KM and Murray to meet with fans

It feels we are pretty much exactly where we were 9 months ago.

Things turning sour, the supporters collectively on the verge of progressing discontent from individual grumbles to something more co-ordinated. Then, the instant reaction was to draft in a teenage interviewer, and to hastily organise a (very-controlled) VIP meeting. This time it is to get some figures in the programme and to hotchpotch a Q+A event.

Personally, I think the ongoing rebuttal to directly engage in with the Supporters Trust is just completely and utterly nonsensical. Unless you are prejudiced by dislike of individuals involved or the collective, I genuinely can’t see how anyone can see any different. We are routinely told now that football is a business, and everyone knows the importance to a business of maintaining a good relationship with your customers (unless you are CAFC or South Eastern). Here you have an organised, educated group representing a significant amount of CAFC’s ‘customers’. The Club should be falling over themselves to try and engage with this group, not the other way around. It is just so wrong (imo).

As for this hastily scrambled Q+A. On the positive side, it does prove the Club a) has an awareness of discontent, and b) is reactive, and c) it does give some opportunity for issues to be raised with (almost) the right people and for them to provide responses.

However, the Clubs actions at the start of the year when trying to look back objectively now, were reactive; short-term measures to head off the discontent at the time. As the form picked up and mood improved, no real follow-through was seen beyond that point (culminating with where we are now).

The cynical part of me thinks there is particular concern about the possibility and impact of protests, particularly for the Ipswich game, and we are again in a period where the approach is not ‘what we can do to address things for the better going forward’, but ‘what can we do to nip this in the bud’. A wider Q+A lends the opportunity for much less detailed scrutiny of issues, comeback to responses etc as the process will be encouraged to move on (imo).

And the randomly selected audience part is just bizarre. If you invited 50 people off Charlton’s database (taking into account location, age, other responsibilities, availability, interest etc) if they wanted to attend a Q+A midweek at The Valley, for one reason or another, you’d probably get around 48 rejections. And how many are we talking? 5? 20? 100? All very vague, and my suspicion would be that the approach to widen is an attempt to dilute proceedings.

However, I’ll add that my cynicism may prove unfair, but it is has been brought about by a rising level of distrust. It may well prove to be a very effective and promising event, and may just be the start in a series of measures and actions that the Club continue to reunite with supporters.

Let’s see what those actions are or whether this is just another lip-service attempt.

Well...that escalated quickly from my last post!! I'm sure there's a pic out there somewhere for that!

I have just spent he afternoon in a meeting with two very large law firms on the brink of merging. My little brain, unfortunately, may struggle to understand the issues at stake here and perhaps I should turn down any potential invitation to be a "random supporter". I should probably not be reviewing docs for Prague/all of us anymore when it comes to the LLDC and OS either!

I have spent 30 years in one organisation and I abhor internal politics and avoid them like the plague. Probably explains why I only got so far, but it's far enough for me. For the same reason, I have avoided fan groups and other "clubs, associations, political groups and cliques"! Does that mean that I am uninterested and ignorant? (that's rhetorical by the way, so don't bother responding).

It has already been pointed out that there is a lot of arrogance and assumptions in some posts on here. It's wonderful that we have "active" supporters. I applaud them and I always have done. We wouldn't have seen some of the wonderful times recently without people like @Airman Brown and many others and I do not disregard the efforts that @razil put in for the Trust and certainly not @PragueAddick.

In the same way, I would be grateful if people did not disregard and put down supporters who are not members of any active group. With the best will in the world, they outnumber you by many thousands. Try seeing if they get involved in this and the outcomes and listen to them before dismissing them out of hand.