Rob
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Post by Rob on Jul 29, 2012 7:40:17 GMT
As mentioned previously, I would not mind some of my TUST direct debit going toward Supporters Club activities if that was what was decided. Sorry to hear other people's experiences make them conclude differently.
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Rob
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Post by Rob on Jul 29, 2012 17:27:36 GMT
I note silence in correspondence also over the question of what TUST funds will assist in this particular route that a Trust may indeed go down without conflict of interest. A 'slow-burner' I believe the 'politbureau' to which Jon refers, call it.
Myself and quite a few pay regular direct debits into TUST over and above a membership price, albeit I and others will no doubt continue for the 'separate yet merged' idea as it is for the benefit of the Club and it's supporters without any shadow of a doubt to have a Trust. I don't think anyone is aiming to refute that seriously? Are they? Trust is my personal emphasis as they can do all a supporters club can do constitutionally, socially and more, although of course Supporters Clubs per se have a model that can bring fans together for enjoyment and the benefit of the Club too. And if there's a desire for it, run it in tandem, fair enough.
ChrisF's experiences with those who might make up the active members on whatever model is the big shame in all of this. I don't know much of any of the ins and outs other than what I have read on websites with the odd PM chucked in, but active members are clearly hard to come by and nobody is going to benefit from that particular sort of personal conflict.
I certainly wouldn't propose what Dave suggests on the other thread that those he mentions get involved in the day to day running of the 'new model' as it is those nearest to the Club geographically that will benefit most from supporter representation/socials and they should be the ones elected for these roles to make the input they feel will best benefit them. I think that's well trodden ground on here, though, so I won't rehearse any more of that.
The Club and fans have had the benefit of the disabled facilities and the Club the sponsorship last year to date amongst other things. My gut feeling tells me TUFC board members not only appreciate this but see the benefit of a supporters' trust to the Club, (as fans it naturally follows) which is perhaps why the suggestion has been made. TUST won't be asking for those specific project monies back to it's coffers - a cut - from the Club or any affiliated supporters organisation to give back to it's members either, I would guess. More clarification needed before the lanterns and pitchforks, methinks.
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Jon
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Post by Jon on Jul 29, 2012 23:28:17 GMT
Jon knows full well what happened to an event that was planned not that long ago and what was claimed at the time, the real reasons the plug was pulled on it. I do - but nothing too sinister there. The event was cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances: www.torquaysupporters.com/tust_news_story.php?id=653The unforeseen circumstances were that Waldon Athleic had already lined up a similar event for the following evening. www.quayoccasions.co.uk/events.htmlI have said in the past that I believe TUST should target "ordinary supporters" rather than "corporates" who I think should be tapped by Deano at the club. However, the event would probably have raised funds were it not for the "Two Ronnies" clash. TUST did say they would also put on a more affordable social event and were true to their word - although I gave it a miss as it wasn't my cup of tea. www.torquaysupporters.com/tust_news_story.php?id=665On a more general note, I think it is very important that the necessary debate on supporter representation doesn't descend into raking over old grievances and personality clashes. Do we need a ST and a SC or not? Can we find people to run both? These are the key issues. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2012 23:33:26 GMT
On a more general note, I think it is very important that the necessary debate on supporter representation doesn't descend into raking over old grievances and personality clashes. Well said! I didn't like much of that stuff at the time and, for a while, it endangered my association with this forum. Time to move on. |
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Jon
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Post by Jon on Jul 29, 2012 23:37:25 GMT
Food for thought here: www.uptheterras.co.uk/website/about_us.htmWeymouth's ST and SC merged a couple of years back. If you dig under the surface, the new "Supporters' Association" appears to have the structure of a Trust - an Industrial and Provident Society. I wonder if they have been able to fulfill the needs of a SC within that framework. |
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Jon
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Post by Jon on Jul 29, 2012 23:53:47 GMT
Reading comments elsewhere, I see that there could be some confusion between a "Supporters' Trust" and a "Community Sports Educational Trust". In the words of the French Taunter, "We've already got one". www.tufitc.co.uk/ |
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Dave
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Post by Dave on Jul 30, 2012 16:04:29 GMT
On a more general note, I think it is very important that the necessary debate on supporter representation doesn't descend into raking over old grievances and personality clashes. Well said! I didn't like much of that stuff at the time and, for a while, it endangered my association with this forum. Time to move on. I full agree Nick and I’m sorry to learn it nearly ended your association with the TFF. You would be very greatly missed and I’m glad you decided to stick around. I had planned in my head today to just go over some very important points concerning the Lougate affair, but have wisely decided to take your advice. So instead I will stick to this debate and give my own thoughts and viewpoints on what is being proposed by the TUST. The first question that I asked myself is do we actually need a TUST. Well yes we do and we sure needed it to be started when it was as they were very bad times at the time for our club. I have wondered in the past how Bateson would have viewed and treated the TUST, had it been set up when he was the owner of the club. Maybe being who he was, he would have taken no notice of it and might not have worked with it as our current owners do. Jon rightly points out all the good things the TUST have done and long may that continue. It is not something that is a first as the once excellent supporters club we once had, did an incredible amount of good things and one only needs to read all the old programmes on here to learn that. I have also wondered if it might have got off the ground had it only been started after the Robert’s era. I think on the whole most fans are very happy and satisfied with the board and are happy the way the club is now run. It’s that fact alone that has made me wonder. It’s a fact that when things are bad at any club the TUST memberships increase and likewise decrease when fans are all happy because their club is being run well. If the TUST numbers have dropped since it was set up, I do not think it’s a refection on the TUST itself, just a sign things are good and healthy at Torquay United. The next question is would it be good for the club to have a good thriving supporters club. That’s the easiest question to ask and its something I have felt for a long time was badly missing at our club. I once made a post where I talked about the fact that fans wee only involved with the club on match days. That could amount to just two hours a fortnight and I argued with so little involvement and if the football was poor week after week, it was easy to see why some fans could just walk away from the club. So the last question is should the TUST be a part of any new supporters club and if so it should be able to have some of the money from it. I think for many that idea would go against what a TUST is meant to be. Would it end up making the TUST to close to the club and I just happen to think it would. The only one good reason why it might be a good idea is something Hayden Jones told me when he thought wrongly I was looking to get a new supporters club up and running. He pointed out that the TUST had everything in place from a website to having the ability to collect money along with such things as all the necessary insurance etc. It was a very good point simply because if any new supporters club was a complete separate affair, then there would be all the extra costs that would have to be found. Having given this all a lot of thought today, I still feel any new supporters club has to be a complete separate affair from the TUST. I do think however that the TUST should hold its own social evenings to help boost their money and should look at new ways to also boost its membership. One sure fire way for me would to have far more contact with its membership. Another would be to put it to its members what any money is spent on and as I said it’s not hard to do a simply voting system via email. The TFF and I’m sure the other forum, would be more than willing to help promote the TUST in anyway possible. After all we all support the same club and only want the best for it. There is and never has been any need to be divided because we are a TUST member, a new supporter’s club member (if one does get started) or the fact we may choose to belong to one or other of the two forums. |
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Rob
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Post by Rob on Jul 30, 2012 23:47:39 GMT
Food for thought here: www.uptheterras.co.uk/website/about_us.htmWeymouth's ST and SC merged a couple of years back. If you dig under the surface, the new "Supporters' Association" appears to have the structure of a Trust - an Industrial and Provident Society. I wonder if they have been able to fulfill the needs of a SC within that framework. Good find Jon and interesting reading. "The merger of the two supporters organisations means that limited resources can be combined to best effect. We will continue to do those things that were most important to our previous organisations, but do them better." |
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Jon
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Post by Jon on Jul 31, 2012 22:42:53 GMT
I asked the question on the Terras forum as to whether the merged Supporters' Association at Weymouth worked and got a nice personal reply from the SA Chairman which he has said I can post up here. Their merger came at a very tough time for the club - some may remember I posted a link at the time to a harrowing piece by one of the supporters' reps stuck in the middle of the Rolls takeover. They have been through pitched battles and now operate under a benign regime - the club is now owned by the Club Historian!   I think the answer is yes it can work but it all comes down to people rather than structures. Thanks for the interest in our single merged group. As you know in 2010 we merged our former Supporters Club & Supporters Trust to form a new single Weymouth FC Supporters Association. I’ve been in the Chairman’s seat since the new organisation was formed.
Whilst both former organisations obviously had the club’s best interests at the core of their structure, they both had very different ways of operating prior to the merger. In my opinion the greatest challenge we’ve faced has been trying to balance the principles of the two groups and the opinions or persuasions of the corresponding members. By tradition our former supporters club provided the club with as much direct practical help as possible and all funds raised were handed over unconditionally. The former Trust however was structured to be much more independent with the intention of long term safeguarding at the root of its principle. The Trust’s own fundraising initiatives were used to purchase WFC shares, the intention being to grow the shareholding and achieve the benefits presented at various milestones.
I don’t know whether you’re aware of the problems WFC has faced over the past few years and I’ll spare you the in’s and outs of it all. However I have to highlight that we merged the two organisations at a time when the club was at a very low point. We’d very nearly been forced into bankruptcy and the very existence of the club had been threatened on occasions. At that time WFC had just been taken over by George R*lls (the * is an automatic setting on this forum) who, among other things, quickly set about putting the club through a CVA. Again I’m not sure what you do or don’t know and so I won’t detract away from your original point of question. All I’ll say is that the circumstances and issues surrounding WFC made it a very troubled club with fans opinion split on what was or wasn’t the best way to proceed. That in turn made it very difficult at times to strike a balance of that split opinion and try to represent supporter’s feelings whilst giving useful assistance to the club. I’ll be the first to admit that we got some things wrong at times but I do believe that during that time we genuinely found ourselves with the most thankless of tasks in trying to make some sense of the mess that was WFC.
Last February WFC was again taken over; however this time it was by a group of well respected Gents who are all life long fans as well as fit and capable persons. Things at WFC are now very much different; the club has been turned around and is now on the up again. We are now involved on the club board and are a genuine part of the decision making structure.
To come back to your original question, in my personal opinion, a single supporters group is generally more beneficial than two separate organisations. However, I believe the key is to attract the right people in at the beginning and agree ways to balance the two sides of the task. A single supporters group needs to be alongside the club, helping as best as it can but at the same time it needs to be independent enough to ask questions or raise issues with the club board when necessary. To do it efficiently isn’t easy and you’ll never please them all so to speak. |
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Jon
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Post by Jon on Aug 1, 2012 22:39:31 GMT
The more I think about this, the more I feel it is impossible to give a yes or no as requested in the TUST letter.
The details are far too vague.
How much would the club be involved in the proposed SC? Would it effectively run the thing itself? Could it be an extension of Andrew Candy's action group?
If so, the idea of a soft-pedalling Trust in the background sort of makes sense. It would be a bizarre situation if a club-run SC was actually giving money to an independent Trust, but I suppose it would be a kind of affirmation that the club is NOT seeking to destroy an independent supporters' organisation. I do clearly remember that Simon Baker's CV when the names of the consortium were revealed back in 2007 did stress his membership of TUST.
Reading between the lines, I feel that this is the CLUB pushing this. I get the impression that, quite understandably, they are a little frustrated at the apparent lack of supporter involvement that TUST is currently providing.
Is that purely down to the STRUCTURE, or is it more that we are lacking the number of PEOPLE required?
I am certain that supporter involvement definitely needs a relaunching / rebranding / kick up the backside. I am not sure that fiddling with structures will provide that.
It would be good if there could be a chance for supporters (not just TUST members) to hear from the horses' mouths exactly what is envisaged. That would need to include club directors and staff, TUST board members and any other supporters with an interest.
If no other supporters turn up, then the idea of supporters staffing two separate organisations would seem to be a non-starter.
As trusts should concern themselves with governance, sustainability and community involvement, it might also be an opportunity for the board to report to supporters on these matters.
A "Meet the Chairman and discuss the future of supporter and community involvement in OUR football club" evening.
Sometimes we can go round in circles debating structures and forget the bleeding obvious that the key to supporter involvement is involving supporters.
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Jon
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Post by Jon on Aug 1, 2012 22:44:42 GMT
I forgot to add that any relaunching / rebranding would need to include regular website updating.
Looking at the TUST site, the information on who sits on the TUST board is woefully out of date.
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Dave
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Post by Dave on Aug 3, 2012 17:17:19 GMT
After reading your post Jon, it seems clear that the merger of the Weymouth Tust and supporters club, came about due to the terrible situation the club was in at that time. I may be wrong, but it seems to me the circumstance were very similar to our own supporters club folding and becoming a part of the TUST as such.
I know back then the TUST had far more important issues to deal with in the form of Chris Roberts, but thinking about it it’s a shame at the time a Torquay United Supporters Association was not set up.
If it had of been then I’m sure it would have been readily accepted by the fans and we would have had so many more social events take place for the fans of the club. As I said in my last post when a club seems to be in such safe hands, TUST memberships are bound to fall and might just keep doing so year on year.
When the TUST was set up in needed to be and it has done a good job in helping the club while remaining independent of it so far. I do not know how many adult members the TUST has these days, but I would be surprised if it was over 300.
Hardly enough to make the club sit up and listen if there really was a problem, but then as we know that might be the time its membership would go up. It is good that our board is more than happy to work with the TUST and its clear they both enjoy a good relationship.
But as we know these are good times and if there did become major concerning issues for the fans, that relationship would soon break down as the TUST would be standing up against the club and challenging what ever were the concerns.
It’s for that reason and also the TUST’s very own words that they are not a supporters club, that I still feel what they are proposing should not happen. Yes they should still put on social events to help boost their funds and ones that are targeted at ordinary fans with ordinary pockets as they are the ones most likely to want to become members.
I have rightly been accused before for living in the past and believing the good old days were far better than how things are now. Times have changed and after giving this whole matter a great deal of thought, I started to wonder just how successful a new supporters club might be.
We know from reading old programmes that can be found in the TFF programme room, that we once had the most wonderful and successful supporters club. What really happened to that one? Did it slowly die a death as fans became more interested in doing other things?
To get one up and running again and one that would see a good number join it, would require a great deal of work and effort. I still have the same question in my head about where fans might want their money to go.
If we had a separate supporters club from the TUST, then members would know the money goes straight to the club to use on what ever they might want to spend it on. Join the TUST and the money will be used to help the club, but the way it works now, the TUST board only decides what the money is spent on.
One thing I agree with you on is more details need to be made public. Just how much would the TUST get from the membership of a new supporters club and would those joining automatically become TUST members.
If they did then that would sure swell the TUST membership and give it far more clout if and when it needed to use it (providing that they have still been able to remain fully independent of the club) and that would not be a bad thing.
Its an interesting time for our club and we do have to move with the times and maybe the time right now needs to see a Torquay United Supporters Association set up.
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Jon
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Post by Jon on Sept 20, 2016 22:59:36 GMT
With news of a Supporters' Club being started up, it is worth bumping this thread up which has some interesting discussion.
I think the consensus was that it would be great to have both a Trust and a Club if enough officers could be found.
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Post by plainmoorpete on Sept 21, 2016 17:39:58 GMT
I assume that the new supporters club is independent of TUST. If that is so then I think TUST's response to it, as suggested by their email of 12th September, smacks of arrogance. By suggesting that the new supporters club should support a particular project, no matter how worthy, it sounds to me that TUST thinks it is they alone who should set agendas. Admittedly I have only been aware of the TUST since Michael Gouldbourne became it's self appointed chairman, but I cannot see exactly what it is TUST has to offer. TUST want to take over the club but offer no reason as to why they would be better than the current board or any other private investor. In fact the way I see it the choice is this: board of private investors who put their own money up against a TUST board who use other peoples' (ie the TUST members) money.
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Jon
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Post by Jon on Sept 21, 2016 20:01:22 GMT
I assume that the new supporters club is independent of TUST. If that is so then I think TUST's response to it, as suggested by their email of 12th September, smacks of arrogance. By suggesting that the new supporters club should support a particular project, no matter how worthy, it sounds to me that TUST thinks it is they alone who should set agendas. Admittedly I have only been aware of the TUST since Michael Gouldbourne became it's self appointed chairman, but I cannot see exactly what it is TUST has to offer. TUST want to take over the club but offer no reason as to why they would be better than the current board or any other private investor. In fact the way I see it the choice is this: board of private investors who put their own money up against a TUST board who use other peoples' (ie the TUST members) money. The new SC is totally independent from TUST. I would hope it is independent from the club itself too - although it is "officially recognised". The TUST communication you refer does point out why we need BOTH a Trust and a SC - and that is pretty much the same conclusion as this old TFF thread. You can read the TUST communication in two ways. Sam's project is very much the kind of project that sits more comfortably within the remit of a SC than a Trust - I would agree there. Where the SC spends the funds it raises is totally down to the members and board of the SC. It certainly is not for TUST to tell the SC what to do, but no harm in recommending a worthy project. Remember that United we stand Divided we fall. I did put this in an early post on this thread. I do recall Chris Roberts trying hard to get a Supporters' Club going when he sensed the growing strength of the Trust. Divide and rule. Peter Masters has created a poisonous atmosphere at Truro by setting two supporters organisations at each other. Masters' puppet spins the myth that there are good supporters (Masters is God) and bad supporters (those who "rock the boat"). Fortunately, Chris Fleet has far too much about him to be anyone's puppet. Michael is not self-appointed. For TUFC to survive, we need an injection of capital. That has not come from the current board. It won't come from "investors". It can only come from fans - be it a private consortium or a community share issue. As regards the makeup of the board, that should be the best people we can get. If we get a small group of business-savvy fans sticking in a million quid and wanting to run the club themselves, I can't see anyone objecting! The TUST communication re the SC in full: Torquay United Supporters Club
Dear Member,
Now that it is official I would like to take this opportunity to welcome Torquay United Supporters Club.
TUST are fully focused on the long term survival of professional football in Torbay so the foundation of an organisation that addresses the immediate and short term needs of supporters is a welcome development.
TUST wish those with responsibility for the Supporters Club every success in their endeavours and heartedly recommend they kick off with the Covers Project for the Disable Viewing Platforms which will greatly enhance the match day experience of our most vulnerable supporters.
TUST have been supporting Sam Balsdon who so far has raised over £2,000 towards a £10,000 target. Thanks to the generosity of the appointed contractor work has already started on the Home Disabled Viewing Platform but there is still an urgent need to raise the outstanding monies so I am sure Sam, along with our disabled supporters will welcome the Supporters Club making this a priority project.
If you require further information about the Supporters Club you can contact them via email ... tuosc@torquayunited.com
Kind Regards...
Michael |
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