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[Archived] Fans Forum Minutes

AndyNeil

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glen9mullan Champions League

glen9mullan

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In response to a question about the club's contact with the protest group PH stated that there was still an ongoing dialogue. The group had been offered a meeting with the club on the day of the Aston Villa game, provided there were no protests. Subsequently PH learned that protest marches were to be arranged, so cancelled the meeting after Glen Mullan refused to cancel the protest. The protest group had offered to not hold any protests for the next three home games in return for a meeting. PH planned to offer a meeting if there were no more protests for the remainder of the season, hence the stand-off. Any such meeting would be unofficial and not minuted as the Fans Forum is the only recognized Forum.

JN stated that he had had regular contact with the protest group to make arrangements for the protest marches to ensure the safety of both the protesters and of all fans attending games. There had been regular liaison with both police and stewards to facilitate the marches.

PH said that, whilst the club had no problems with properly organized protests outside the ground, there were difficulties with protests inside the ground because of the effect on team performance and the risk of confrontation between home fans with opposing views.

RW asked whether it was a strategy of the owners to be remote to prevent antagonism. PH responded that the owners were far from remote as they were in contact with staff at Ewood daily but they had not been attending matches recently. They had, however, sent guests to recent games. In response to a question from GO, PH stated that the protests had cost a considerable amount of extra money in police and steward costs.

Thought I would respond to point 3 as this is the turn of events the club would have you believe, the club said the following to me:

As regards the offer of stopping the protests for the next three games, I have this to say.

On the assumption that you still have control of the wider group I would say that you must renounce all protest from now on, both matchday and non-matchday. This means no banners and no attempt to bring banners into the ground. This also means no more protest marches.

The group must also release a statement and conduct the same level of media that they have for the rest of the campaign (TV, radio etc) to say that they are going to stop the protests "for the good of the club/to keep the team in the PL/to make matchdays as difficult as possible for the opposition etc etc". No mention of Venkys/Kean out should be made.

In return, we will:

Hold no further trials of the system adopted for the Villa game.

Release a statement saying that we appreciate the halting of the protests.

Meet a section of the group (the committee) to discuss post-season plans.

The meeting will be held at a mutually convenient time tbc between Liverpool game and the Norwich City game. This will be with myself and John Newsham and will not be minuted nor the discussion be released. This is a private meeting, not chaired independently.

There is absolutely no promise of meetings with the owners/manager.

Please let me know whether you accept these terms by Friday this week. If we cannot agree all these terms then we cannot progress. We both either need to agree now or move on.

Firstly as you can see we offered to halt protest as we have done ALL season, We sent the club an agenda they asked for in November, as soon as they saw the real questions which supporters want asking they went ducking and diving,

A quote from Hunt from December 15th "Further to our discussions that I think have been very productive, I am working on the dates for the meetings. Although I can promise you I have been working hard to deliver them, as I told you earlier, neither will take place this week. This is mainly due to the limited timeframe but also due to the fact that all energies are now focused on the games. This is the precise reason of course that the protests have been postponed."

A further conversation

"Hope you are well. Thanks for the email below and I am hopeful that I am now in a position to be able to deliver on the 4 requests below to be able to bring about the end of the protests.

I note that you have been asking for supporters' thoughts on what concessions they would like as solutions and to bring about the end of the protests. Hopefully, you have been getting some information that we can sit down and discuss early next week with a view to having the supporter meeting you wish us to have, as soon as we can. I have spoken to the council this week and they would like to support the initiative by offering up the council chamber for our discussion and they are prepared to chair it. I think this is a great idea and worth pursuing. Probably best to keep that to ourselves for now though. We must though ensure a respectable meeting that follows the agenda very closely if I am to get buy-in from other senior figures.

John is away on Monday but I am free late on Tuesday to have this pre-meeting where we could set the agenda for the supporter meeting.

I doubt that we would be able to set this supporter meeting up before the WBA game but ideally I would like you to call a halt to any protest you are considering for this game and the Bolton game (as a gesture of goodwill) and we will announce the supporter meeting that will take place w/c 19th December, in advance of the WBA game. We would not be able to back out of it then as was your concern as regards the last offer of dialogue.

Clearly we have the Sunderland game this weekend so just have a think about the halting of the protests offer I have made and we can discuss next week. If you are serious about wanting to bring about an end, then this is the best tactical retreat. In the meantime, I will also speak to Steve (Kean) about the possibility of meeting a small group of supporters to discuss football only.

Trust you have seen the various bits of external communication I have done of late to try and bridge the gap and that you are receptive towards it."

There was NO offer from us to not protest against Villa, we have offered to halt all protest on a number of occassions in return for a fully minuted meeting were the questions that supporters have can be put across and not ducked and dived by the club, We have NO interest in an unminuted meeting. We offered after the Villa game to halt ALL protest once again, and as usual the club are finding every excuse in the book to why they wont have the meeting minuted, despite saying live on the Radio they would.

This is a clear case of trying to con supporters to believe otherwise, Im at the point were I may just put all communication with the club out for public consumption, as I'm not too pleased that the body the club recognises in the fans forum, are not only being lied to, but the minutes are being put out for public consumption for others to read the same lies.

Regarding the stewarding of the Darwen End, we was not informed contrary to what the club says, and the only mention was at 5pm for our last match when Simon Littler phoned to ask if similar checks would be in place.

In Hunts offer above, you can clearly see that these heavy handed tactics were aimed at the Action Group, as he states if we bow to his demands that they would not do this again after the Villa game. We did not bow, hence they did it against Sunderland.

Im also not too pleased, that the minutes name me as an individual rather than the Action Group as a group, all action group decisions go through a committee and must be unainimous, so my name should not be getting used for open season at the club

Finally the Police cost etc, Rovers have two non police fixtures, Fulham and Norwich, Only one has been played, The club have the power to end all organised protest by answering the supporter concerns, something we have been trying to get them to do as openly and transparent as possible for 7 months. We will not give in, until we have the answers,

This is what has become of the club we support.,

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only2garners

only2garners

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I have read your post three times now Glen and the only statement that is in the minutes that you appear to disagree with is that the club say that they informed you about the desire to keep banners out of the Darwen End and you say they didn't. You might not like what they have said or agree with their approach but apart from the last sentence I can't see that anything you have posted has contradicted it.

I don't understand your point about police costs.

Also, if we are in the mode of publishing everything, people might like to know that the Forum invited you to both the last pre-meet and the meeting itself to come and express your opinion to the club in a minuted meeting and you refused to come. So BRAG has now turned down both an unminuted meeting and a minuted meeting with the club.

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glen9mullan Champions League

glen9mullan

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I have read your post three times now Glen and the only statement that is in the minutes that you appear to disagree with is that the club say that they informed you about the desire to keep banners out of the Darwen End and you say they didn't. You might not like what they have said or agree with their approach but apart from the last sentence I can't see that anything you have posted has contradicted it.

I don't understand your point about police costs.

Also, if we are in the mode of publishing everything, people might like to know that the Forum invited you to both the last pre-meet and the meeting itself to come and express your opinion to the club in a minuted meeting and you refused to come. So BRAG has now turned down both an unminuted meeting and a minuted meeting with the club.

You obviously have not read it properly then, The club states they agreed a meeting and then we organised a protest, this is NOT TRUE, the offer came after the Villa game, following the offer for the Bolton, WBA Stoke games, which we was true to our word only for the club to go back on it.

You indeed did invite me to your Fans Forum meeting, and I declined as I have in the past, Perhaps you should come to a BRAG meeting??? Bottom line, we have agreed numerous things with the club, but only BRAG have honoured these agreements,

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glen9mullan Champions League

glen9mullan

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Will it be publicised this time?

It was publicised last time on message boards, twitter, FB and by posters in and around the venue, unfortunately things like this are not deemed news to go in the newspaper, so its very difficult to get word out,

It will of course be on our NEW website

www.brfcactiongroup.co.uk

as are all minutes from committee meetings,

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HemelRover Uefa Europa League

HemelRover

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It was publicised last time on message boards, twitter, FB and by posters in and around the venue, unfotunately things like this are deemed news to go in the newspaper, so its very difficult to get word out,

It will of course be on our NEW website

www.brfcactiongroup.co.uk

as are all minutes from committee meetings,

Splendid.

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only2garners

only2garners

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We have an open floor meeting in the middle of April, and a committee meeting at the beginning of April, you are more than welcome to attend either or both, your attendance and anyone else's would be more than welcome

Thanks. If I'm available I'll come.

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Ricky World Cup

Ricky

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Hoping this one isn't advertised in a locked filing cabinet in a damp basement of a long closed Council office.

And you must be chuffed about the season ticket offer glen, maybe you can treat yourself to one this season.

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glen9mullan Champions League

glen9mullan

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Hoping this one isn't advertised in a locked filing cabinet in a damp basement of a long closed Council office.

And you must be chuffed about the season ticket offer glen, maybe you can treat yourself to one this season.

I renewed my season ticket earlier this season, and will of course be renewing next season, as for advertising, I'm reliably told its already on the groups website

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glen9mullan Champions League

glen9mullan

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Those yellow and black T shirts and scarfs must have returned a tidy profit then.

Heard a rumour BRAG had split up, or was it just another group. There's been so many I lose track.

I had nothing to do with the T-shirts or scarfs, as they were done by Gift Print in accrington, their profit I dont know, whilst a gentleman also sold them for face value too, in fact as he delivered most of them for free prob lost loads.

No Brag aint split up, quite the opposite, lots going on at present and everyone mad busy. Only recent change is we have changed website, due to it not being under Brag ownership, which made it difficult to run as a committee, whilst we are also putting 2 extra places up for election on the committee very soon

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glen9mullan Champions League

glen9mullan

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Quelle suprise a thread on the fans Forum becomes all about BRAG.

Good work to the chaps and chapesses on the forum, sounds a good range of topics covered and good to see a professional set of minutes in contrast to the he said, she said nonsense.

It has not turned into a Brag thread by Brag members :blush: I just pointed out that the untruths in the answers the club gave the FF regarding protest, If they (The Club) are gonna put it out in the public domain then we are quite in our right to dispute it and provide the supporting evidence

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