Open Meeting - Sat 3rd 2pm

There will be food available after the meeting.

Unfortunately I am no longer able to attend today but looking forward to the reports.

To be fair, Subway's are probably the best of a bad bunch.....

casseroles ..COYB

Please god no don't turn this into another piegate 

I enjoyed that meeting. It started with Simon Olorenshaw introducing himself back onto the board as well as Mark Howell, Jeff Banks and Calvin Hughes. Andrew Morris went through some slides telling us about the survey results. Over 600 people completed the survey and the feedback sounds very promising. Andy is hoping to send all of the replies back in the next couple of days. There are various working groups now set up to bring ideas forward on how this club can grow even more. After the survey update the board then introduced themselves and how they are going to bring the club forward. As Grenville said in his passionate speech, the board are all volunteers as well as having important jobs outside of our club, and they should be respected for stepping up and helping this club getting back on its feet. Grenville also said that he is more than happy to help the new board. Guy Lister then stood up to say how important this club is to our city. He said that we are going to be working hard to promote the club in and around the city to create the next generation of supporters. At the meeting, the room was packed out with older supporters with little younger supporters there. Next time we have an open meeting, we need the room to have a mixture of young and older fans. One day these fans won’t be here sadly, but we need to build a platform to encourage our next generation of supporters to be involved with the club. Guy also said that the club is going to be continuing our relationship with the University, and he’s taking a group of young people from his church to the Eastleigh game in 2 weeks time. He said that they didn’t even know that the city had a football club, but hopefully they will come back regularly.
A CFU member (can’t remember his name sadly) stood up at the front to talk about working groups. He said that Deva Chat comes up with great ideas about raising funds etc. but never gets touched on by the club. He said that a ‘Deva chat ideas website’ could possibly be launched so the club can pick up on suggestions about how we can grow even more.
Then someone else talked to us about hospitality, mascot packages etc. They said that the same old people are turning up for hospitality each home game, and they want the legends lounge to be packed with new faces from now on. Also for the charity game in 2 weeks time, 22 mascot packages will be allocated at £120 per head (11 mascots for each team). All of the money will go directly to the club and details will be launched soon.
The ‘100 club’ has completely gone out of the water now, but a ‘pitch club’ thing when companies sponsor the club is to be launched soon. I can’t remember fully what it is about now but something along those lines will be announced. Interestingly Mark Maguire wasn’t there today.
Jim Green spoke about how well the community trust is evolving. They received £18,000 this week from the premier league, which is really good. I’m sure some of that money will be used to help us out. A fan zone is set to be in place soon. It will include membership forms, music and Jim said that some former players could attend sometimes. The ‘centre of excellence’ boxes in the West Stand will be used for children before home games. They will have Xbox’s, PlayStations etc. so children can play on them.
Calum McIntyre talked about the youth set-up. He went through slides on the scholars’ schedule and how they prepare for games. Also he went on about Sam Hughes and our past academy graduates’ successes.
Marcus Bignot answered some fans’ questions. It’s clear that he has had to work on very little with his ‘hands tied up.’ Someone enquired about a scouting network. Marcus said that he has people in the South, Midlands, North West and North East who he pays to go to scout players at matches. Also he said that Ross Thorpe left this week due to costs, so Marcus is now working on his own. It was funny when one fan complained about lack of width. ‘’We only have Craig Mahon so why can’t we have Chapell back’’ he said 😂. Marcus was amused too.
But it was a good meeting and it’s clear that we are heading in the right direction. It’s only the start, though.
COYB!!

Lupus is still seen at the ground but not as much as he/she used to be which is a shame as the kids and disabled area loved seeing Lupus on matchdays

Grenville gave a great speach early on about supporting board and was bang on. His 2nd speach towards Marcus about training etc was really awkward and unnecessary.

I think the boxes will be redeveloped so that they will be safe, and lupus is still around on a matchday. We could do with him around the city centre though promoting matches in a fun way.

Our club chaplain.

without sounding too negative should there not be an official annoucement from the club that Ross Thorpe has left his job ? or have i just missed the news from the club
dave powell normally reports news of this nature and i dont recall seeing anything on his twitter feed either

Was the meeting well attended?

Came away feeling really positive. Great to see so many well known faces on the board, who not only have the credibility but also the desire to move things forward. Let's hope that once we have survived this initial period that we can keep them engaged as their skills are crucial to sustaining momentum. Today restored a lot of faith. Perhaps this situation was just what was required to remove the apathy that has engulfed the club over the past couple of years.

Just to pick up these points.

1) The box that will be refurbished is not one of the problematic ones. This is the smaller pitch facing box at the rear of the West Stand nearest the Harry McNally Terrace. It was last used as the Centre of Excellence room. This is next to the designated Fanily Zone so will link into this as part of a better offer for this area (which will include improved promotion/marketing).

2) Lupus is still around and has been out to schools. Unfortunately he doesn’t cope well with the wet so if it’s raining on matchdays it’s difficult to have him appear but he has been out at games this season with better weather and should be there for the next game (weather permitting!). The suggestion of taking him into the city centre is something we are looking at. He did visits an event at Storyhouse and was very popular!