The Sky Blue Trust... (3 Viewers)

What is it,a cheque for a quid or something to join?

Snoz - Apologies if you haven't received any news - does the Trust have yr email address? PM it to me and I will make sure you are on the database and get news updates.

Valiant - go to the trust website and you can join online www.skybluetrust.co.uk

hill83 said:

It's about time you decided if you want to be taken seriously on here with your 'football knowledge' or want to be a WUM.

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i can do both....successfully.

Will do Jan.

ashbyjan said:

Yes LordS it was but rather than give up their plans because of the cancellation and the torrid weather the lads in question took their recruitment efforts directly to the City centre and continued to try and get new members and succeeded in signing up a significant number of members.

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That's a relief, thought i'd missed out on Echo and the Bunnymen for a minute.

the trust is a provident society and therefore has to have a membership fee. The minimum fee is £1. If we could set it to free we would. It used to be £10 a year, we lowered it to £1 because its all about members, not taking money off supporters. The £1 is held in the trust account and is used for the odd running cost but mainly is left unused at present untill a time it is needed. Snoz again apologies all details should be on our database and you should be receiveing regular email updates from us.

The Godiva was cancelled however yes we did stand in the rain for 4 hours on the day of the Godiva in the Square in the city centre. We are happy to put forward supporter suggestions to the club on improving the whole matchday experience and we can do this both as the trust and through the scg which is a meeting that Tim Fisher attends.

Unfortunately with the nature of what is happening at CCFC at present our main concern has been trying to find out the facts and where we will stand should the club end up in a pompey scenario and whilst we hope it doesn't happen we have to be prepared for the worst as their appears to be no light at the end of the tunnel, yes we may be guilty of putting all our efforts into this and letting other things fall by the wayside.

Feedback is what we need. And criticism is fine and expected within reason

I don't have a cc to pay.

If you have no credit card then either come along to a meeting, next one scheduled for 24th November at the Ricoh and pay directly or send a cheque for £1.00 made out to skybluetrust to Sky Blue Trust c/o The Squirrel, Greyfriars Lane, Coventry, CV1 2GY enclose your name, address and e-mail details.

I just went on the website and was going to bung a quid over.

However, it doesn't say how you take payment and I didn't like the way for the donations to set it to 0 you have to click other and type in 0. Little bit cheeky.

Also the join us page isn't secure so don't want to put personal info in

Does it use Paypal to process it?

It needs to have more info before filling in the form how I am going to be paying and what will happen.

it will link you through to paypal yes Nick

Does it use recurring payments?

Might be worth putting a paypal logo at the start

Useful feedback Nick and will be passed onto the guys looking after the website

Also look at getting an SSL Certificate, a lot of people feel uneasy entering personal info into unsecured sites.

If you can get the online bit a bit easier then it makes it easier for people to do it from their own front room.

Speakingpersonally I hate third tier football, the Ricoh less than half empty and whatfeels like never ending financial crisis. The question is whether Citysupporters can play a role in trying to move things in a more positivedirection. Forming a Trust is exactly what fans at other clubs have done andsome have succeeded in buying a stake in their club and getting supportersrepresented at Board level –those are the things that really lead to change.Swansea is a great example of what can be achieved. The Sky Blue Trust hasrecruited over 700 new members in three months so there are clearly plenty ofpeople who want to help get things moving. Increasing membership has been theSky Blue Trust’s first aim and after that it starts to be about looking atfinance (some Trusts have raised very impressive amounts of money). I have noidea whether the Trust will get anywhere but unless we try we’ll never know.The more people who join and get involved the better and as membership is onlya quid it’s not exactly the biggest gamble in the world.

Well I for one am still a bit mystified.

Yes, it's great that the trust has been (or is being) resurrected - Trusts at other clubs have had a mixed time of things, but at least it shows there are people who care enough to do something. The old Trust helping to save the academy was great, I hadn't realised. BUT...

It's clear that the main aim appears to be "to give the fans a voice" etc etc - but it's not so clear what you'll be saying with that voice. Unless you tell me otherwise, SBT clearly does not have the finance to take over the club, so with that in mind it's hard to see what any "dialogue" with the club can amount to. What are you bringing to the table that will make them take you seriously, other than "being the voice of the fans"?

I'm not trying to be negative, just trying some arguments on you which I guess would figure highly in the minds of many Coventry fans who haven't joined, who must think "good effort, but realistically what can they do, other than talk to the club and arrange meetings etc?"

Also, what happened to SOC?

I think that the reason it may have died, along with the original trust, is that potentially active members can't see enough concrete actions / achievements, or a plan to achieve them. For me, to attract a critical mass there needs to be a clear plan - otherwise people may feel that "self-important people" are organizing meetings for the sake of it without a chance of making a real difference. Not my opinion, but I think a lot of City fans would hold that view.

JimmyHill - thanks for your post. The Trust IT guys will get yourcomments but as you will have seen if you've looked at the website in recentmonths they've been doing a lot of work on it and all on a completely voluntarybasis so things do take time. One thing that is needed is people to contributearticles for the website so always feel free to. Regarding security of paymentsI'm not aware of any problems so far and it may take time to set up so if youwant to join now email theskybluetrust@gmail.com.Thanks again.

CJ - the Trust stopped functioning and just getting the basic admin/ITsystems up and running is ****ing hard work! I only joined the Trust in thesummer but I think the stuff on the website is from the Trust's originalconstitution (going back to 2003 possibly). This needs to be updated and it ismembers who will decide the aims. My suggestions would be along the lines of theaims of the Trust are to:

· Buy a financial stake in CCFC and have at leastone democratically elected Trust member on the CCFC Board

· Work positively in partnership with CCFC andother stakeholders - but the Trust is, and will always be, an independent anddemocratic supporters’body

· Put supporters at the heart of CCFC

The Trust's first priority has been to increase membership (and going from20 to 700 in 3 months is pretty phenomenal). Finance is the next issue. A lotof Trusts have done things when their club has gone into admin but that is notthe situation at CCFC. However, that doesn't mean raising finance isimpossible. Other trusts have raised serious money and then worked with otherco-investors. Lots of options are being discussed but we have to work throughwhat is best for us - any ideas are very welcome. I wasn't involved with SOC socan't answer that one other than the Trust is a legally constituted, democratic,supporters' body open to everyone to join and supported by a nationalorganisation (Supporters Direct) so has a lot of advantages. In terms of'self-important people' I'd say come along to a meeting and make your ownmind up - and I think you'll find views like that are just a wind up. Andfinally, what I always say is maybe the Trust won't achieve anything but unlesswe try we’ll never know.

Thanks HH. I may well join.

I think there will be a majority who say "doesn't matter how many members they get, they'll never change anything" - any these views might be right, but as you say, it's worth trying.

The main thing is to have achievable and clear objectives, not just the big ones like buying part of the club, but meaningful smaller things that will make a difference, like sorting an agreement with the authorities to allow free matchday parking at Tesco, for instance.

Cheers, CJ. When we say ideas are welcome it's not a ploy to deflect discussion - it's entirely genuine. I like the Tesco idea. If ever you want to raise anything direct feel free to email theskybluetrust@gmail.com

HH, can you shed some further light on how SCG works?

You canvass suggestions from fans - fine. What then is the process for deciding which of these to put forward to CCFC? And which of the ideas that get put forward become SCG policy (if there is such a thing)?

Clearly you need to distill the many suggestions and arrive at a hard core of goals, in order to have a coherent programme and discuss this constructively with the club. But it would be good to understand how this works within SCG.

CJ, I'm not on the SCG so Jan's your man for this.

Sorry HH, same goes for SBT - obviously many ideas get put forward, how do they decide which to pursue?

covcity4life said:

i can do both....successfully.

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succesfully only in your own opinion

CJ, the Trust is a democratic organisation so any member can attend an open meeting, put forward an idea and if necessary it can be voted on. The Board members were elected in July and minutes of Board meetings are posted on the website. If people can't make a meeting they are very welcome to email ideas at any time. There is no secrecy or mystery - everyone who is involved does so on a voluntary basis and everything is very open. Afraid I'm cream crackered so that's me done for today

To all those who think "HouchensHead" is me - it AIN'T!!! He's nicked my fookin username!

Houchens Head said:

To all those who think "HouchensHead" is me - it AIN'T!!! He's nicked my fookin username!

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Sounds a bit like the 'thorninmyside' twin!

gary_ccfcforever said:

for the record... we are currently in the process of building the trust back up, it was dormant for over 2 years and all the old members had lapsed. We've gone from 4 board members and a few life members to 700 members and a board of 11 with differing skillsets. We've worked tirelessly in the city centre over several weekends increasing membership because without a significant number of members we wouldn't have the power to act.

Since then we have several people working away in the background attempting to put the ground work in place for if or when the 'shit hits the fan' which lets be honest could be anytime. You are all entitled to whatever opionion you decide to take, but i for one have put hours of my personal time into building up the trust memebership and several people i know are working tirelessly.

We have a meeting in the casino (lady gs) before the pompey game... 3 members of the pompey trust are coming down to talk to us about how they have put their bid together and Ben Shave from supporters direct will be joining us and you can ask him anything you like about how trusts can and have saved their football club.

Will we be able to do something similar? i really dont know it depends on if we can bring together high net worth people from around the city like Pompey have done, but i'd rather at least try because life under sisu is grim and likely to get grimmer.

If you feel you can offer something or disagree why dont you get involved? its not an exclusive club its just a group of people who want to see CCFC a) Survive and b) prosper rather than this slow lingering death at present.

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Gary, its clear you have passion for this, but portsmouth's situation is totally different as indeed was swansea.

Here's why:

Portsmouth's deal is relying on paying just 2% on the debts and goodwill from local businesses. Swanseas' debts at the time were around £1 mill, and the fans struggled to get £200k.

Cov have equitised all their debts, so any deal would have to deal exclusively with SISU. Do you really expect SISU to accept 2p in the pound? A "typical" deal is anywhere between 10 and 20%.

With Cov's debts of 50-60 mill, at 10% your group would have to raise 5 mill. with 700 members (call it 1k) you'd have to raise £5k from each member!

As you say its a "shit hits the fan" plan, which implies no investors, or loans. So you are relying on either one man or a consortium who is prepared to put up the vast majority of the £5m (cov are league 1 so you cannot expect to raise more than the £200k they did), yet you expect to have a significant say in the running of the club!

If you manage to raise 20% of the 5 million, you are going to need 1000 members prepared to stump up £1k each.

Even if you achieve this, there are so many issues its ridiculous - will you plan to buy the ricoh? If so will these members have to stump up or are you expecting the rich investor to accept all these costs?

Will you provide funds to improve the team? Are you planning to groundshare? Has this even been considered?

I admire your effort, but when you have other members slagging off and aggressively trying to silence any criticism, how do you expect to increase membership?

Are the members aware they are likely expected to stump up £1k, or what are you expecting them to stump up?

I'm sure you can get more members, but when push comes to shove are you genuinely expecting all fans to stump up the not insignificant amount of money?

Enthusiasm doesn't make it realistic.

For it to work you are going to need rich investors. I just don't see anyone prepared to stump up virtually all the money, and yet give away a signifcant amount of control!

I have no doubt you are sincere, and totally dedicated, but again that doesn't make your plan workable.

psgm1 - Key thing is Trust is working towards developing a plan that is realistic for current CCFC position. It certainly ain't easy. What encourages me is some of the general lessons we can learn from other Trusts (every Trust's situation seems to be a bit different and ours certainly is). One of the things that amazes me is that other Trusts have been contatced by people like ex-pats with an affection for their club, no interest in being involved in the club, don't trust current football owners but are happy to chuck in decent sums of money to a legally based body, democratic Trust. You pose good questions about how much money City fans may be willing to stump up, Sisu's position and co-investors. Your views on these might be entirely correct. But until we get to a position where we get a concrete plan in place we won't know. So why not try?

Just skimming through briefly, so may have missed some points, but isn't this a similar thing to what Portsmouth fans are trying? Or have I got it totally wrong as usual?

CJparker said:

HH, can you shed some further light on how SCG works?

You canvass suggestions from fans - fine. What then is the process for deciding which of these to put forward to CCFC? And which of the ideas that get put forward become SCG policy (if there is such a thing)?

Clearly you need to distill the many suggestions and arrive at a hard core of goals, in order to have a coherent programme and discuss this constructively with the club. But it would be good to understand how this works within SCG.

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CJ - i'll try and do my best to explain how the SCG works. First of all, just a quick note to say that we're meeting tonight with the club and the topic is communication, so i'll have a better steer on some things after tonight.

I joined the SCG a few years ago so there may be others on here who can do a better job of telling its history than me, but basically the SCG is a group of about 15 fans, who are from quite a wide cross section of fans (Disabled, Diamond Club, Premier Club, JSBs, Away Fans, London Supporters, Sky Blue Trust, Block 15, etc).

We have monthly meetings with members of the club, nearly always Dan Walker and Justin Tose, but also Tim Fisher if available (which he has been lately).

The scope of what we try to achieve is the following:

• to act as a channel of communication and consultation between the Club and its supporters
• to continually improve the overall emotion that is experienced as a supporter of Coventry City Football Club through collaborative discussion and exchange of ideas
• to promote the Club’s engagement in the local and regional community
• to seek ways to continually improve match day experience, including increasing attendance and enhancing stadium atmosphere
• to continually improve the image of the Club and the sense of pride in supporting Coventry City Football Club

The thing is, over the last few years it has been very difficult for the group to get any kind of momentum going because of the changes at the club. People who have really got behind it have been and gone so its not been easy. However we now have an agreed TOR, and we seem to be making progress. We try and pick a particular topic for discussion each month that we can focus on, but we also raise various queries throughout the meeting. The club also bounce ideas off us - so it very much works both ways. Its not a secret club as has been described on here before, far from it, but outward communication has never really been sorted - hopefully tonight it will be.

This is the first time i've asked on here for suggestions. I did it because this forum is full of supporters whose experiences are different. Season Ticket holders, casual fans, lapsed supporters, people who have moved away, etc. So its a good way to get different views.

What i've tried to do is capture everything that people posted on the thread and have grouped it into categories. As i said in that thread, some of them i'll just pass to the club to try and sort out, no point wasting time in the meeting talking about why the ketchup dispensers aren't full - but its still something they should know. If i'm being honest, i'm not quite sure how to handle the suggestions yet. Clearly there isn't the time to talk about all of them at the meeting. All in all, i've got 22 bullet points on my list. I might circulate it at the meeting at see which ones grab peoples attention. I'll also try and work out how it might work in the future. It might mean coming on here with a particular topic so the responses are a bit more focussed.

I'll also try and find out who at the club is the point of contact for the stuff like TVs not being on, and ketchup not being full, and toilets being locked, etc.

Hope that helps.

...........................

Thanks KH - when communication is discussed, can I suggest that the following points are raised:

1) it is critical that the SBT shouts louder about its previous achievements, e.g. the academy, including those which have been achieved through bodies like the Supporters Consultative Group - this will PROVE to other fans it is not just a talking shop

2) it is critical that SBT publishes a list of clear and defined targets / projects that it wants to achieve in future. One one level you have the "constructive dialogue with the club", "contingency plans" etc, etc, but you also need some more matter of fact targets, to get people more involved with concrete aims. These could be:
* agree free / discount parking at Tesco
* improve access of the railway underpass
* arrange for discounts of some kind with the train company for home fans travelling to the Ricoh via the new station
etc
Practical things like this will show what positive work is going on, and get more people involved, especially if it improves the general matchday experience of ordinary fans

3) it also needs to be made clear how decisions are made and how suggestions become SBT "policy" (or not), if that is the right word, is arrived at. This is to make clear that the SBT is democratic and transparent, and is not the plaything of a "publicity hungry few" as many allege.


If these can be addressed, together with the existing good work, SBT will be in a much stronger position with the fans, which will help the organisation immeasurably.