Attendees:

Charlie Clapham – chairman SFC
Haydn Preece – chief executive SFC
Peter Rigby – chairman TIY
Alan Scarisbrick – vice chairman TIY
Phil Carder – treasurer TIY
Paul Isenwater –secretary TIY

Catering

 The club is aware of issues with the catering and at the meeting with Haydn, earlier in the month, it was agreed that the Trust could contact Richard Hughes of Caterman. The Trust has now received a response from Richard with a positive feel to it. Haydn has already had a meeting with Richard in the last week and it was agreed that Mr.Clapham would arrange a follow up meeting with Richard within the next four weeks (subject to Richard’s availability). The plan would then be to have a three way discussion between Caterman, the club and the Trust on how we can improve the product.

 Ideally the way to take forward the catering is to replace the current set up with permanent brick buildings. With the current layout of the ground, it would require at least two brick buildings and the chairman guesstimated that building and fitting the relevant equipment would cost £60-100k, as it had not been costed.

Haydn also asked for it to be minutes that Richard had approached TIY last year with an offer to look at the menu and to place someone within the company to see how the company worked, but was not taken up.

Youth Team/Reserve Team/Minibus

 The club has now two youth set ups in place this season. The KGV youth development scheme is recruited primarily on an educational requirement with a footballing skill secondary and is funded through the educational authorities with some of the footballing costs are passed onto the football club. These costs are increasing and the scheme has gone from break even to loss making.

 The new youth team is selected on footballing skills and involves education for an equivalent BTEC. This is funded through the learning skills council and all funding is dependant on the academic side meeting their requirements. The club has the ability to take around 30 people in each academic year and currently has recruited 26 youngsters, with a further 3 people hoping to come down and join. The funding is guaranteed for 3 years, subject to the club meeting the academic requirements and would continue on a rolling basis. The club is hoping to have two age groups next year, thus twice as many students. Allan Smart coaches with Matty McGinn as a second coach.

 As the students spend half their time studying and the remainder football training, there is an issue in getting from Haig Avenue to a training area, which is currently at Stanley School playing fields.

 Allan Smart and the club feel there is an urgent need to provide a minibus to shuttle the students backward and forward as well as transport them to matches and would also be used for any potential reserve side. The club is looking for a 17 seater minibus and it has been recommended that LDV are one of the better models. Costs vary, but suitable models have been seen on E-Bay from between £9-£11K

 With reference to a reserve side, the club has to show development in the scheme to maintain funding. The logical answer from the club’s point of view is to create a reserve team to which the students will be able to progress. The club has been against a reserve team in recent years due to finance, but given the new situation will be reviewing their position on the reserves and a final decision will be made later in the season(NB – it was noted that there was a positive feel that this would be likely to proceed). It was also noted that Liam was keen on a reserve team and although the two youth set ups had separate teams, the FA Youth Cup team would be a combined team.

Disabled Facilities

 The club are aware that the disabled facilities need improving. Steve Jackson is the disability officer at the club and the club is a member of NADS. The club has been advised that there is no funding available through any source to improve facilities at present, although the Chairman will check this again.

 The club needs to put a ramp up for access into the grandstand bar and has made enquiries about building a new disabled area at the Blowick side of the main stand with a ramped area and glassed panels similar to those at Blyth. There is ringfenced money for this project from the ground centenary funds, believed to be around £6k.

 The next stage is to get this fully costed out and then bring back to the next meeting and the trust would approach Steve Wignall to see whether he would be interested in pursuing this project.

Cover For Standing Areas

 The trust asked if it would be possible to set up covered areas over the popular side incrementally as the total cost would be too high. Mr Clapham advised that the safety certificate for the popular side was for the whole side and if one section was to be roofed then the safety certificate would be affected as there was a chance of overcrowding in that section during inclement weather. Therefore it was an all or nothing scenario with the total cost expected at around £150K. These costs were presently not within the means of the club without affecting the playing budget.

Grandstand Bar

 The grandstand bar needs a lot of money spending on it to ‘update it’. A quote from a rep who works on behalf of Yates Wine Bar suggested to bring up to that sort of standard would cost £250k. The club is getting more and more functions booked in its current state (thanks to Paul Glendenning and several others who have worked on this) and feel that an upgrade will not generate enough extra revenue from new clientele to justify the cost. It was also note that the small bar had been totally refurnished. Mr.Clapham recommended that upgrades to the bar area should be done for urgent maintenance, but noted disabled access(see above) needed to be done. These costs of upgrading the facilities were presently not within the means of the club without affecting the playing budget.

 The club also advised that Setanta and Sky are now available on the big screen.

Floodlights

 The current floodlights meet Conference North and Conference National requirements. The club spent around £7k on upgrading during the closed season. It was also noted that Football Foundation grant funded projects has fallen from a possible 50% grant to a current 20% grant, thus increasing a potential outlay from around £45k to £72k. Mr.Clapham advised that there were moves through the Football Foundation to  increase the grants back to the previous levels. The costs of new floodlights were presently not within the means of the club within affecting the playing budget. However the club recognises that the present installation is aging and that major renewal will probably become necessary in a few years time.

The club advised that if we were to have a ‘big’ FA cup run or if Craig Noone was transferred for a big fee then the situation may be re-considered.

AOB

The club confirmed that a balancing sum had been received following the transfer of Carl Baker from Morecambe to Stockport County.

The club expects to make a small profit this season, 2008/09 this assumes no large capital outlays between now and the end of the June 2009.

The planning permission sought for the new artificial pitch and the renovation of KGV have been forwarded by KGV and backed by the club, the club will have the opportunity of hiring the artificial pitch along with the rest of the community.

The club confirmed that they are still in talks over naming rights for stadium sponsorship and are in discussions with several parties.

The Sportsman’s dinner was a huge success and the plan is to run another towards the end of the season. It was also hoped that trust members would be able to get discounted tickets for the next event and further discussions on this discount would take place nearer to the event.

The club has re-iterated that it is not feasible for supporters to go from the club to have a drink in the bar at half time due to the layout of the premises.

 The Trust is still waiting for Haydn to provide a date as to when the flyers for the lottery will be going into the Visiter and for Haydn to contact Keith Mitchell to arrange a section to promote the trust on the bottom of the flyer.