Notes of members' meeting on Saturday 9 February 2008

1. Attendance and membership

There were 26 adult and 3 junior members present. There were now 308 members, including 14 who had not yet renewed.

2. Communication

Trevor Lambert opened the meeting and re-capped on a resolution passed at the previous members' meeting stating that the Trust needed to be more assertive and direct with the Club, and insisting that the Club should become more communicative with its supporters.

Since then, four members of the committee present had met Nick Merry on 14 January and the Trust had issued a press release on 23 January, following Ian Lenagan's radio interview, in which it called for more open communication from the Club. The Trust would continue to raise its profile among its members and club supporters at large as well as with the Club and the media.

3. Issues

Following on from the Nick Merry meeting, notes of which had been sent to Trust members, Trevor Lambert said that there were four main issues:

a) The sustainability of the Club given past and current losses
b) The level of certainty of the Club acquiring the stadium, and the timescale
c) The need for the Club to communicate with the fan-base (even when there is little news)
d) The playing and coaching set-up

From discussion with NM, it was apparent that there were no outside creditors but the Club could owe around £4m as at 30/06/08. Despite that, the Chairman said he was upbeat about the Club's fortunes and he was more convinced than ever that he would acquire the stadium and conference centre facility. He indicated that the funding was available but planning issues needed to be overcome.

The committee would continue to approach the Club with recommendations as to how point c) could be overcome, but the Club's apparently recently devised approach of speaking to dissenting supporters individually was definitely not seen as a replacement for meeting the Trust or convening a Fans' Forum.

Those present felt that the Club would not take the Trust seriously until it boasted a greater number of supporters in its membership. Discussion turned to ways of increasing membership. Creating an associate membership at lower cost was discussed, as was increasing profile through the Oxford Mail or through matchday leafletting. The committee will return to this subject outside the meeting and look for ways to increase the number of East Stand supporters and younger supporters on its books.

The Chairman's disagreement with the committee concerning the method of appointing Darren Patterson as manager may now be water under the bridge. The complaint had been aired and the Chairman said he had been disappointed with our reaction to the appointment. However, we also re-stated that we did not object to the appointment, merely the lack of an appointment process where candidates were short-listed and interviewed.

4. Commercial ideas

The apparent lack of any commercial/marketing focus was discussed in the knowledge that the Chairman did not intend to strengthen that department until later in the year.

Tim Rosser described OUFC was a small company, which was also a well-known brand in Oxfordshire. The committee needed to urgently re-instate meetings with the Club to repeat past money-raising ideas that had not been taken up and to come up with new ones. The latter could include a new lottery or a re-launch of the U's Youth 500 lottery or, on a larger scale, a new share issue.

The design and distribution of leaflets advertising home fixtures was an idea that had fallen by the wayside in recent times and is something that the Trust could resurrect.

5. Trust AGM

Chris Davis told the meeting that the Trust's AGM was being provisionally planned for Saturday 29 March at 1.00pm, prior to the home fixture against Northwich. [NB Date now changed to 12 April]. The Performance and Treasurer's report would be made available on the day. 4 vacancies would be announced on the committee and candidates other than the retiring members would be welcome to enable an election to take place. A formal letter to members would be sent out later this month [NB now early March].

Chris Davis
Secretary
14 February 2008