Club meeting - Thursday 12 December 2013 7.30pm

Supporters are invited to a meeting at the CANDAC on 12 December 2013.

It will be an opportunity to hear about recent and future developments at the club.

For those supporters unable to attend the meeting a detailed report of proceedings on this forum would be greatly appreciated  

Will there be regular updates from the meeting by text and Twitter?

I will get wayne to pinch oldsod's dickyphone for you cliff

If someone texts me the details I'll post on here...

I am sure we will get an update too on the current financial situation, bearing in mind the difficulties of playing early-season at Cinderford followed by disappointing gates back in town.

hi i was at the meeting Thursday, and was a little dismayed to hear the club is looking at the hire of the pitch as a brake even venture, i believe when this pitch was first spoke about it was stated that this was going to put a lot of money in to the club coffers, and to hear Mr strand say he had explained in meetings for the pitch!!!! he did not believe it would be a money maker, leaves me scratching my head !!!! i attended all the meetings open to supporters regarding pitch discussions  and i  can only remember trust members pushing the ground by telling us ,the ground will save us and make the football club money,(large amounts of money) i believe many of the supports who voted for the pitch change did so on the strength of these comments.
Please don't think im having a pop at the trust, far from it i believe the trust are doing a brill job
and i believe the pitch is a asset to the club!!! it allows the lads to play the style of football we've long known they can play, but to find out it's not going to generate revenue as perceived is a bitter pill to swallow.
and for Mr Strand to say  business plans mean nothing and anyone can put a set of figures together is a little disconcerting, Mr Strand needs to understand that people hear figures being pushed around and see £ signs, and will sway lots of peoples thoughts.
we must remember there were figures quoted from clubs who had made large sums of money from hiring their ground out ...

douggolfer wrote:hi i was at the meeting Thursday, and was a little dismayed to hear the club is looking at the hire of the pitch as a brake even venture,
.

What I understood was the reference to the pitch breaking even was only in relation to THIS SEASON - not what was expected to happen indefinitely afterwards.

Regrettably I could not make the meeting this time but I think the importance of getting a facility like the old Strikers Club back up and running will be a crucial cog in the continued development of our club...in the 1980s it was probably the premier wedding venue in the Town and that was due to the acumen of our former business minded chairman ...whilst I was not involved in the financial side it seemed prima facie to be a good revenue stream and contributed to our ability to progress up the non league pyramid....sadly times have changed..few people can afford to get married these days and less people get their children christened ....but I still feel that this facility coupled with the football club image would be a draw to the public.....my worry is the missing fans....I fear that the drop of fans is down to the older generation who were brought up on live local football are literally dying off and it will take a sea change in attitudes to occur in the younger generation for us to increase the younger fan base...the bottom line is live non league football is a leisure activity and it is in a market place with a lot of competition ...the 1940s 1950s 1960s had precious little entertainment within the reach of the working and non working class in Merthyr ...now we have the Internet, gyms, nightclubs, pubs, xboxes, ps3 and a whole host of sports pastimes and activities to compete with...people's incomes have reduced the cost of living has spiralled as has energy bills...there is a lot less disposable family income than before in the Valleys....especially with benefit cuts and the decimation of public sector jobs by our Government....we have to pay for four levels of bureaucracy...the local Council, the Welsh Assembly, Westminster and the European Parliament ....apart from the Miners Strike of 1984 I cannot remember having to take tins of food to a football match to help less fortunate than us to eat at Christmas....we as a football club have to remember there is a recession on...and money for leisure activities rank a lot lower in the priority list than mortgage or rent council tax food and heating and lighting and the Merthyr Valley has seen most of its factories close....only OP chocolates remains...but it is not all down and gloom....like in the Miners Strike the sense of Community wins the day....people like our hard working Trust are living proof of that...we still have a club which can boast an excellent community facility...we have been blessed with the support of the Council who as Freeholders of Penydarren Park care for our Community ....the Club is not being run for profit but as long as we break or make a small surplus and ride out these tough times...the good times will return....everything is cyclical. ....the suggestion by the roving sheep is a good one...tell the Polish and Portuguese communites that they are welcome at our club....I can't wait to here our football announcer get his tongue around surnames with lots of z and skis in them and the promotion of the facility at local schools and the wonderful weekly parade of local schoolchildren with the players is vitally important....a new fan base to supplement our ageing existing one is essential...but it should not be all about number crunching....thanks to the Trust , the Council and the fans a lot of whom come from neighbouring Valleys we have come back from the brink ...the squad is playing excellent football ....and we will eventually find our level....enjoy what we have and try and boost attendences by preaching the gospel of the Good Gary Shepherd and ask your friends and neighbours to come and watch the odd game in the Springtime...if everyone brought someone new to the occasional game it would help and of course they might actually enjoy it too.....Boz

Regarding a facility equivalent to what Strikers was like, it was mentioned at the meting (and has been in the past), that after the work on the car park - demolishing the old Strikers - and work on the entrance road and new turnstiles, the next development in the pipeline is to extend the main building where the stand is towards the Chapel End of the ground. This would mean the first floor level where the Candac, etc, is being enlarged and provide more room and scope for functions. The existing Candac area would also be refurbished.

I'm not sure if there's a definite time scale on this happening - it's going to be next summer before the work on the entrance road is done, so is certainly not going to be until some time after that.

Thanks to those who have reported the outcome of last Thursday's meeting, alleviating the need for me to do so.
I will add some comments, for clarification, in response to the posting by douggolfer.
The initial presentation to supporters about the possibility of seeking funding to install a 3G pitch described the experience at other club's, some of which had managed to make large profits from the hire of a 3g pitch.
At that presentation some supporters were sceptical that we could generate large amounts of income and questioned whether we should embark on the process of obtaining the necessary funding for such a pitch.
My response to those concerns was to estimate the levels of income, from the hire of the pitch, that it would take to achieve a break even situation, enabling the club to cover running costs and to accumulate funds to replace the pitch top surface in 10 years or so.
On the basis of a financial business case that aimed for such a break even approach, in August 2012 club members were invited to vote on whether to proceed with the search for funding to install a 3G pitch.
The main reasons put by the club board in a letter to the members for proposing the installation of the 3G were;

• The facility would be of great use as part of our club’s objective of promoting football in the community, enabling widespread use for young people to play football.
• The availability of a 3g pitch for hire would be a likely source of profit for the club.
• The opportunity to obtain backing for the wider project in the form of a long term lease and financial backing from MTBC
• Obtaining grants for whole the project would be enhanced by the inclusion of the 3g pitch.
• It would also include the installation of new floodlights as part of the project. The replacement of our floodlights in a few years will be a major issue for the club.

While, as stated above, there was an expectation of profit from the hire of the pitch, the financial case laid out in the letter was on the basis of breaking even. Other club's have reported that they have made substantial profits from the hire from the pitch, and we will aim to make a profit from ours.

It is early days and we are trying to build up the level of hire of the pitch. This season the aim is to achieve a level of income to cover cost of administering the pitch - maintenance, staff and electricity etc. By the end of the season the aim is to start generating enough income to enable the club to accumulate funds from the replacement of the pitch in the future.

On Thursday my response to the question as to whether we have a business plan for the pitch was meant to indicate that a business plan for a new venture such as this is very much based on estimates.

I should have made clear that in practice the club board is regularly presented with detailed financial plans, which include projections of income and costs relating to the use and hire of the pitch.

John Strand