MINUTES OF THE FOURTH ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING HELD AT 7.30PM ON MONDAY, 11 SEPTEMBER 2006 AT THE CHERRY TREE, OUNDLE ROAD, PETERBOROUGH
PRESENT: Peter Lloyd (PL), Barry Bennett (BB), Richard Bellamy (RB), John Henson (JH), Keith Jennings (KJ), Paul Little (GPFL), Paul Mitchell (PM), Walter Moore (WM), Gill Williams (GW), Peter Williams (PW), plus 15 members and non-members.
APOLOGIES: Trevor Hanks, June Smith, Brian Seaton, Patrick Welsher, Edna Welsher, James Welsher, David Ringham.
Minutes of the Annual General Meeting held on 5 September 2005
The minutes in respect of the meeting were accepted as a true record and taken as read.
Chairman's report
PL welcomed everyone to the meeting. In another eventful year the Trust's finances had improved considerably, thus increasing its credibility. He pointed out that, when Stockport County Supporters' Trust had taken over the club last year, it had spent £32,000 just on legal fees.
The Trust had again sponsored a year at the Yaxley Football Festival, donated money to Thorpe Hall and supported other charities by having a stall at various fetes and events. It had intended to sponsor a girls' football team, but this had fallen through. Consequently the Trust was looking to sponsor a local junior side.
Three open meetings had been held outside Peterborough - at Stamford , March and Whittlesey - with varying degrees of success.
Three subcommittees had been set up: (1) Fund-raising and recruitment of new members; (2) Public relations, marketing, community club and (3) Running the club. It was now planned to pull together the plans into one document, incorporating various aspects of the Trust's strategy plan.
Six newsletters had been issued in the last year. Although expensive to produce, they were an essential tool in advising members and other fans what the Trust was doing and trying to achieve. The Moy's End Millions article in NL19 had caused a stir in many quarters. The resulting furore had proved a distraction from the usual work, but it had been necessary for the Trust to stand up for what it believed and raise important issues relating to the sale of the club and ground .
The Trust had prepared a "manifesto" to be used to market the Trust's ideas to those businesses and other bodies who might be interested in backing, or becoming partners with, the Trust in the long term. This would be printed very soon.
The Trust was considering various other projects, such as expansion of the very successful Gold Bond lottery; a scratch card; active recruitment of new members; fund-raising for football-related charities; the feasibility of supporting the building of a disabled enclosure at London Road; a possible loan player fund matched with donations to charity. All these ideas were aimed at trying to foster a community and co-operative culture at the football club.
Finally PL thanked Tony Millen, Tom Robinson, Ray Taylor, Angela Ruberto, Geoff Callen, Peter Lee, Stuart Wright, Walter Moore, Peter McNamee, Ellis Stafford, PISA2000 and Ebeneezer's. A presentation was made to Gill Williams, who was retiring after almost four years on the Trust board.
Treasurer's report
RB ran through the audited balance sheet and income and expenditure account. Although fund-raising had not been a priority, the Trust had averaged a net gain of about £1,000 a month. This was despite some heavy legal expenses; RB pointed out that it cost £700 a year for the Trust to remain legal. In addition it had incurred costs through investigations into the legality of the sale of the ground to Peterborough United Holdings Limited. There were no questions and the audited accounts were adopted.
Appointment of auditor
By unanimous vote Tony Millen was re-appointed as the auditor of the Trust.
Secretary's report
PW advised that the Trust still had 1,390 shares in PUFC; 390 had been donated and 1,000 obtained in exchange for funds raised for refurbishment of the London Road floodlights.
Since the Trust had been established 673 adults had joined. Although many had allowed their membership to lapse, there were still around 300 members, of whom eight were life members, five ten -year members and 76 five-year members. PW encouraged members to pay annual subscriptions by standing order; 18 people had so far arranged to do so.
The Trust continued to be very active in many fields. It usually had the largest delegation at the Supporters Direct Annual Conference and was also represented at the Midlands Conference. Attendance at these events enabled the Trust board to make contact with other trusts, learn about football finances, meet Supporters Direct board members and obtain details of new developments such as share-save schemes and community interest companies.
Elsewhere the Trust was represented at regular meetings of the East Midlands trusts, where an officer from Supporters Direct was always on hand. PW also attended meetings of the Peterborough Council for Voluntary Service. Earlier in the year a link had been forged with Anglia Regional Co-op and it was hoped that contact would be maintained. Finally the Trust was an active member of Cambridgeshire Chamber of Commerce, attending networking breakfasts and lunches and meetings of the Hospitality, Sports and Leisure Sector committee.
Election of Board members
As there were no nominations for candidates, Richard Bellamy and Keith Jennings were re-elected unopposed, while Paul Mitchell and Walter Moore, who had been co-opted on to the Board, were also elected unopposed.
Any other business
None.
Question and answer session
Paul Donnelly queried whether the Trust had 1,390 or 1,391 shares. PW explained that a request for the club to transfer one share to the Trust in 2004 had been ignored, despite repeated reminders to the former secretary, John Magee. It had been decided not to keep chasing this matter.
Lee Jackson (LJ) asked about the Trust's attitude to sponsoring the club. PL advised that the Trust had informed the club that it would like to discuss possible sponsorship of the youth system, but that the club had not followed up the request.
LJ then raised a question about the sale of the stadium to PUHL and whether the covenant covered the playing area. With regard to the covenant, PL confirmed that, according to the plan, the covenant covered the stadium and playing area, not the Moy's End car park. With reference to the transfer of ownership in 2003, PL explained how, under the terms of the 1955 conveyance (sale to PUFC of the ground), Peterborough City Council (PCC) had the right to buy back the ground if PUFC wanted to sell. Although the procedure should have been triggered by a letter from PUFC ["an offer in writing to sell the property"] or a similar offer by PCC to buy, either of which had which had to remain open for six months for consideration unless a sale between them was agreed, the Trust was informed by the Solicitor to the Council that, to her knowledge, this had not happened.
After the Trust had discovered that a deal had been done, apparently without even the knowledge of councillors, there was subsequently a wall of silence, possibly from embarrassment that the correct procedures seemed not to have been followed.
When asked why the Trust was willing to sponsor a loan player, from the floor BB made it clear that this was not a policy, but a proposal for consideration by the Board and the members. PL added that the idea was to provide funding for a loan player, with a matching amount going to a charity. Existing Trust funds would not be used; money would be raised in a collection or fund-raising event. BB added that the Trust had no intention of "throwing money at the club". Dave Boyle (DB) interjected, explaining the difference between a supporters' club and a supporters' trust: the former existed to give money to the club, whilst the latter might give money to the club, but for something in return. Gone were the days when trusts would simply hand over money. That was not their role. He recalled a huge gift to a League One club - probably about £1m in today's money - for the refurbishment of its floodlights. The reward from the club was a blazer badge and a drink with the chairman at Christmas.
Graham Palmer (GP) asked about the resignation of Lord Mawhinney as patron. PL explained that he (Lord M) felt that there could be conflict of interests between that role and his representative role as Chairman of the Football League. As requested by GP, PW promised to forward a copy of the Trust's reply to him.
Jack Beeby asked if Leigh Porter was still an honorary vice president of the Trust. PL confirmed that he was.
LJ asked why, if the club had rejected sponsorship offered by the Trust, this had not been publicised. PL reiterated that the Trust sometimes had difficulty in interesting the media in stories and recognised that the media had a vested interest in being on good terms with the club for quotes, stories etc.
Trevor Johnson asked if the Trust could write to Hinckley United to express its sympathy to the club and the family of Matt Gadsby, who died during the match with Harrogate Town on 9 September. PW agreed to do this.
Dave Boyle
The Deputy Chief Executive of Supporters Direct (SD) welcomed the opportunity to escape from his office in London and see life in the grass roots. He advised that SD's job was to make life easier for 147 supporters' trusts. He wanted to win the battle of ideas. There was more than one way of saving a football club. Although a trust might not possess the necessary funds to purchase a club outright, there were ways of working in a consortium with others willing to share the trust's ideals. DB mentioned remarks recently made by Keri Usherwood of Notts County Supporters' Trust: "Football can't continue to be run on a mixture of hand-outs, bail-outs and cop-outs".
DB shared the Posh Trust's frustration with the difficulty in persuading the press to become interested in stories about football club politics or finances.
DB referred to the recent decision by the York trust to sell its controlling share in the club, but emphasised that this did not signal the end of a dream, but proved that football finances were "on drugs". He gave an example of a club he knew, where he found three dead pigeons in one of the dugouts. It was symptomatic of the decay and lack of attention to detail. Many clubs were getting by, just surviving - they were zombies, the "undead", neither prospering nor dying. A culture change was necessary - there was a better way. Many people were disenchanted as football clubs, hanging on like grim death, charged £15 for Conference football. The country was in the middle of a huge credit boom and, if interest rates rose, it would soon come to an end and attendances would suffer.
SD would always stand behind trusts so that, one day, if there was no asset left for a club to flog or the bank wouldn't lend another penny, the trust would be ready to act. SD believed that clubs should operate on a sustainable basis.
With regard to the Posh Trust, he praised their approach and advised the Board to keep plugging away. It was run in a professional manner, and compared well with other trusts.
In answer to a question from WM, DB described the current situation at Exeter City , suggesting that the club might become a CIC - a community interest company. This would end once and for all the distractions caused by Uri Geller, Michael Jackson and the like. He went on to say that many clubs found the trust-run clubs threatening, because they were being run in a totally different way, often very successfully. He had noted in a recent visit to AFC Telford how the chairman had been touring the ground, arranging for maintenance work to be undertaken before it was necessary, not afterwards.
Quiz
The evening ended with the traditional quiz set by Mick Robinson. It was won by Paul Mitchell.
Signed as a true record....................................... Date.........................................
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