Altrincham FC Supporters' Club

By kind permission of Brian Flynn, the minutes of the Altrincham F.C. Supporters' Club Committee are reproduced below. In due course, the Committee will launch its own website.

Altrincham F.C. Supporters' Group, Committee meeting, Saturday October 11th 2008.

Minutes of meeting.

Present: Chris Ainsworth (CA), Mike Ainsworth (MA), Brian Flynn (BF), Darren Gregory (DG), Tom Jacobs (TJ), Ian Jones (IJ), Dave Johnson (DJ), Grahame Rowley (GR), Daisy Sellar (DS), Gareth Thomas (GT).

Apologies : Ian Cox, Paul Daine, Mark Eckersall, Simon Ellis, Graham Jackett, Nick Jefferson, Ian Kershaw, Peter Lewis, Adam Martell, Dan Martell, Steve Murray, Steve Raftery.

Agenda:

  • Welcome & Apologies – Brian Flynn welcomed everyone to the meeting and read out apologies.
  • Minutes of Meeting on September 27th 2008 – BF talked through the minutes of the previous meeting. The minutes were proposed by Darren Gregory and seconded by Tom Jacobs.
  • Results of Supporters' Poll on Name of Group: BF announced that the result of the poll on the supporters' web site as up to 11.00 am that morning had seen The Altrincham Supporters Club (TASC) as the preferred choice with Altrincham Supporters Association (ASA) in 2nd place. As such, it was agreed that going forward the group would now be known as The Altrincham Supporters Club (TASC).
  • Christmas Draw Update: BF gave an update on the Christmas Draw meetings that had been held on 4th October attended by the steering committee of BF, DG, Graham Jackett and Gareth Thomas and of the meeting held prior to this meeting attended by the same people except with apologies for absence from GJ. It was reported that an objective had been set to sell £2,000 tickets. The draw is to be made on 5.30pm on New Year's Day after the Northwich game in the Noel White Suite.

    It was ascertained that Mark Murray prefers not to be involved with the draw at this time so GT and DG are to take responsibility for ticket printing, in the first instance looking at web sites and designing tickets. The next step, once prizes have been finalised at the end of this week is to contact the ticket printers in order to have tickets ready to sell at the home game v Histon on Sat 1st Nov. 1000 books of tickets were to be ordered.

    BF is to speak to Paul Daine with regards to STAR money to be used to print the tickets. It was accepted the draw was able to be done under the club's charity/lottery licence and that Grahame Rowley would speak to Jenny Heslop on the groups behalf to organise it.

    Prizes – It was noted that so far the following prizes were available, a cricket bat signed by Shane Warne along with a picture montage, a weekend at the Gazelle’s hotel, a round of golf at the De Vere Club courtesy of BF and possibly a ‘Chill Factore’ deal organised by David Burns, £100 of Trafford Centre vouchers from GR and possibly a Flat Screen TV/DVD player contributed to by the board of directors. Dave Johnson also offered a weekend in his caravan at Anglesey and was looking into a deal with the Cresta Court Hotel for a meal. GJ had sent a letter to Bents garden Centre and DG was in the process of sending out letters to local restaurants. GT said he would check local press for further offers of prizes. TJ ventured that a possible prize could be an unused match day sponsorship deal (subject to availability), GR agreed that this could be arranged and looked into.

    Ticket Distribution – TJ raised concerns about how to check the amount of tickets coming in and it was agreed that a distribution co-ordinator was required. GT offered to do this in absence of others and general roles were assigned to ticket distribution. DG would liaise with managers of teams of Altrincham Juniors, BF would speak to Stuart Coburn to organise players, GT would speak to George Heslop about the Youth Team, TJ would arrange to sell tickets on away travel, GR would liaise with directors, GT would speak to Gary Warrington into the possibility of using the half time bucket collections as ticket selling points during the games against Cambridge, Rushden and Burton, Louise Gregory has offered to man the club shop area for ticket sales but help was required in this area.

  • Aims: GT briefly talked through a document giving a rough outline of the group’s possible aims and objectives. The main idea being that the group is more proactive and effective than its previous incarnations. To this end the group needs greater supporter involvement in order to be more effective fundraisers. The document noted that the group loosely had 5 major aims.
    1. To raise funds for Altrincham Football Club
    2. To increase the involvement of Supporters
    3. To increase the general awareness of the club.
    4. To have effective representation within the club.
    5. To make membership/association of the group a worthwhile and enjoyable exercise.

    A brief discussion of some of the points arose. DJ ventured that he would be happy to hand out flyers in relation to capturing new markets. GR agreed that often the fun aspect of such associations is overlooked and that not everything needs to be fund raising in order to raise the clubs profile, indeed a local curry house had expressed an interest in helping the club, this could be a possible event. BF suggested that a longer debate to prioritise aims and objectives would be held at the next committee meeting using the document as a basis.

  • Formalisation of Roles: It was announced that in addition to the roles and responsibilities allocated at the last meeting that Daisy Sellar would be added to ‘fundraising’ and DJ would be available for ‘general’ help. Also Ian Rosendaal was to be added to the ‘fundraising’ and ‘marketing’ groups. Ian had previously run the ‘Ideas4Alty’ web site and it was agreed that this could be better incorporated into the supporters group as well as providing a degree of continuity. However, it was noted that a secretary and membership co-ordinator was required. An approach would be made to see if Peter Lewis would do the membership as this was a role he had held previously whilst an appeal on the web site and forum would be put for a secretary which currently falls to whoever volunteers to do the minutes of the meeting.
  • Bags 2 The Future: DG explained the initiative which involves supporters contributing old clothes and shoes which are collected by this company in return for a cash payment. There is no cost to the club. Supporters are to be handed bags at the Histon game as well as bags posted to addresses in the immediate vicinity and brought to the ground on Sat/Sun 20/21 Dec and left in the cornered off area of the ground near the popular side turnstiles.
  • Any Other Business: BF re-iterated again the ethos that the committee is a largely fluid voluntary organisation and roles are not set in stone. BF noted that a good start had been made to the Blue Square 'Square Up' keepie uppie competition.
  • Logo for new association: BF said that now the group's name was known a logo competition for primary schools could be introduced in conjunction with the club's community programme.
  • Fixtures Poster: Chris Ainsworth produced an excellent fixtures poster to put around local pubs/eateries etc. Notes were taken with regards to design, TJ offered to find high quality paper and it was agreed that printing of these would be done by Wednesday 15th October to include a possible FA Cup 4th Qualifying Round tie.
  • Pub Crawl: GT suggested a pub crawl as done previously by SAFE and STAR to give away Alty calendars and fixture flyers. Unsurprisingly, those present nodded their agreement and GT would identify a suitable date possibly Sunday 16th Nov to get full effect for the Cambridge home fixture on the 22nd or maybe Sun 2nd Nov should we get through to the FA Cup 1st round and have a home tie on the 8th Nov.
  • Away Travel: TJ pointed out that the away travel to Weymouth was in particular danger of being too costly to run. It was agreed that this decision would rest with TJ with regards to viability.
  • Meetings: It was agreed that meeting should take place once a month and that the next meeting was for Sat 1st Nov before the Histon game in the Noel White Suite at 11.30 am – circa 1pm.