Minutes of FP Zoom Meeting held on 22nd October 2020 at 6pm
Present: Peter Abbott, Glenn Aston, Jas Bahra, Ciaran Barker, Darren Bennett, Simon Bennett, Anne Bott, Peter Bradburn, Steve Brown, Steve Cooke, Neil Dady (Chair), Dazzling Dave, Jack Finch, Tony Grocott, Kerry Harris, Kevin Harris, Kashmire Hawker, Anita Midha, Anita Millard, Sam Payne, Clive Smith, Ian Smith, Richard Southgate, Alan Stuart, Jonathan Taylor, Irene White
Wolves : Dave Wood (SLO)
FSA : Michael Brunskill (2nd part of meeting)
Apologies: Dave Azzopardi, Steve Bailey, Mark Bullock, Christine Endean, Carl Falconer, Daini Flower, Diane Jordan, Caroline Martin, Chris Pardoe, Karl Paulins, Ian Walker, Ben Woodall
Due to COVID this meeting was held on Zoom.
Neil opened the meeting by expressing his good wishes to members who were not able to join us for whatever reason. He thanked the committee and members who had been involved in keeping us connected with the club during the COVID crisis and special thanks to Dave Wood for keeping the lines of communication open.
It is planned that we have a meeting with the club before the end of the year, for this to be practical a small committee would be selected to prepare for this meeting, we will only have a limited time with club management and we need to make the best use of this time. Dave Wood explained that the meeting would be held with the clubs General Managers, which is part of the revised management structure that was outlined by Jeff Shi in the summer.
Jas Bahra asked if Wolves staff were still working from home. Dave Wood advised that staff were working from home wherever possible in line with the latest government advice, however, there are occasions when staff are on site if required. On match days, even though there are no fans present, a lot of changes had been made to incorporate COVID measures. Anyone in contact with players and coaching staff forms part of their “bubble”.
Review of recent activity
STs and Memberships
A poll was taken to find out the members’ views on the handling of STs and memberships. The majority (63%) were either happy or very happy, 9% were not happy.
Jonathan Taylor said that Wolves have handled this much better than clubs like Newcastle who are still taking ST payments for this season. The same is true of West Ham but most clubs that had taken money from their fans (eg West Brom) have now refunded the money. It was added that whilst Wolves were felt by some to be slow announcing their plans, they have behaved fairly towards the ST holders.
Kashmire Hawker said that perhaps the club were keeping their powder dry to see what other clubs were doing, he commended the morality of the club and their actions in the community, a credit to Dave and the team at Wolves.
Jas raised the point that surely during lockdown, it would have been a good opportunity to develop the Steve Bull stand. Dave Wood commented that it has been a unique and fluid situation with the club preferring to release information when they could provide as much information as possible which has led to the right approach being taken more often than not.
Ground Redevelopment would be a topic to discuss with the club’s General Managers at our forthcoming meeting.
Transfers and start to the season
Another poll was taken re the transfer policy to date, 58% felt that we should wait and see the results. A comment was made that in the first few weeks of the transfer season, there was some panic amongst fans regarding new players and the selling of Matt Doherty and Diogo Jota; but in previous seasons there hasn’t been too much “leakage” about signings prior to the event. Dazzling Dave felt that the key signing was Nuno. The signing of young players illustrates that Fosun are committing to the future of the club.
Previously, Kevin Thelwell has taken questions regarding players and explained where possible the club’s rationale. Dave Wood advised that at the next ‘club’ FP meeting, this topic can be covered. The new management structure reporting to Jeff Shi is as listed and the general managers will have the opportunity to introduce themselves at the next meeting. Dave also emphasised that we must prepare for this meeting and ensure that it is seen as beneficial to both sides.
Scott Sellars - Head of Academy
Matt Wild - Company Secretary
Vinny Clark - General Manager for Commercial Operations
Russell Jones - General Manager for Marketing and Commercial Growth
We will be able to speak to Scott re Wolves views on the young players and how they will be settled in and introduced to the first team.
Neil mentioned that the January window isn’t far away and Wolves could still sign players then.
Social Media and Website
According to this poll, 92% of the members present were supportive of the website and its content. It was noted that Steve Bailey has put a lot of time and effort into setting up the website. However, we need to be reactive to events and have a supply of fresh content. There was some criticism of not consulting all members on a couple of recent issues, but things move so fast that it’s not always possible to do this effectively.
Setting up a WhatsApp group for members may help to keep everyone connected.
The consensus was that the site is user-friendly but we need more match day experience blogs from our fans. We also need sponsors to pay for the annual cost of hosting the site, this would be ideal for Wolves fans with businesses that they would like to promote to the supporter base.
Neil felt that the website gives the FP greater visibility to the wider fanbase. It was also proposed to add links to other fan sites and groups eg Mol Mix (if they are agreeable) Dazzling Dave’s podcasts etc. It could also have links to associated Wolves products (subject to Wolves approval) but if this is the case they should pay to advertise their sites. The Villa Fans’ website has many adverts and we don’t want to clutter our site too much.
It was felt that we didn’t need our own Youtube channel but we could be part of other fans’ channels. Dazzling Dave felt that it would be a good opportunity to host an FP focused podcast.
Jas stated that from almost no social media presence in January the FP have come a long way in a short time. It was felt that Snapchat isn’t suitable at this stage. It was suggested that a Members WhatsApp group be created to engage quickly with the membership on relevant subjects. Anne will email the members to see who is in agreement and obtain their mobile numbers. Ian Smith advised that there is a WhatsApp Match Day Experience group which works well.
Prior to the next meeting with the club we will need to collate suggestions for the meeting content.
Membership
Nominations for the FP committee roles will be sent out over the next few weeks, Neil would like to stand down as Chairman and we need the existing membership to step up. If we don’t have a good response we may need to increase the membership to find people who will. Laurie Dalrymple was keen to keep the membership at around 35 members but with meetings taking place via Zoom for the foreseeable future and the creation of sub-groups to discuss key topics we may no longer need to restrict the numbers.
It is a requirement by the PL that each club meets with their supporters twice a season. Outside of this the FP would like to host 1 or 2 meetings with a speaker present and involve all of the membership.
The FP needs to be relevant to the rest of the supporters and it was suggested that we engage with other Wolves supporters’ groups. Neil will email the official supporters clubs listed on the Wolves website to gauge their interest.
The constitution also needs to be revisited, as this year has been a write-off and the 4 year membership rule may need amending. Glenn Aston felt that we need continuity and a shadowing of roles as most of the committee are due to leave in January due to this ruling. Glenn will undertake a review of the constitution in relation to the requirements of the FSA.
National Issues - FSA
At this point, Michael Brunskill, of the FSA, joined the meeting.
It was discussed whether to boycott the £14.95 PPV charge for the Wolves v Crystal Palace game at the end of October and make a donation instead to a Wolverhampton food bank, in line with other PL clubs. It was felt that Wolves FP need to support the community at the same time as supporting the wider national campaign. Newcastle had raised £20k in this way from their game against Man Utd.
Jas had contacted Caroline and Gary Price at The Well (a Wolves fan) who distribute food parcels from their warehouse in Wolverhampton to people who are struggling financially. Darren Bennett mentioned that someone (Kim) had set up a Just Giving page for Wolves fans to donate. Neil said that he had contacted Kim as soon as it was realised that her initiative was focused on the same charity and we agreed to keep in touch once our campaign was launched.. A text facility for donations would be set up by Monday in time for the game on 30th October. A vote was taken and the result was 100% in favour. Jack Finch asked if a target would be set but was advised not at this stage. A press release is to be issued and social media channels and the website will promote this from tomorrow.
Dave Wood clarified that the £14.95 charge was not voted on by the PL clubs but the option they were given was either to show all games on tv with PPV or only those games which would normally be selected by Sky/BT.
Michael gave some background of the FSA and their work and the success of the campaign #Letuswatch which encouraged the government to speak to PL and that it had successfully reversed the plan that 42% of games would not have been shown at all by the broadcasters. The FSA try to be the supporters’ voice, they are democratically structured with reps from all levels. They meet 4 times a year and it is open for individual supporters to join free of charge.
There will also be a huge national publicity drive re the Food Bank donations v PPV. It is hoped that the broadcasters will review their charges for the November games. There had been no consultation with fans’ groups re the charge and Glenn suggested that the fans of “smaller” clubs are being unfairly penalised as their games aren’t selected as much as the “Big 6” for normal viewing, he felt that a flat monthly charge would be fairer.
Kerry Harris asked if viewing figures for the weekend games had been published and was told no, Sky and BT regard that info as commercially sensitive.
Also FSA were firmly against Project Big Picture – the plan to reduce the PL to 18 clubs and for 9 clubs to have the voting rights affecting not only PL but EFL as well. FSA states that a government bill needs to be introduced sooner rather than later to review football governance, this was in last year’s Conservative manifesto.
Ciaran Barker asked the FSA’s view on VAR as the FSA don’t seem to have covered this. Michael said that with the other campaigns running this has been on hold due to COVID but a national survey is done each year and this would be an ideal subject for that.
The meeting closed with Neil thanking both Dave Wood and Michael for their attendance.
