Meeting of supporters Thursday 1 December

There will be a meeting at the CANDAC on Thursday 1 December at 7.30pm, to which all supporters are welcome.

The aim of the meeting is to update supporters about recent developments at the club over recent months, and in particular to spell out some detail around the grant that the club has received through the Social Economy team at Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council.

Will any minutes be released from this meeting as I wasn't able to make it?

I will prepare and publish a summary asap

Notes from the meeting on Dec 1st

The main event of the last six months since the last meeting has been the return to Penydarren Park. When we played our first league match at the ground in August the ground looked in pretty good shape, and that was down to many hours were spent at the ground by volunteers clearing weeds, brushing terraces, painting roller shutter doors, painting the yellow safety gates which lead onto the pitch, repairing and repainting the wall at the theatre end, redecorating the changing rooms, moving seats from the walk end to the grandstand, and of course the gradual improvement in this bar and the hospitality areas.

The club is very grateful to Matthew George has invested a considerable amount of time, effort and money into refurbishing the CANDAC, the outcome of which has been excellent facility.
Also we are indebted to local builder Dave James who has carried out a tremendous amount of work around the ground, many carried out free of charge.
Thanks are also due to Ron Walton who has been employed to keep the pitch up to scratch with very limited funding, and the competing requirements of first team, youth team and Merthyr Tydfil College, all of whom we are committed to.
We also owe a debt of thanks to our sponsors, whose help enabled us to start the season in a good situation. For example Laing o Rourke provided a team of men for a week to prepare and paint the inside of the pitch boundary wall, and donated £1000 for pitch maintenance.
Throughout the summer we had a real problem with vandals coming into the ground through the fence at the theatre end. Through the auspices of Howard King Premier Site Security started patrolling the ground in the evenings at no cost to us, which considerably reduced the problem.
Perhaps our biggest stroke of luck came through a series of events, which demonstrate how a number of people coming together can help the club. In the spring, through the efforts of Rob Parker we managed to arrange a slot on the Real Radio sports phone in. Gary Shepherd, Anthony Hughes and Jason Perry, father of Joe our goalie, gave a great performance. The owner of Trade Centre Wales Mark Bailey heard it and contacted Lyn Mittel/Owen Money, to invite us to a meeting to discuss shirt sponsorship. Rob Parker, Lyn Mittel and john Strand met with Mark Bailey and the outcome was a substantial shirt sponsorship deal.

Since then we have managed to secure funding from a pretty wide range of sponsors for pitch side adverts, programme and match sponsorship.

The end result is that as a result of the hard work and support of so many people we have settled back to Penydarren Park to enjoy our football.

SOCIAL ECONOMY GRANT

Following an initiative by Matthew George, Richard Bennet enquiries at the council resulted in being given advice by MTBC on how to apply for a Business Development Grant from European Funds in May 2011.

After months of meetings and form filling we received approval of the grant application in early September. We owe a considerable debt to the Social Economy team at MTCBC – particularly Chris Long and Alun Thomas who helped us through the application process, but also Jeff Edwards, the leader of the council, who provided the necessary long term promise of security of tenure for the grant application to go ahead.

The grant approved was at the maximum level of £130,000 over three years. It is the biggest such grant awarded in the Merthyr Tydfil area.

The make up of the grant is £50,000 capital to be spent on Penydarren Park. The jobs we intend to carry out are
new fencing at theatre end to cut down on vandalism
new disable toilet
new emergency lighting in family stand
new showers
new gas boilers
improvement of roof in grandstand
new IT and office furniture
Repair and decoration of turnstile area
New water meter

The rest of the £80,000 over three years is to help secure the employment of current employees – caretaker and bar manager, and also to enable us to employ a new Business Development Manager. That BDM has been appointed and he is Mr Steven Lloyd who will start work with us on Monday 12 December.

Financially we are somewhat more healthy than we were a year ago. We have the Social Economy Grant, which will be spent on infrastructure and on the business development work that Steven will be involved in.

Sponsorship income is much higher.

Gates are up also, but this income remains a small portion of income.
Because of the hard work of volunteers we also have profits from café sales, 50/50 club shop and programme sales.

The SOCCALOT continues to be successful, thanks to the tremendous activities of the same group of organisers and sellers who have kept it going for six years. I can say with confidence that without the SOCCALOT and its £30,000 per year profit we would not have a club today.

Other fund raising activities have continued to contribute to the club’s finances – such as the golf day, the annual new year raffle, and the rock in the park, individual shirt sponsorship, and contributions from bar takings through Matthew George. Explain bar situation.

We have also had a number of fund raising events such as the recent Owen Money concert.

In future we are particularly keen to involve as many of the supporters in the running of the club as possible. First and foremost we want people to join the Society and become shareholders in the club as a demonstration of commitment to the club’s future.

I think the next thing we would ask you to do is hold a season ticket. Some people won’t buy them because they cannot attend many matches, but we are asking you to support the club for the whole season in this small way. Even though some people can only attend a limited number of matches, we still have to pay the players wages and the all the other expenses every week, so this is a concrete way to support the club.

well done to everyone you are all a credit to merthyr and our football club.

Just a few things to add to John's excellent summary of the events on the night:

This is the first time that a grant of this type has been awarded to a community run football club in the EEC and it is so significant that it was actually discussed in Brussels recently!
A headline act in the Rock in the Park gig next Summer is Andy Faithweather Low of Amen Corner and he is also someone who has toured extensively as part of Eric Clapton's band.
The Club are investigating the provision of a stairlift and an external lift to provide disabled access to the Candac Suite.
A season ticket can be purchased for the second half of the season.
Emphasis was placed on increasing the number of supporters who join the Trust, with free membership until the end of the season!

An amazing amount of work has been undertaken by the Trust is such a short space of time.

How can I go about joining the trust?

Just send me your Name and Address to meurig.price@btinternet.com and I will do the rest.
Now is the oppertunity to enrol in the Trust, there will be no Membership Fee from now until the end of the season, but be sure I will be chasing you to become a fully paid up Member for next season.
It would be great with gates of around 400 if all supporters became Members. So come on you know it makes sense. It is your Club so join up and have your say. Look forward to being flooded out with applications.

Approximately how much are we talking for trust membership when it's time to pay up? I'm keen to join but I live in Gloucestershire, so I am not able to do anything practical at the ground. Is it worth me joining?

Two reasons for joining the Trust:

1. It's free until the end of the current season!
2. It demonstrates your commitment to the Trust.

Is there any reason not to join?

Your Club needs YOU

I don't think there is a Trust anymore. As I understand it, supporters can join Merthyr Town club. I think The Trust as such was discontinued when a board was set up to form Merthyr Town FC.
Jamie Mack said in the last match programme it was disappointing that the number of "club members" had gone down.
Good news about Andy Fairweather Lowe. I hope he won't be "wide-eyed and legless."
Hope it stays fine. When I saw him supporting Queen at Cardiff Castle, it rained.

Join now and its free for the rest of this season, next season's Membership Fees have not yet been set, this season it was £10.00 can't see it being much more next season.

Tim Drummond wrote:IGood news about Andy Fairweather Lowe. I hope he won't be "wide-eyed and legless.".

Thought you'd be creaming yourself with that news!

Tim Drummond wrote:I saw him supporting Queen at Cardiff Castle...

Glad to see theres at least one good group in that eclectic mixture of yours!

John Strand wrote:Notes from the meeting on Dec 1st

SOCIAL ECONOMY GRANT

The make up of the grant is £50,000 capital to be spent on Penydarren Park. The jobs we intend to carry out are
new fencing at theatre end to cut down on vandalism
new emergency lighting in family stand

Excellent to see the first signs of this major investment with the completion of the pallisade fencing to the Theatre Royal End.

I also understand that the work has commenced to relay the supply to the emergency lighting system in the family stand.

Remarkable work again by this incredible Trust Board that we have