WATR (The Rovers Trust)

[oldjamfan1]

13 hours ago, J*B said:

Great to see lots of old faces and meet some new ones. Some great discussion..!

Yes it was good to see a few BRFCS posters there, even though I could only join by video link. I hope all the presentations gave people food for thought. Some great questions asked as well. We need to keep our strategic focus, keep hammering the marketing issues and increase membership numbers as key objectives this year.

[damo100]

39 minutes ago, oldjamfan1 said:

Yes it was good to see a few BRFCS posters there, even though I could only join by video link. I hope all the presentations gave people food for thought. Some great questions asked as well. We need to keep our strategic focus, keep hammering the marketing issues and increase membership numbers as key objectives this year.

When will we see the minutes of the meeting?

[Leonard Venkhater]

7 hours ago, oldjamfan1 said:

Yes it was good to see a few BRFCS posters there, even though I could only join by video link. I hope all the presentations gave people food for thought. Some great questions asked as well. We need to keep our strategic focus, keep hammering the marketing issues and increase membership numbers as key objectives this year.

I know who you are now lol

[oldjamfan1]

A quick reminder that you can join the Trust here https://www.roverstrust.com/registration-page/

[RoversClitheroe]

12 hours ago, Leonard Venkhater said:

I know who you are now lol

Creepy 

[Leonard Venkhater]

32 minutes ago, RoversClitheroe said:

Creepy 

He was appearing on a giant screen!

[Mhead2]

22 hours ago, damo100 said:

When will we see the minutes of the meeting?

Our minute taker went on holiday the next day.......will chase him up on wednesday 29th.

So July 4th is a sorter answer....... on www.roverstrust.co.uk

[1864roverite]

any updates regarding the minutes being circulated?

[We Are The Rovers]

Annual General Meeting: Wednesday 22 June 2022 at Billington& Whalley Brass Band Club, from 7.30pm.

 

Present: Chair John Murray and 19 Members

Guest: Josh Boswell(brfcs)

 

Apologies: Andy Young(via Zoom), Anthony Green, Tracey Crouch MP  

 

 

1/Welcome & Introductions 

 

In welcoming all attendees,John Murray referred to the following matters which would be discussed at the AGM and in which the Trust were involved:

 

Fan Led Review 

Football Supporters Association AGM on 16 July 2022

Membership of the Trust 650 members 

Asset of Community Value (ACV) on Ewood Park to be renewed in 2023

Marketing Prospectus, 2nd Edition sent to Club in April 2022

Role of the Trust as a “critical friend” to ensure the long-term health of our Football Club.

 

2/Fan Led Review  

 

A Zoom Slide presentation from Andy Young outliningthe 36 recommendations published by the Review body.The Trust had submitted its views to the Review Committee, which had been chaired by Tracey Crouch MP, who unfortunately had been unable to attend the AGM. She had submitted her Report to the Government ( currently Secretary of State for Media Culture & Sport Nadine Dorries). The Government has promised a White Paper this summer with it largely endorsing most of theReview

 

The Trust had written to all local MPs and havingreceived a reply from Kate Hollern, MP for Blackburn also had a Zoom meeting with her.

 

Q& A’s 

 

The EPL and EFL are lobbying MP’s regarding the Review. The EPL are against the proposal of an independent regulator but it will be in the White Paper.

 

The Government would select members to theindependent regulator.

 

Rick Parry, Chair of the EFL has proposed alternatives to the current method of parachute payments.

 

Gender and ethnicity included in the Review.

 

The importance of strategic discussions between the Trust and BRFC was stressed. The Club was supportive of the Review. Needed to be taken to the

 

Fans Forum and any Fans Consultation Meetings to be discussed with BRFC. Members were still sceptical of liaison with the Club, especially the Consultation Event.

It was agreed that a key aim of the Trust was to be professional and strategic in order to be the key body to be representative of the fans on any future structure, whether Rovers Board or Shadow Board.

 

3/AGM Formalities  

 

Financial Position:

Bank Account £15,521 

Paypal              £  1,547

 

Sponsorship has been provided to 4000 Holes fanzine, brfcs website and Rovers Radio. The Trust is keen to eliminate ’in fighting’ amongst the fans and fan groups

 

Josh from brfcs requested content from the Trust for the website.

 

Confirmation that the Trust is a Community Interest Society and it is mandatory to charge an annual membership fee. Of its 650 members( up slightly since 2021) up to 200 thought they were automatically paying the annual fee, and the Trust was trying slowly to sort this out.

 

2022/23 Board

 

Elected from 2021 were J.Murray(Chair); D.Miller; M. Ellison; A.Young

 

Standing for Election were A. Green(from 2020 Board) and P.Bolton(for re-election). This brought the Board up to 6, plus M.Graham as co-opted Board member. The Board therefore has the ability to co-opt 5 more Members.

 

Officers for 2022/23 were: P.Ridehalgh(new Secretary); P. Dickinson(  Treasurer); and M.O’Neill (IT Support). John Murray said he had other persons to meet re skills in Crowdfunding and liaison with Members

 

9 Newsletters had been produced by the Trust since the last AGM.

5 Board Meetings had been held during an Omichron-affected year. The Trust Board meeting in May had included Rovers CEO, Steve Waggott. After considerable discussion on the CEO’s role and performance, it was agreed that the Trust needed to meet with BRFC staff to properly be the ‘critical friend’!

 

Life membership was presented to OZ Jones who had been a founder member of the Trust and a Board member until 12 months ago.

 

 

 

4/ Inter-Action with Club

 

Slide presentation from Duncan Miller outlined research  findings on the fall in attendances and season ticket sales.

This led to a lengthy Q & A session

- Output of meetings with Club officials including Paul Fielder and Steve Waggott

- A general consensus that their is little understanding of the community and the clubs place within it

- Need for better engagement from the Trust and a more diverse board if we are to be truly representative 

- Discussion around long term aims re ownership/board representation 

Marketing Prospectus to be updated and presented to BRFC again in October 2022. The current Edition on Trust web-site: - Comments  and ideas still requested

 

5/Trust Priorities 

 

Fan Led Review 

ACV on Ewood Park

Increase social media content of Trust

Continue support of 4000 Holes to attract membership

Consideration on streaming 2023 AGM

Increase membership to 1000

 

Safe Standing was debated, especially in a 2/3rds empty stadium. It was coupled with the State of the Riverside as a priority. The Chair suggested that US stadia had ‘bleachers’ areas, and with the rise in prices on the decaying Riverside, this needed to be pushed –linking it to pricing issues and Safe Standing.

 

6/Any Other Business

 

Trust should develop plans for 150th anniversary of BRFC in 2025. It is believed that an unofficial group has already been formed by BRFC. This was linked to the Heritage Agenda the Trust was taking leadership on, but we do need ‘early wins’.

 

Discussion re season ticket offering and specifically the costs for Under 25’s and Under 11’s ., with comparisons to PNE mentioned.

 

AGM ended at 2145 and adjourned for informal discussions.

[JPTSwindon]

Thanks for sharing the minutes.

Any of the other MP’s responded since the meeting?

[oldjamfan1]

36 minutes ago, JPTSwindon said:

Thanks for sharing the minutes.

Any of the other MP’s responded since the meeting?

Not to me (and I was the one who wrote to them) but tbh I wouldn’t expect them to now. 

[oldjamfan1]

In case anyone didn't see this in the latest Trust newsletter, there has been an interesting development at Liverpool FC, with the announcement of their 'shadow board' of supporters. This is what we should be pushing for at the Rovers, with the Trust being well placed to fulfil the Spirit of Shankly role. 

LFC’s Supporters Board is a legally binding commitment from LFC to structure strategic engagement with supporters, strengthen dialogue and increase fan involvement in decision-making processes, all of which is integral in future-proofing the club.

Back in December 2021, LFC announced the intention to launch an industry-leading Supporters Board following extensive consultation with representatives of Spirit of Shankly, the club’s official supporters trust. The commitment to engage with fans will be enshrined in the club’s Articles of Association.  

LFC has committed to consult and engage with fans on key strategic issues such as matchday experience, ticketing arrangements and to give fans consent over two heritage items. The Supporters Board representatives are obliged to represent everyone within the club’s diverse fanbase in this engagement process and have been elected from organised Liverpool FC fan groups.  

The representatives are 10 elected members of Spirit of Shankly and six elected members from other fan organisations or experts in their field. The non-Spirit of Shankly groups represented are:

·         Liverpool Disabled Supporters Association

·         Kop Outs

·         Liverpool FC Women Supporters Club

·         Official Liverpool Supporters Club (OLSC) Glasgow (elected by OLSC group chairs)

·         Spion Kop 1906 (a group of fans responsible for many of the flags and banners seen regularly on The Kop and trips away and abroad.)

·         One independent member (an expert on equality issues)

 Representatives will be in place for two-year terms. 

The Rovers Trust has been in touch with Joe Blott, the chair of Spirit of Shankly and the Supporters Board, and he is going to provide further information as to how they got into the position of negotiating such a strong position with the club and deciding who the reps were going to be.

People's thoughts on whether this can and should be replicated with the Rovers would be welcome.

 

[Upside Down]

This should be mandatory for every club.

[We Are The Rovers]

For over a decade, the Blackburn Rovers Supporters Trust has been imploring the owners and those they have charged with running the club to engage with the wider supporter base and to listen to our concerns over the way the club operates.

The last 48 hours have once again demonstrated a distinct lack of care and attention from those entrusted with the running of the club, and by extension, the owners. The debacle surrounding the failed deadline day signings is another example of incompetence and an inability to perform the basic duties necessary to provide a functioning football club.

The fans, without whom the club would serve no purpose, have been left in limbo, let down and treated as an irrelevance. We deserve better than farcical situations like this. Having witnessed a poor second half to last season, there was something of a renewed sense of optimism surrounding the summer appointments at the club, now the remainder of our season appears to have been sabotaged by carelessness.

AGAIN, we implore the club to engage with us. Swathes of empty seats, closed stands, record low gates since the Ewood redevelopment, should all be an indicator of current supporter feeling. We have attempted to convey the mood of the fans and offered ideas, initiatives, and assistance to help address this. However, embarrassing situations like this will only serve to turn apathy into anger. The fans are the beating heart of any club - WE ARE THE ROVERS – but after over a decade of neglect and disappointment, many of us have never felt so detached from the club.

Change is long overdue. We expect the individual(s) responsible for this latest fiasco to be held accountable. On the back of the excellent fan-led review of football governance and the imminent Government White Paper, The Rovers Supporters Trust calls on the club to form a strategic alliance with a wide range of elected supporters in the form of a shadow board, with the Blackburn Rovers Supporters Trust at the heart of it to ensure the long term future of the club.

[CoconutGrove]

Might be a stupid question (apologies if so) but is the Rovers Trust similar to the Blackburn Rovers Action Group (BRAG) that @glen9mullan was apart of around a decade ago?

Whilst I didn’t always agree with their protests (some of them I did and attended myself), they were very much persistent and brought national coverage to the issues at the club.

The last few years has shown that the shambles from inside the club hasn’t changed that much from when Jerome A and his cronies were here. 

Waggott (with his ST prices, poor recruitment and general incompetence) needs to be told that it appears a lot of people have reached the end of their tether with this regime.

Will protests be planned for Waggott and Venkys in the near future as I feel even the most forgiving of supporters have finally had enough?

[rigger]

1 hour ago, CoconutGrove said:

Might be a stupid question (apologies if so) but is the Rovers Trust similar to the Blackburn Rovers Action Group (BRAG) that @glen9mullan was apart of around a decade ago?

Whilst I didn’t always agree with their protests (some of them I did and attended myself), they were very much persistent and brought national coverage to the issues at the club.

The last few years has shown that the shambles from inside the club hasn’t changed that much from when Jerome A and his cronies were here. 

Waggott (with his ST prices, poor recruitment and general incompetence) needs to be told that it appears a lot of people have reached the end of their tether with this regime.

Will protests be planned for Waggott and Venkys in the near future as I feel even the most forgiving of supporters have finally had enough?

The best protest is not to buy tickets for home games, or season tickets next season.

[Miller11]

3 hours ago, CoconutGrove said:

Might be a stupid question (apologies if so) but is the Rovers Trust similar to the Blackburn Rovers Action Group (BRAG) that @glen9mullan was apart of around a decade ago?

Whilst I didn’t always agree with their protests (some of them I did and attended myself), they were very much persistent and brought national coverage to the issues at the club.

The last few years has shown that the shambles from inside the club hasn’t changed that much from when Jerome A and his cronies were here. 

Waggott (with his ST prices, poor recruitment and general incompetence) needs to be told that it appears a lot of people have reached the end of their tether with this regime.

Will protests be planned for Waggott and Venkys in the near future as I feel even the most forgiving of supporters have finally had enough?

As a member of the Supporters Trust Board, I’ll answer this…

The Trust is a different entity to the action group. I was a member of both, as was Glen, who acted as the Trust Secretary for many years and is still a valued member. The Trust is a little bit different in the way that it’s structured and registered. We are legally a Trust, rather than a group, and are open to anyone aged 18 or over.

We are a registered Co-operative and Community Benefit Society regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and operate on a one member, one vote basis. We have an elected board and a membership of over 1,000.

Our main objective will always be to push for supporter involvement and influence within the club. There’s some more detail here…

https://www.roverstrust.com/faqs/

The direction we take is really driven by what our membership mandates. We do have regular meetings with the club, and have two scheduled this month around the fan led review into football governance, and another with the marketing department on ticket offerings and price, general marketing, and engagement with fans.

[RoversClitheroe]

On 02/02/2023 at 20:50, Miller11 said:

The direction we take is really driven by what our membership mandates. We do have regular meetings with the club, and have two scheduled this month around the fan led review into football governance, and another with the marketing department on ticket offerings and price, general marketing, and engagement with fans.

Are these things worthwhile? 

Feel like the club is a shambles.

When I read the Fans Forum minutes even that shows SW inability to lead the club as CEO, it's constant "we'll get back to you" gives off the impression he hasn't a clue.

[Miller11]

Just now, RoversClitheroe said:

Are these things worthwhile? 

Feel like the club is a shambles.

When I read the Fans Forum minutes even that shows SW inability to lead the club as CEO, it's constant "we'll get back to you" gives off the impression he hasn't a clue.

Here’s an honest answer, which I must stress is my personal opinion.

So far, perhaps not. If discussions had been taken on board we wouldn’t have as expensive season tickets as we are currently seeing. Some suggestions have been taken on board, but nowhere near as often as we’d like.

I’m hopeful that there will be a positive change of the back of the fan led review. The upcoming government white paper is a big deal for us. Hopefully it will result in clubs having to commit to meaningful engagement with a broad range of fans. Hopefully it’s a start in breaking down the siege mentality that exists at Ewood. 

[Gav]

On 02/02/2023 at 18:47, rigger said:

The best protest is not to buy tickets for home games, or season tickets next season.

The best protest is not to go at all rigger.

[rigger]

11 minutes ago, Gav said:

The best protest is not to go at all rigger.

Exactly

[jim mk2]

15 minutes ago, rigger said:

Exactly

Disagree. Does long term damage to the club. People get out of the habit of going and supporter base shrinks. The team needs support, not the people running the club. Fans should be doing the opposite and attending in greater numbers and making their feelings known through protests / banners etc. I’m not saying any of this will lead to change or get through to the owners but fans staying away doesn’t help anyone least of all the long term future of BRFC

[rigger]

35 minutes ago, jim mk2 said:

Disagree. Does long term damage to the club. People get out of the habit of going and supporter base shrinks. The team needs support, not the people running the club. Fans should be doing the opposite and attending in greater numbers and making their feelings known through protests / banners etc. I’m not saying any of this will lead to change or get through to the owners but fans staying away doesn’t help anyone least of all the long term future of BRFC

Yes, but it keeps my money in my pockets.

[den]

Don’t underestimate the power of social media. 
 

Political parties are well aware.

[R0verb0y]

On 05/02/2023 at 19:35, den said:

Don’t underestimate the power of social media. 
 

Political parties are well aware.

Given (not referring to a former Reserve keeper, btw!😉) the way that the Borough Council commemorates the club:

★ at least two former players' - and Jack Walker's - names are commemorated in street names;

★ Rovers are mentioned on the identity boards on all roads (afaik) leading into the Borough from neighbouring authorities;

★ the Arkwright Bridge is painted blue and white;

★ last year, The Shuttle (the Council's magazine which was distributed gratis to, afaik, every household in the Borough) had an article about establishing trade links with Conceptión - Chile's 3rd(?)-largest city on the back of BBD's international development;

there may well be scope for involving them in any celebrations of Rovers' 150th anniversary - definitely Lancashire's Most Historic Football Club (as I take every opportunity of reminding my Burnleh-supporting former schoolmate in New Zealand) during our Sunday WhatsApp phone conversations.