OxVox Board Minutes

Quarry Gate, 7 June 2004

Present: Chris Davis, Neil Carter, Trevor Lambert, Helen Joslin, Graham Hilsdon, Andy James, Ray Whitaker.

Apologies: Sally Lambert.

Ray Whitaker was a member who had asked to attend for the discussion of the supporters club.

Matters arising:

Quiz outcome and donation: The quiz night was successful with nine teams entered. The profit was £44 and a donation of £20 to Us yOUth was authorised.

Season ticket mailing donation: £150 donation authorised to OUFC as discussed for inclusion of membership flyer with season ticket mailing. This payment had been agreed by majority vote of the committee after discussion. The club's initial request had been for £500.

Club meetings and confidentiality: We agreed to inform the club in advance of any public statements we intended to issue following meetings held with them. Where there had been a specific request to keep discussions confidential we would respect this.

Main agenda items:

Supporters club: Ray Whitaker tabled a paper describing his ideas about a supporters club which was open on non-matchdays. [I will ask Ray to forward his notes in word processed form]. He had some relevant experience and thought a brewery could be interested in fitting out a club in return for a beer contract. He will make some enquiries. In terms of location, the club has modified the planning permission of the East stand void from a supporters club to permit a sports injuries clinic. OCC imposed a condition that an alternative site for a supporters club had to be provided. As the clinic has not gone ahead we need to find out what the club intends. We will look at other supporters clubs to assess viability e.g. the Wycombe Centre Spot. Our view so far had been that anything beyond a matchday bar would not be viable, but we would look at alternatives and aim to produce a viable proposal to take to the club. We agreed to co-opt Ray for discussions of this topic.

Next events: Chris was still pursuing Graham Rix re a pre-season forum and Rosie re a pre-season football competition.

Ticket pricing response: We considered whether to issue a statement about the season ticket pricing but decided after discussion that the moment had passed.

Membership / communication with members: Many renewals would be due at the end of July. We should make it easy for people to renew, offer the standing order option and present essentially an invoice for the next year of membership rather than a letter which asked people to decide to renew. Draft to be discussed and agreed at our next meeting. We agreed that we also needed to maintain more regular contact with members. We need to write articles for Issue 6 of our newsletter for the next meeting. Both items could be posted together.

AOB: The club had agreed to include Trevor's survey form with the season ticket mailing, after minor revisions. We needed more OxVox badges; Graham had a quote for £85 for 250 which was approved, he will order.

Next meeting: Monday July 12, Quarry Gate, 7.30