The Trust

Quoted from MuddyWaters

And why is there apathy? The Trust board is now dominated by people known to support the stewardship of JF,

Stopped reading there mate - known to who? How? Who dominates this board and where’s this supposed evidence that they’re “well known pro-Fenty acolytes”, as it was put recently.

Fenty didn’t seem too keen on them when he was secretly filmed slagging the whole Trust off...

Quoted from ska face

Stopped reading there mate - known to who? How? Who dominates this board and where’s this supposed evidence that they’re “well known pro-Fenty acolytes”, as it was put recently.

Fenty didn’t seem too keen on them when he was secretly filmed slagging the whole Trust off...

He was filmed slagging the Trust off on the day Paul Savage (bax) resigned.

Quoted from diehardmariner

Absolutely not.  If people want to go that's their choice and it should always be respected.  

However the ethos of the competition still sits very uncomfortably with me and I guess a lot of people too.  It's quite simply a way of forcing through B Teams into the Football League, despite what message Shaun Harvey cascades down and John Fenty paraphrases as no thin end of the wedge.

Would that money be welcome?  Of course it would.  But it'll mean absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things when we're playing Reading Under 23's as a competitive fixture.  

The introduction of B Teams into the league system will kill English football, so you'll have to forgive me for harping on about it.

Couldn't agree with this more strongly.

We cannot stop going on about it, that is what people in power count on. Ride out the initial storm until people give up. Well I am not going to give up on objecting to b-teams at each and every turn.

I have completely lost faith in the people who run the Trust at the moment and being an exile who can't make it back very often (so feel unable to be actively involved) am done with it for now. The Trust resembles a Premier League membership club where you get special offers giving you a better chance of tickets or early discounts on items in the club shop, but nothing else. It is increasingly the marketing arm of the club as shown by the fact the GTFC board asked the Trust to back the b-team trophy and they are waiting for 'the positive spin'.

I know there are a lot of decent people who have put a lot more time and effort than I have ever come close to into the Trust, and who continue to work to make it a body which will represent fans. To those people thank you for everything you have done.

What depresses me most about this is a few months ago, as we stared once more into the abyss, we all said things must change. We could not allow ourselves to get into this position again and whether we stay up or not change must come. Now we seem to have a manager who 'gets it' and we are all forgetting what drove us so close to despair a few weeks ago. A club board who think being a community club is something you say you are as you go out and do nice things around the area. But what that truly means, at least I think, is that the community you refer to has a voice that is respected and listened to within the club as well, not ignored and told 'you would make the same decisions in our position, so stop moaning and buy some season tickets!'.

A few years from now I can already picture Jolley off somewhere else, and ourselves  once more staring into the abyss saying we should never let this happen again. Hopefully I am incredibly wrong but with the gtfc board that has messed up time and again being enabled by the supporters trust I don't see the evidence suggesting I will be.

With Diehard, Ska and Caesar on this. We CAN"T give up because of a few good results, a manager who knows how to treat people and a seemingly docile Trust board.

Quoted from MuddyWaters

He was filmed slagging the Trust off on the day Paul Savage (bax) resigned.

Right...

Quoted from 1mickylyons

Errr The Club directly asked the Trust for support on the checkatrade?

Absolutely ridiculous of the club to ask the Trust for that. When did club board conveniently forget the Trust's role is to represent the FANS?

With that in mind, as has been suggested above, there should be absolutely no discussion about the Trust's position on the rent-a-trophy while the majority of the fans dont want it. This seasons record low attendance should be all the indication they need to know feeling in the stands.

Every few weeks we have a thread questioning the trust and it’s relationship with fenty ...I’d say it’s very obvious to all and sundry who pulls the strings

Quoted from Davec

The trust are a shambles, they have no influence at all, the chair is a big supporter of Fenty and is very pro checkatrade trophy, he's always at fans forums sucking up to Fenty and the Checkatrade trophy, other board members are too cosy to Fenty also such as Terry Rudrum and it's been mentioned previously the trust representative who's on the board (his name escapes me at the minute) is too cosy with Fenty probably a few others also. This makes the support of the checkatrade no surprise, they will back B team involvement also with Rutter in charge.

The minutes are terrible, in my opinion minutes should detail what was said by who and just briefly touch on what was discussed. And as usual they skirted around and avoided certain topics.

I notice that Rutter would like a vice chair and Ian Townsend (Barralad) thought they should recruit externally which I think they should, but everybody else disagreed and said no, probably so they can find somebody else to suck up to Fenty

I suppose it is pointless asking you to back up your claims about the Trust chairman with anything resembling facts Aaron. The Trust Board were unanimous in their opposition to the Checkatrade Trophy. Just in case that doesn't register unanimous means everyone. Thank you for your comments about the minutes. I'm assuming that you will be contacting us directly offering your considerable expertise for the production of any subsequent sets of minutes. It would be really useful for us to have the services of a dedicated minute taker so the rest of us can get on with negotiating with the club for the introduction of a variety of incentives to improve the match day experience for the people we represent such as an exile loyalty scheme, incentives for people who cannot attend enough matches to make it viable for them to purchase a season ticket, improvements for disabled supporters-not just of GTFC but of those of clubs who visit us, and others. There are people who regularly post on here who know first hand of some of the huge amount of work being undertaken in these areas.

Quoted from Vance Warner

"DR raised the question that has come from the club whether we can support the Checkatrade trophy next season. The board discuss the pros and cons but remain very split in our personal opinions. It is thought that the new manager may be able to add a more positive spin. No real decision made,could be discussed again next meeting"

So is the Trust there to represent the views of supporters or the views of the board members? Clearly supporters aren't 'split' on this.

A step in the right direction to publish minutes though I suspect it's far too transparent for JF's liking. The only other thing that caught my attention was in relation to the open day.

"Charity stalls discussed as club have restricted these. The majority of the board agree that as a community trust, we should be supporting local
causes."

It's not my job to "defend" the club but the charity issue is around the fact that the club have, each year a dedicated charity and overloading with requests for support of individual charities would dilute the money for that chosen charity. It is a stance that a lot of organisations take. This doesn't necessarily mean that the club won't offer support or that The Trust won't get involved in individual requests to help us meet our requirements to the community.

Quoted from barralad

I suppose it is pointless asking you to back up your claims about the Trust chairman with anything resembling facts Aaron. The Trust Board were unanimous in their opposition to the Checkatrade Trophy. Just in case that doesn't register unanimous means everyone. Thank you for your comments about the minutes. I'm assuming that you will be contacting us directly offering your considerable expertise for the production of any subsequent sets of minutes. It would be really useful for us to have the services of a dedicated minute taker so the rest of us can get on with negotiating with the club for the introduction of a variety of incentives to improve the match day experience for the people we represent such as an exile loyalty scheme, incentives for people who cannot attend enough matches to make it viable for them to purchase a season ticket, improvements for disabled supporters-not just of GTFC but of those of clubs who visit us, and others. There are people who regularly post on here who know first hand of some of the huge amount of work being undertaken in these areas.

Would you be able to explain then why it is suggested that when the Club board ask the Trust board to support b-teams there was a debate and a wait for 'positive spin'? I get that the Trust board were unanimous in opposing it, were they supporting a boycott?  Are they now? Is the Trust going to be part of the 'spin' operation to encourage fans to attend? I don't doubt you work hard as I said before and always say. But I do doubt that you have the desire to challenge the club board on many issues.