successful football team capable of challenging for promotion back to the premier league.
I feel a bit to close to this so someone else can have a go but that was my understanding of what was meant by a statement of intent
Mate I thought it a bit weird, but its in the remit and Gary, Im sure will do a good job. We also got some intereting statistics through from Lars in Sweden which Im sure Gary will take with him.
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I posted before Kigelia hence my comment.
I have now withdrawn both my question and comment.
- Based on the kind of input which the reps have received or discerned over the past few weeks and months, we believe that we can already prepare a draft communication which adequately reflects the key issues and strength of feeling of the majority. To that end, we are not actively seeking additional input, although further comment will be gladly received as re-inforcement. I will prepare that draft by Sunday night.
- The draft will be shared with the Fans' Forum reps on Sunday night with the plan of fine-tuning it before it is then delivered to the Club before the AGM, and ideally early on Monday. We do not plan or expect to try to get consensus from a large number of fans because this will slow the process, making the AGM target impossible to meet. We also believe that we can already adequately reflect the majority views.
- We will immediately publicise the final communication which goes to the Club. Again, this will happen on Monday and can be posted here, on the Fans' Forum website (currently being finalised over the weekend) and anywhere else that is thought suitable.
The expectation is that this communication can then be referred to, as required, at Wednesday's AGM and at any other subsequent meeting or opportunity in the immediate future. We also hope that the Club will respond to it in its own right by providing the 'Statement of Intent' (which I anticipate will be a lot more detailed than Henry's one-liner above) as soon as possible.
One key point to make ....... if we are less than impressed with any outcome from the Club, it may fall to the likes of us to help develop the strategy which seems to be so sorely missing.
Be ready for the call to arms.
not necessarily. the sponsorship and the kit design are 2 different things. the kit designs would have been decided already and kept under wraps. if and when jd renew the sponsorship the logo would fit on the shirt and the sponsors do not necessarily have any say in what the kit looks like, only their logo.
I've hardly been in London for the past 3 weeks, dealing with events (SWP students invading the stage at one of them), regional staff and meeting hotel groups, that I've hardly had a chance to think about the forum, so apologises to all!
see you tmrw, i'm hopefully dropping your tickets to Buckshee on my way home tonight.