The Trust pledged to provide greater clarity about what it does. This was in response to member feedback for greater transparency.
As you will have seen, our website was recently given a ‘substantial’ upgrade and now includes details of the Trust’s Executive Board members. Plus, most importantly minutes from Trust meetings whether internal or those with the Club.
Here are the minutes from the latest Trust Board meeting held on 10th July 2019.
1. Apologies
John Taylor, Mo Razzaq, Stuart Griffin. Keith Mallett, Howard Hodgson.
Present Peter Warrilow, Karl Bowater, Simon Goodyear, Jonny Gould, Neil James, Kris Carr and for the latter part of the meeting Doug O’Brien as a Trust volunteer.
2. Minutes of the last meeting.
Accepted as read
3. Review of the issues since the last meeting.
A full review of the Directors activities and inputs since the last meeting was conducted. It was agreed that a further review would be undertaken at the next Executive Meeting and before the AGM.
4. Roles and responsibilities
These were restated and Directors were reminded that it was essential that we all do what is expected of us.
Howard and Jonny have been incredibly busy helping to raise the profile of the Trust and of course to produce their very successful podcasts which will continue for the upcoming season.
Indeed we have received coverage in the New York Times, radio and TV locally as well as nationally on subjects relating to Profit & Sustainability (Finacial Fair Play), the late Sir Doug Ellis, the infamous day at St Andrew’s and the Steve Bruce cabbage incident.
We were also prominent in the donation of a cheque for £1,000 to the Aston Villa Foundation from 2 Simple and many others. We are fortunate to have two team members able to undertake this invaluable work.
We have continued to attend the Fans Consultation Group (FCG) and Away Fans Forum. Peter has attended the Safety Advisory Group.
We have co-opted Stuart Paul to help with the Heritage Group being set up by the Club
Mo continues to be in frequent contact with the Club on supporter liaison matters and has achieved many successes in representing the views of not only our members but supporters in general.
5. Finance
It has been a spring and summer of expenditure with the following.
• £1,380 on the upgraded website. A good job done by all and Peter has written to Satish at Dreamcloud Solutions thanking him for his great efforts. Thanks also to all Directors involved in the planning and continued maintenance of the site. A great improvement on what we had.
• £660 on Trust pin badges. A new design for members. Thanks to Karl for sourcing and liaising with the supplier. Badges will be available at the AGM and to new members recruited face to face.
If other members would like a badge please send an email to simon.goodyear@villatrust.org.uk.
• A donation of £150 to The Aston Villa Foundation and £400 to Ridleys Coaches as compensation towards the damage caused by ‘so-called’ supporters on playoff final day.
Both donations have been acknowledged and Ridleys have said that our donation has gone a long way to restoring their faith in Aston Villa fans.
• Various other smaller payments as part of operating expenses.
Income
A sum of £1,000 from our PayPal account and £1,060 so far from membership subscriptions from Club Collect. We received £150 from Emma Flowers as royalties and that has been passed to Ridleys as she directed.
6. The new bank account signatories are now in place.
Any two of Peter Worth, Simon Goodyear and John Taylor to sign.
Internet banking on access to view now operative. Access available to signatories above.
It is hoped that the financial accounts to 31/12/2018 will be available by the end of the month so that we can arrange an AGM quickly.
7. Campaigns
We will continue to campaign for new members
This to be led by Karl and Neil. Plus help from Doug and his team. T-shirts to be provided as well as banners and a dedicated desk in the Holte Suite.
Neil to conduct a poll on whether there is widespread fan support for the restoration of the round badge.
Consideration to be given on whether to campaign for a renaming of the North Stand. Ron Saunders????
8. Membership
Simon has worked extraordinarily hard on effecting a change of the membership database from Love Admin to Club Collect. The latter is now up and running. Teething problems are now almost all resolved. We receive weekly payments from Club Collect directly into our bank account.
We have not yet paid Club Collect any money or card fees.
We discussed a potential increase in annual subs from £5 to £6. It was agreed to defer any increase for the time being.
9. The Asset of Community Value
We expressed disappointment that despite the ACV being in place we had not been advised of a potential change of ownership. Mo is awaiting a response from Birmingham City Council.
10. Discussions took place about the use of Doug’s team and the erection of a banner as well as notices around the ground encouraging new members.
Action Karl and Neil.
11. Community
Kris has been in regular contact with the Rev Philip Nott at Aston Church. Various ideas are being promoted – reuse of the Church Hall on match days for Aston Villa Disabled Supporters’ Association, some refurbishment of premises and potential sponsorship cash/shirt purchase, if the Church forms a football team. Potential involvement in foodbank collections.
Action Kris.
12. Other Business
Peter to contact Premier League Supporters Trust Group regarding membership.
Karl to be our principal contact with them and the Football Supporters Association (formerly Supporters Direct & Football Supporters’ Federation).
13. The date of the next meeting. To be advised.
