News Update from Chairman Paul Corkrey
Chairman Paul Corkrey outlines the latest news from the Trust including an update from the quiz night, General Meeting news, an update on the Open meeting held this week and massive news regarding Trust membership numbers.
General Knowledge Quiz
The Trust’s general knowledge quiz, which took place at the Duke of Clarence public house in Canton, Cardiff, on Friday 29th January, was a great success. Over a hundred people turned up on the night and a good time was had by all. The quiz, which was compiled by Vice-Chairman Tim Hartley and his wife Helen, raised a total of £332.00 for the Supporters’ Trust. Many thanks to all of the members who were involved in setting up this event, and extra special thanks to Duke of Clarence landlord Eric Harmer, who once again allowed the Trust to use his facilities free of charge.
General Meeting of Shareholders
On Sunday 31st January, Trust board members Dave Sugarman and Tracey Marsh spent around eight hours drawing up and sending out letters to all of the club’s top one hundred shareholders in support of the Trust’s bid to call a General Meeting of Cardiff City Football Club (Holdings) Limited. Grateful thanks to Dave and Tracey for carrying out what was a laborious but essential piece of work. There have been reports in the South Wales press this week suggesting the football club’s board is set to call a General Meeting in relation to the proposed land sale that has been agreed with the council. If those reports are true, then it is brilliant news for the Trust. We will update you of any further developments in due course.
Open Meeting
As you are probably aware, the Trust held an Open Meeting at the Duke of Clarence last Monday evening. Around a hundred fans attended the event and plenty signed up with the Trust on the night. Along with my fellow board members Keith Morgan and Dave Sugarman, I addressed the audience regarding the current situation at the club and the Trust’s bid to call for a General Meeting, and I then invited questions and opinions from the floor. The open forum lasted over an hour and a half, during which time some strong views were expressed and some excellent ideas were shared. In my opinion, this meeting proved to be a very constructive one and it certainly helped the Trust board to prepare for the General Meeting. It is our intention to call another meeting once the date for the General Meeting is known. You will be given details of where and when that meeting will be held soon.
Membership Numbers
I’m delighted to report that there has been a huge increase in the number of fans who have signed up with the Trust during recent weeks. At the time of writing, the number of registered members we have now stands at 731. Mr Phil Norman of Plymouth was registered as Trust member number 700 on Tuesday evening. I would like to offer Phil and all the fans who have signed up this year a very warm welcome to the Cardiff City Supporters’ Trust. Your support is very much appreciated, as, of course, is the support of all our other members.
The more members the Trust has, the more influence it could have with the club’s officials and the more work we will be able to do for the fans and the club itself. Therefore, if you have any friends or relatives who you think might be interested in signing up, then please encourage them to do so. The recent upsurge in membership numbers has been very encouraging and I’m sure if we all do our bit to bring in more members we can keep the numbers rising.
The only downside of the recent increase in numbers is that Membership Secretary Dave Sugarman is constantly moaning he has too much work to do. Still, anyone who has met Dave will be aware that if he wasn’t moaning about that he’d be moaning about something else, so no harm done. If you have any queries about your current membership or if you are one of the small number of members whose membership has recently lapsed and needs to be renewed, then please drop Dave a line at members@ccfctrust.org
Online Memberships
Probably the best piece of Trust news this week is that an online membership option is now available. New members are able to sign up through the Trust’s website using the well-known PayPal system. Trust member Mike Morris, who runs the superb cardiffcity-mad.co.uk website, has worked extremely hard to provide this service for us and I think he’s done a fantastic job. My grateful thanks go to Mike and also to the Trust’s Community Officer, Tracey Marsh, who has been liaising with Mike while the work has been ongoing.
Tracey tells me that over 120 new members have already signed up since the system went live on Tuesday evening, so the Trust’s overall membership number is now almost certainly over 850 all told. With Tracey’s help, Dave Sugarman will start processing these applications when he returns from Newcastle on Saturday and he reckons he’ll have most if not all of the new members registered by the end of next week.
If you have any Trust-related queries at all, please get in touch with us at:
members@ccfctrust.org
Many thanks for your continued support.
Paul Corkrey
Chairman