Board Meeting Minutes | 20 February 2010
Last Updated on Sunday, 21 March 2010 14:03
PUBLIC RELEASE
SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY SUPPORTERS SOCIETY LTD
MINUTES OF THE SOCIETY BOARD
Meeting held in the 2nd Floor Meeting Room, SWFC, Hillsborough, Sheffield on 20 February 2010 at 5:00pm
PRESENT
JOHN GATH (JG) (Chairman)
PETER SHAW (PS) (Senior VC)
RICHARD DAVIES (RD) (Deputy VC)
PAUL HOLMES (PH) (Finance Director)
JEFF WILLIAMS (JW) (Services Director)
DAVE BARLOW (DAB) (Community Director)
DIANE COCKAYNE (DC) (Director)
IRMA KENNEDY (IK) (Director)
1. Apologies
Apologies were received from Darryl Keys and David Blunkett.
2. Minutes of previous meeting
The minutes of the board meeting held on 09 January 2010 were approved.
3. Communications and Correspondence
A report of JG's meeting with Spencer Taylor and Martin Bouchier had been circulated. The purpose of this meeting was to ask about the state of play with the ground developments. These are dependent on obtaining appropriate grants. Applications are being prepared for submission.
JG gave a verbal report on a brief meeting with Lee Strafford at which Lee updated on investment and the complications introduced by the league position.
PH reported on the Supporters Direct meeting he had attended on the previous day. This meeting was about the funding of football clubs and the financial problems and unfairness in the current football environment. The participants discussed the possibilities of returning football finance to a more sustainable condition with much more fan involvement. It is SD's intention to produce a 'Fairness in Football' manifesto which fans can support.
IK reported that the Flag was not available today, as it was being cleaned. A Wednesdayite member is now organising the Flag team and will be liaising with JR.
4. Updates / Reports
Volunteers: IK needs a new copy of the volunteers list. It was suggested that a distribution list should be set up and maintained on our external email database service.
Web Site: Still having problems with the web site - now displaying an old version and RD is working to update it to bring it back up-to-date. It was agreed that we should bring the site into local control as soon as possible and then consider alternative hosting if the problems continue.
Smile Tickets: DC reported that the process continues to run successfully, although by the very nature, there may be one or two last minute cancellations due to health issues. We have been asked if we can obtain tickets which could be used for raffle ticket prizes for charity events. It was agreed that the Smile Tickets should not be used this way but we would seek alternative sources of tickets for this purpose.
Away Coach: Now very popular and we have booked the new large coach on a regular basis. Bookings for the last away match to Cardiff are high and we made need more than one coach. JW encouraged as many directors as possible to join this one.
Car Park: DAB told us that it was going well but there are occasions when we are short staffed. IK suggested a rota for support for the match day duties but this requires more people to be available.
Lounge: Numbers are growing. We need to be preparing for next season and so we need to be asking the club about their plans. JC will be contacting the Niagara about the re-scheduled matches.
C2C Funds/Phil King's Charity Event: We need to be presenting the donations to SCH and the SWFC Community Fund. We will have £1000 for SCH which is made up of the gift-aid part of the C2C and £600 from the Charity event. RD will liaise with SCH about a presentation on the day of the Owls v Derby match. We will need to arrange a presentation of £600 to the SWFC Community Programme.
5. Events
Members Meeting - 25 February. Lee Strafford is booked to talk and answer questions. The event is advertised in the match day programme. Expected attendance was discussed and it was agreed that there would not be a problem as it was booked for the 1867 Lounge.
Wednesdayite Dinner - it will be necessary to take a decision on the date of this provisional event by next Thursday.
6. Election Management Group
This needs to be set up - already have a volunteer to be involved and the members of this group who acted last year had said that they were willing to be involved again. We need to put a request out for volunteers to email us to express an interest.
Three current board members will need to stand for election if they wish to continue. DAB, JW and DC.
7. Working Groups
JG asked for those indicated as responsible for the working groups to make sure that they were getting things underway. DAB reminded that there will be a meeting with ST to discuss Community issues on Thursday, immediately before the Members meeting and he asked for agenda items.
8. Any Other Business
PS introduced a project he is involved in to produce a book which will be used to raise funds for SCH and Wednesdayite. PS will discuss the logistics of this with RD so that Wednesdayite could help with publicity and liaison with SCH.
PAH asked for approval to purchase some Wednesdayite badged pens to be donated.
9. Date of Next Meeting
20 March 2010 at 5pm following the Derby match.
There being no other business, the meeting closed at 7.00pm
Note that if any headed section includes ‘(abridged)’ then that section of the Minutes differs from the official Society version of the Minutes in order to protect confidentiality or sensitive information, where considered to be in the Society’s interests at this point in time.
