Trust Annual General Meeting Report

21 August 2023

The Trust's formal Annual General Meeting was held on Sunday 13 August in the club house bar of the Tiger Turf Stadium. 

The AGM is the Trust's formal meeting to conclude business for the year and give Members the opportunity to scrutinise the organisation's accounts and spending, and elect directors to the Trust Board for the year ahead.

The meeting was led by Trust chairman Robin Mogg who set out the Trust's achievements over the past year, explaining that the Trust had re-established itself in the New Year after reintegrating with the briefly lived Supporter's Club and being able to again fundraise at matches and build a working relationship with the new owners of the Football Club. This has led to a steadily increasing membership and number of T-Ender contributors, and an opportunity to help the Football Club with Trust members volunteering to carry out improvements to the stadium during the summer close season. You can read more about the Trust's summer activity and the new Club shop here, whilst the Chairman's full notes are attached below.

Trust Treasurer Trevor King presented the audited annual accounts which were approved by the members. His report outlined that after the limitations placed upon Trust Activity at the start of the year the first part of the 2022 had seen a very healthy income of £22,000 which was only possible due to the considerable efforts of volunteers. Amongst the items the Trust had contributed to in the past season were away coach travel for both players and supporters, contributions to player medical scans and a contribution to fund additional loan players during the play-off push in spring 2022.

The Trust Board were elected for the coming year. Robin Mogg and Trevor King were re-elected for further 2 year stints as Chair and Treasurer respectively. Ian De Maria, Tim Lezard, Chris Palmer and Matt Phillips were all formally elected as Directors having been co-opted to assist the Board during the season. Judith Evans was elected a Director to return to the Board, while Gordon Bendall and Matt Bowman resigned as Directors.  Gordon will take on the role of Trust Secretary following the AGM, replacing Alan Dawkins.

• Trust AGM 2023 Minutes including post meeting Q&A notes

• Trust Formal Audited Annual Accounts 2022-23

• Trust Chairman's Remarks and Report on 2022-23   Report Page 2   Report Page 3 

Members should have received copies of these documents directly by email, where unavailable postal copies should be in the mail shortly.

After the formal meeting Trust members had an opportunity to put questions to the Trust Board as well as the Football Club owners Patrick and Nicky Chambers. Notes of the discussion are included with the AGM minutes above but there was a discussion about issues with supporter's away travel. It was clear from the recent Trust Supporter's Survey that ground improvements, and especially an improved T-End, were high on fans' priorities. Patrick reminded the members that, at present, they don't own the stadium freehold and that while some ground improvements were planned it would be a few years until the Football Club was eligible again to apply for further grants towards major works from the Football Foundation. There were also questions and discussions about hot food on matchdays, encouraging fans to visit the bar after matches, and future events and club fundraising.

The meeting concluded with an address and chat with the Trust's new Honorary President Tom Webb. Tom talked about how excited he was at the recent developments in the Trust and Football Club, how the return of more locally based players would build a greater connection between players and fans, and how past players were keen to visit and the possibility of a future 'returning legends' evening with some past players chatting to supporters. 

You can sign-up to join the Supporters Trust right here