Here’s a great opportunity for young Trust members and their folks to be on the pitch before the Deportivo game and get up close and personal with Peter Whittingham! The Trust bought a Golden Boot trophy in recognition of Peter’s outstanding haul of goals for the Bluebirds last season. Due to the play-offs, we were unable to present it to him until now but arrangements have been made to finally get it done, on the pitch before the pre-season friendly with Deportivo on Saturday 31st July. If you’ve bought tickets for the game and you’re a Trust member with kids under 16 who would like to be involved in the presentation, please email us at help@ccfctrust.org. Be quick because on Monday at 18:00 pm, we will select the lucky family group from the emails received. Please send your names and Trust member numbers in your email and keep your fingers crossed!
Trust Meeting to Approve 2009 Accounts
The Trust’s annual accounts for 2009 were approved at a meeting of members last night. In the period from August 2008 to December 2009, our income, mainly through membership subscriptions, was around £17,000. Expenditure was some £7,000 leaving a surplus of about £10,000. The biggest expenses during the period were on audit fees and stationery as well as the initial £1,000 we used to buy our first shares in the club. Since then, we have bought a further £5,000 worth of shares in the club.
Following the approval of the accounts, members had a chance to discuss how we can take the Trust forward during the coming season. Some really good ideas were suggested as to how we can recruit more fans to the Trust, offer greater benefits to members and improve communication with the Club and within the Trust. There was a suggestion to establish a Trust youth section and to hold member only events. We have already asked the club if current players can come to speak to supporters. The Andy Legg/Jason Perry evening was a great success and we want to build on this.
We will be asking the club if they can link directly from their website to ours so that we can recruit more members. Since we started, we have signed up some 900 members but we need to grow the membership and to retain the members who have joined. We are looking at the membership structure and the possibility of much closer links with the Supporters Club.
Ali Yassine suggested we could make more use of the announcements at half time and that the Trust might want to sponsor half-time events on the pitch. Thanks to Ali for that and I am sure we will follow this suggestion up. We are already planning to make a promotional film which we will be able to put on Youtube and our website. We hope a DVD of it can be played on the buses to away matches as a way of recruiting new members. We are also exploring the possibility of resurrecting a fans TV station along the lines of Valley rams TV with interviews and items about the City. The Trust communication group is working on an e-magazine for all members. Those who are not on email will receive a hard copy.
Thanks to everyone for attending last night. It was a lively meeting and all in all we have a lot of work going on. Trust Board members will be meeting the club in August so if you have any questions you want answering by the club, or you want to comment on how we take the Trust forward then please email us at help@ccfctrust.org
C’mon City!
Tim Hartley
Chair