Trust Board Meeting, 10th December 2002
Present – George Howie, James Proctor, Collas Pilmer, Alan Russell, Neil Langtree, Tom Phillips, Chris McFarlane
Apologies – Eddie Doig, Blair White
Membership
106 members if all new applications go through OK, plus ten more potential members who asked for more information at the 27/11 event. A test version of the Filemaker Pro database is ready. ED and BW to liaise re functionality of database.
Finances
£5682.70 in the account as of 10/12/02, all payments up to date except £230 for newsletters. Monthly payments to RRFC now being made by cheque, at the club’s request.
General Matters
No progress re Lottery. GH to discuss issues with Keith Pitkin.
Annual return needs to be completed and returned within 7 months of our registration date (October), although we should aim to complete this by the end of the financial year (31st March) AR to co-ordinate completion and submission.
Fans Survey
The main item of discussion at this meeting was the way forward for the Fans Survey.
Ken Foster joined us for part of the meeting to discuss the preparatory work he has carried out for us. The Fans Survey is designed to fill two information gaps that currently exist – about the demographics of the Raith Rovers support, and the characteristics of the market in which Raith Rovers operate. It is important to get a high response rate – the best we could expect if we were to mail the survey to fans using a list of season ticket holders would be 25-35%. We could expect a significantly higher response if the survey was done face-to-face as fans were arriving through the turnstiles before a match. With a fan base of 2000, we would look for 400 responses. A draft survey was presented, and it was noted that this would need a “preamble” – a piece of text describing what the survey was and how it would be used. This draft was discussed in the meeting, and it was requested that each board member reviewed this in full outside of the meeting and responded by e-mail. All responses to be circulated to all of the board members, and also to Ken.
We should ensure we have permission from RRFC to conduct this survey in Starks Park, by writing to them prior to the survey taking place. Ken indicated that data entry and analysis would take a week of his time, and that if the survey was done on his preferred date of January 11th then we would have the results by the end of that month. In later discussions, it was decided that we would prefer to wait until later in the season to ensure that the content of the survey was right, and that we targeted it correctly.
Small Business Gateway at Scottish Enterprise were also mentioned as a potential source of help, as were the Co-operative Society. CP to review our options with Small Business Gateway. TP to review our options with the Co-operative Society and others.
27/11 Event
The event was a great success which resulted in our membership numbers increasing as well as our funds, through donations and the sale of merchandise (all thirty “Unbelievable” T-shirts were sold, and more will be produced to satisfy additional demand; several copies of John Litster’s book were also sold) CM to post pictures of T-shirts and book on website, along with John’s e-mail address
Eric Drysdale has advised that in future we will be able to get hold of the League Cup to display at similar events, if we put our request to the SFL early through RRFC. GH to send letters of thanks to Scott Thomson and Scott Davie, and also make Scott Davie an honorary member of the Trust.
Two enquiries were received from under 16s re joining the Trust. We should accept under 16s as non-voting members for a mimimal annual fee (£1), and issue them with certificates of memberships, not share certificates.
Meeting with RRFC Board
GH CM and CP met recently with Danny Smith and Eric Drysdale. They are delighted with the financial contributions the Trust have made, and are keen to keep up a regular dialogue with us. They wanted to talk about Trust members becoming more actively involved with helping out at the club. Eric will come back to us with specific requests, which we will put out to our members.
Business Plan Sub-Committee
This is now ready to be parked, and will progress as described in it’s review procedure. CP will act as the focal point for it’s development. An update will be sent out to the membership with minutes of the last meeting, share certificates, etc.
Supporters Direct Workshop
CM, CP and GH attended. This was a good event for networking and sharing of experiences between the 14 trusts who attended. There will be a National Conference on January 19th at Tynecastle (£5 entry fee). Another good source of information is the daily digest e-mail available from the Supporters Direct website. CM to circulate information from the workshop.
AOB
Abridged minutes of August’s Special General Meeting were accepted and approved for wider publication.
RRISS AGM to be held in April after the end of the financial year.
Not clear what progress if any has been made re possible candidates as our auditor. AR to check the rules for selection of an auditor.
RRFC AGM will probably be held early next year, GH to attend on behalf of RRISS. We should go prepared to ask questions and look over the club’s accounts beforehand.
Next Meeting
Board Meeting: Monday 27th January, 7.30pm @ Betty Nicol’s
