Minutes of Members’ Meeting
7.30pm Tuesday 21st September 2021 - Emerald Club, Wolverhampton.
Apologies were received from Peter Abbott, Nicholas Andrews-Gauvin, Simon Archer, Steven Bailey, Peter Bartlett, Simon Bennett, Steve Brown, Mark Bullock, Adam Dwight, Cheryl Gilbert, Adrian Porter, Jerry Price, Ian Smith, James Stibbs, Jonathan Taylor, Ian Terry, Adrian Willetts.
The meeting was also streamed via YouTube, however, there were some sound issues.
Chairman’s Update - Sam Payne
Sam thanked everyone for attending and especially those who had travelled some distance. He also thanked the Emerald Club for hosting the meeting.
Since the trust launch in July we now have reached our target of over 100 members and the next goal is to reach 200 members by the end of October.
The trust is grateful for the media exposure via the Express and Star and WCR, both Liam Keen (E&S) and Tim Beech (WCR) were in attendance. Sam also has a regular slot on Saturdays with WCR. The trust is struggling to receive any coverage by the national media. Sam requested if anyone has any contacts would they please let him know.
Sam and other volunteers have been distributing the trust flyers via the drop at Molineux prior to the Spurs game and also via car shows and pubs. Most of this activity has taken place in Wolverhampton and Sam asked for volunteers to distribute flyers to a broader geographical area.
Sam felt that the trust launch had gone well but we need a drive to recruit more members.
Membership Update - Peter Bradburn
Peter advised the meeting that the trust now has 136 paid-up members with a further 7 pending; this may be to do with minor discrepancies on the application form or PayPal issues. Peter is in the process of contacting those people. The earlier problems that were experienced with PayPal have now been resolved and people can still join even if they do not have a Paypal account. This needs to be made clear on the website and Peter/Neil will arrange for a note to be added.
Accounts
As the Treasurer was unable to attend, Sam read his report to the meeting. Unfortunately, we are still awaiting confirmation from the bank that the trust accounts have been opened. This has been ongoing since July 2021.
The Paypal account is £897.85 in credit (membership funds) and the temporary bank account had funds in of £1011 (sponsorship) and funds out of £414.80 (flyers, banners, stamps and badges) leaving a credit balance of £596.20.
Communications with the club - Neil Dady
Since the trust had sent an open letter to the club, Sam and Neil have held a Zoom call with Vinny Clark, Russell Jones and Dave Wood. Dave has agreed to attend a future meeting with the board members and agreed that the club will acknowledge the trust at a suitable point once they see that the trust is established.
The club is in the process of setting up new Fans’ Forums Groups - Ticketing, Diversity and Retail/Merchandise. The Match Day Experience Group has been running successfully for some time and has several trust members involved. It is hoped that we can have a trust member in each of the new groups.
Neil advised that we have had feedback from the club on a few of the issues that the trust had raised - Loyalty Points, Concession Prices in BW Upper and Away Fans’ Concession Prices. Wolves have explained their position on all of these points.
Many questions submitted to the club were concerning the football side but Russell, Vinny and Dave are not able to answer those. The trust can only hope to understand the process and we are not able to influence playing decisions.
Once we have replies to the questions submitted they will be forwarded to the members.
FSA Update - Ciaran Barker
Ciaran attended an FSA meeting yesterday with all PL clubs represented and a further meeting is planned for next week with Richard Masters, but only 6 clubs will be represented. At this stage, Ciaran does not know if the trust will be selected for that meeting but over the season all clubs will have a chance to attend.
Notes from that meeting will be circulated to all members but the main points were:
Covid Certification - this is ongoing and the PL are still awaiting information and guidance from the government. PL will do everything to maintain full stadiums and uphold the safety of supporters.
Away Ticket Info - all clubs are late in providing details to Away fans and are blaming one another for the late receipt of information.
E-tickets - those clubs who have implemented e-ticketing seem to be having problems, causing queues on entry (Wolves have taken the stance that they will wait and learn from those clubs’ experiences). There also needs to be an option for those fans who do not use smartphones.
50p Admin charge - other trusts (both PL and EFL) agreed that they are also charged admin fees (in some cases more than the Wolves charge), there are only a handful that do not.
Socios Crypto Currency - many clubs have now signed up for this and the Everton Trust held a meeting with the CEO of Socio, who explained that they do not envisage much uptake in UK, it is primarily intended for the Asian and American markets.
World Cup - there is a growing discontent between FIFA and UEFA regarding the hosting of a World Cup every 2 years.
Fan-led Review - Tracey Crouch is leading this review and has been requested by the government to submit the report by the end of October.
Election of new members to the board.
The current board members stand in an interim role until the AGM (when there will be a full election).
This has meant that the board are looking to recruit people to the vacant roles. At the first AGM a full election will be held for those wishing to stand or re-stand in the roles.
The positions that needed filling:
Vice Chairman – Darren Warren - proposed by Sam Payne and seconded by Mark Hadley, Neil Dady and Kashmire Hawker. (Darren gave a brief biography to those in attendance supporting his offer to stand).
Fans’ Liaison Officer - no volunteers
Digital, Media and Web Content Board Officer
Steve Bailey - (He currently looks after the website updates) proposed by Neil Dady for this new role, seconded by Ciaran Barker.
Assistant role of Vice Digital, Media and Content Officer - Kashmire Hawker put himself forward, he was proposed by Ciaran Barker and seconded by Mark Hadley.
New Member Recruitment - general discussion
Sam requested input from all those present and a variety of suggestions were made:
● Word of mouth
● Bring a friend to the next meeting
● Using the banners outside Molineux as well as distributing flyers, also approach Wolves to see if we could
have access to the Fanzone.
● YouTube channels - there are interviews planned with Dazzling Dave and Talking Wolves channels.
● Reaching out to international members - approach Worldwide Wolves groups. From the survey results (see
below) 5.8% of respondents were outside of the UK.
● Speak to other trusts to find out their recruitment methods.
● Posting on existing fans’ groups - Facebook.
● Online fans’ forums.
● Release a video about the trust and what it does.
● Features and editorial in the press and advertising in the match day programme, also advertising in junior
football handbooks.
● Create interest to attend meetings by having guest speakers.
● We need more female and younger members, reach out to Wolves Women and add more content to our
website.
WhatsApp
It was agreed to keep discussion in the current group to trust matters only and if anyone would like to set up their own chat group for members this can be arranged if there is enough interest.
Survey Results - Neil Dady
A copy of the results will be circulated to the membership and the club.
There were 86 respondents, some of the key points were: 59.3% aged 40-64
89.5% male
45.3% living in West Midlands county
79.3% would support free/subsidised public transport to matches 80.7% sitting in their first choice seat/stand at Molineux
77.6% would like a guest speaker at meetings
96.5% thought the trust membership fee was reasonable
Sky/PL productions - cameras in Molineux
Sam had made the club aware that the North Bank cameras were blocking the view for some fans and some were placed in emergency exits. The club had responded to this issue within 48 hours and it had been rectified in time for the Brentford game.
AOB - general discussion
1 When will we receive a reply to the questions sent to the Club/Jeff Shi?
Approx. 15 pages of questions were submitted to Wolves, they were not edited, so that Wolves could see how many people were asking about the same topics. Dave Wood pointed out that the Ask Wolves videos and Jeff Shi’s interview with The Athletic answered some of the questions but Sam will continue to follow this up. At this stage, we do not have a timescale.
2 Ticket Office and frustrations with the phone system
The Match Day Experience Group was advised in their recent meeting that Wolves acknowledge some of these frustrations. A new telephone system is being introduced; there is restructure currently taking place with the customer service teams and new recruitment and training is taking place so that there will be one point of contact for all departments.
3 - More content is needed from members for the website, both short and long articles are welcome.
Meeting closed at 21.55.
Date, time and method of the next meeting to be decided in the near future.