Date & location: 27 November 2024 Via YouTube (Streamyard) @ 6.30pm
Host: Andy Cossens (AC)
Minute taker: Chris Kyle (CK)
Attendees: Vic Morgan (VM) James Spencer (JS) Tim Keen (TK) Mark Thatcher (MT)
Apologies: N/A
Guests present: Viewers via YouTube (variable 38 at one point), only 5 members identified themselves Martyn Cook, Jimmy Taylor, Phil Baker, Colin White & Mark Evans
01- Chairperson Opening Statement
COMMITTEE STRUCTURE
2024 saw one change to the Committee. James Spencer joined us and took the vacant role of Vice Chair. He has a wealth of experience, having until recently been in a similar role with the STFC Trust, and being heavily involved in the transfer of ownership of the County Ground to the Joint Venture.
ACTIVITIES AND OPERATIONS REVIEW
Membership
All Season ticket holders continue to have automatic OSC membership, now standing at over 4,000 supporters. We also continue to see non season ticket members joining.
Monday Night Panel /On the Sofa
Au undoubted success with huge thanks to Vic and Chris for making it so. A regular 7pm Monday night slot runs throughout the year with a fans panel or one from the past appearing. Highlights include interviews with Alan Mayes, Simon Ferry and Brian Kilcline.
Match Day Draw
This is our major income source, which goes to financing the activities and events arranged throughout the year. Ticket sales continue to hold up despite the drop in attendances. A huge thank you to Mary and all the sellers for all their valiant efforts in all winds and weathers.
Other Activities
We continue to run the End of Season dinner and invite supporters to hospitality events that we sponsor and arrange.
We provide financial support to the Club with the Xmas OAP dinner and the Junior Reds, providing several items to assist and support the great work that Caroline continues to undertake. We would like to thank Bev Morgan for her support on match days and with Chris and Vic at the Xmas party. We are considerably involved in the Club Xmas events.
We also ran two Fans Forums and the Mike Mullarkey event in November. We continue to attend the bi- monthly Advisory Board meetings and continue to work closely with the Trust in supporting and challenging the Club in areas such as season ticket prices, and the general Match Day experience. We heavily support Laura and Mark Sharp with the SAS travel, following the sad passing of Marc Walters this summer. Our thoughts go to his family.
We are involved in supporting the Women’s and Academy teams and promoting their ongoing success.
We were also prominent in enable the Foundation in obtaining their new Minibus engaging with the Trust and the Business Group to raise sufficient funds to provide this valuable asset in supporting this wonderful cause.
Fund Raising
Last season we completed our fund raising for the Darby Rimmer Foundation which resulted in a figure of an incredible £12,500, over double what we anticipated. This is achieved through donations, raffles and our increasingly successful Programme and Book sales in the Legends on match days. Big thanks to Ray and Andy for their ongoing work in running the Match Day stall, and Helen Thompson for her generosity.
02- Approval of Last AGM Minutes
1st TK 2nd VM
03- Finances
The Official Supporters Club have seen a slight decline in sales for the Matchday Draw. Average total
sales per match across the 2023-24 season was £1,206 which was slightly down from the 2022-23 season total of £1,252 and the 2021-22 season total of £1,379 – although this did include the Man City match.
The OSC donated £1,544 to local charities last season and also raised a total of £10,059 for the Darby Rimmer MND Foundation charity – which was our charity of the year that season. In addition to the £2,441 raised for this charity the previous season, this took the grand total raised to £12,500 – a fantastic achievement!
We also donated £4,499 to Swindon Town FC, in the form of hospitality, player sponsorship, etc. The OSC also donated £4,484 to the STFC Community Foundation – a large part of which was a donation towards their new minibus.
Finally, we also donated £2,340 to help kit out the new Junior Reds room at the County Ground and we paid for items like gift packs and Junior Reds passports.
In summary, the OSC starting balance was £19,241 and our closing balance was £17,022.
04- Committee Members Reports
Events (CK)
End of season Dinner – May 2024
Live Event – Mike Mularkey – World Cup Asst. Ref – Nov 2024 Fans Forum – Sept 2024
Membership (CK)
2024 – season ticket holders + 101 signed up
Regional Fan Groups Marlborough/Pewsey/Devizes/Melksham/Chippenham/Calne
HM Forces & Veterans Fan Group
LGBT+ Fan Group
Disabled Fans Association – use our logo
UK Groups : Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland
International Groups : 14 – Eire, Australia, Norway, Brazil, Germany, Malta, France, USA, Canada, Switzerland, New Zealand, Sweden & Spain
Junior Members – JR Room, Welcome Packs, Sensory Book, Wi-Fi, Pool Table, arts & crafts, sweets for giveaway (Easter, Christmas etc), Selection boxes for Christmas Party + support of committee members
Member Hospitality – 2 twice a 14season 4 winners (MDD & Members) + 1 guest each and 2 committee members
Christmas – Santa hats, hampers, Seniors Christmas Dinner (financed & Support, Presents for GWH Children Ward (donated by members)
Sponsorship – Dokes and Sean McGurk (previously Shade & Wakeling). This year Hall & McGurk
STWFC – Development Team – 1 home and 1 away shirt sponsor. This year – 2 1st team players Holly & Taylor Academy – 4 players
Match Day Draw (CK)
Pre-paid 115 Last Season 146
Require more sellers (to have back up), very hard to recruit £1000 end of season draw
Social Media & Charitable Donations (VM)
I’m Vic Morgan. My responsibilities are looking after social media for the OSC, co-presenting the Monday Night Panel and On the Sofa. I also have match day responsibilities which are separate to the OSC. IE on pitch interviews before the game. Throughout the season I help with Junior Reds parties at Christmas, Easter and Halloween. Another of my duties is helping to co-ordinate our activities with the Charity of the Year. This year it’s Phoenix Enterprises. A local charity which helps people with mental health issues get back into work.
Website (MT/JS)
Current Website (MT): From last year’s AGM
Add pages for a fan’s forum? They can share thoughts and such. We can run surveys and see what the fans want and in turn, run that to the OSC or Club itself. OSC can be their voice. Surveys have been sent out and results published.
Any forum on the website would need to be policed – we do not want the trolling/adverse comments seen on wider social media.
We can add a section for car sharing to games (and that can go on a poster). This might be part of the new website, if it can be included on the new site.
There have been about 22 and a half thousand visits to the website over the last year, helping people find out about the Official supporter’s club. Over six and a half thousand pounds of funding revenue has also raised through the website.
The site went live over 5 years ago and is now being updated with a new look and style; James is creating a new site which is due to go live early next year.
New Website for 2025 (JS):
The decision was made in October 2024 from a proposal submitted by James Spencer to modernise and redevelop the OSC website which would see in early 2025 a new fresh and easy to navigate site with new modern functionality which the committee could easily update.
Work has started on this approach and as part of this process we are reviewing the current website’s scope and content in order that we ensure the new site is on point and in line with our members’ needs.
In light of this we would encourage any members to review our current site and email (admin@stfc- osc.com) and let us know of anything you feel is missing that should be part of the new site and any general feedback you may have so we ensure we capture this and address it in the new website.
We will keep you updated on socials of the launch date of the new website in early 2025
05- Re-election of Committee Member(s)
Andy Cossens was re-elected with majority votes
06- Any Other Business
One question from the viewing members :
Martyn Cook – Regarding the match time draw sales, is it worth considering contactless payment as less people carry cash ?
Response – all our sellers do now carry Sum-up machines to enable cashless payments.
07- Chairperson Closing Statement
Thank you all for your attendance this evening, and once again, thanks to all the Committee Members and
volunteers.
Just a reminder that we hold our first Memorabilia Fair on 8th December. All proceeds to go to the Phoenix Enterprises, our Charity of the Year.
I would also like to mention the STFC Museum who are doing a great job in preserving our heritage. Please take a view on You Tube at the video that Vic and Steve Mytton created about their trip to Wembley with Don, John and Joe.
These are challenging times; however, we will continue to work quietly and efficiently- thanks for your ongoing support and hope to see you all soon.
Meeting closed at 19.07