It can't be criticising CTWD, they've seemingly never been involved. I raised the issue with CTWD reps, as I believed it was a CTWD issue, as fans were looking at walking away from the club, and these fans were liable to be the ones that would support the CTWD campaign and therefore CTWD will lose members. Beyond that, it was a fans issue, which an existing group may have been one reasonable way of collating opinions and suggestions. The awkward and defensive nature of those and subsequent replies are quite revealing. It's clear key members of the committee support, or at least don't oppose the seat move and it's that, rather than any pedantics on which group they are or aren't representing that's more relevant. I guess a suggestion is to make it clear which forms need to be used to raise issues, and which issues interest committee members. It looks like the disabled issue would be no longer unanimous if people had used the appropriate form rather than just query it on a public forum with a committee member. All in all, club and the new CTWD seem to have an opening for PR and consultation adviser.
I don't know how the DLA system works but assuming you gain more once you become an adult around 18/21 then age pricing is a fair system. I guess everyone's circumstances will be different though, I know a lad who gets DLA just because he's a few sandwiches short of a picnic and doesn't have much of a brain. He gets something like £1500 every four weeks which sounds very reasonable but then he gets his rent and council tax paid for on top of that along with free travel passes for trains and busses. So he's getting almost £20k per year with his only overheads really being food/drink and gas/electricity bills, which really is a hell of a lot of expendable money for him to have at his disposal and more in fact than a lot of working families. Like I said everyone's circumstances are different and I've no idea how the benefits system works and who gets what but there are some like the example mentioned above who could afford to buy season passes for half of our fan base never mind stump up the cash for their own.
My son gets a free carers pass yes (my situation is a little complicated as I have my own season pass elsewhere) Just for the record, when we played at Stamford Bridge in last season's opener, Chelsea gave ALL the disabled tickets for FREE. That's wheelchair users and carers. For our two appearances at Wembley, there was a disabled concession and carers were free as well. It's a topic that I've often wondered warrants more attention, a disabled fans guide to football stadiums.
You don't need any forms to contact CTWD, you need a computer and you've obviously got one already. Other committee members browse this forum and if they were in favour of campaigning against the seat move, you've probably just changed their mind.
It's a really difficult topic, as it covers such a wide range of people, and even those directly affected can have very different views on if they should get it or not. Some advocate getting a discount is counter productive to their claims of equality, others need it. It's why I suggested earlier that some sort of, for the want of a better term, hardship scheme could be set up, perhaps incorporating passholders that can't make every game and may be prepared to donate the use of their pass?
So, is posting on here is the same as contacting CTWD now? Change happens so quickly, not to long ago I was told to use a link on another website. You seem to be saying it's about what YOU think and prefer, rather than finding out what fans want. Leaves us kind of piggy in the middle there. You've been defensive and arsey on this from the get go.
If I've been arsey, it's because of your childish responses, you've been a complete twat in this thread. If you want to talk to CTWD directly, then send them an email, the email address hasn't changed since the campaign started. If you want to talk to me, then do so, but try and figure out the difference between me posting as an individual and what's CTWD policy. It's exactly the same as the issue that stopped me moderating, people trying to use one against the other and it's ****ing irritating.
Me being a twat? Bollocks, I've expressed my opinion on a message board. This is a thread about CTWD, my views relate directly and indirectly to that. Saying to email ctwd is a piss take, as that's effectively what I did in raising it with you and others via PM when there was time to actually achieve something meaningful for a group of affected fans. The childishness is you and your arrogance in my opinion. If you want to represent yourself, that's fine, but at least be honest and don't try to claim you're representing fans. You're coming across like Allam. Anyway, it's clear you like the stand move and bollocks to those affected, so there's not much more for you to say on that really. At least you now have a few other views on the situation for disabled fans, and now seemingly others affected. Maybe it'd be worth ctwd having a rep on a public forum so that policy issues could be discussed in a wider environment?
So its not gone from £150 to £500. Its £250 to £500. As Chilts has said the carer goes free. So your founding member shouldnt be buying her own ticket. I've took the piss out of dutch a bit with the seat move. But i do believe he has/had a case and he did ask for help/support from CTWD. As we know some of CTWD are vociferously in favour of the move, even trying to get a new name of the North Stand going, yet not a peep from them; as they're a single issue group!! But they could take time out to pontificate on Cardiff not so long back. Now they are already are taking up arms about disabled pass holders!! WTF where did that come from. The big talking point all the last month has been the seat move. As i said earlier this is a poor move, amed at tugging on the heart strings.
I think what pisses me off the most is hearing about supporters who can't afford to go anymore. :-( Top of the agenda for me would be bigger capacity. Free tickets for school kids Cheap tickets for those who are unemployed And for Cheap tickets for under 21s Not going to happen ..... Is it ? Seat changes and badges are not that important to me BUT not pricing out a lot of fans and out pricing new fans is important
It's gone from £160 to £500 in the past two seasons, as Chiltern explained, it's happened over two seasons, but it's still happened. Who are those 'vociferously' in favour of the seat move and where have they shown this vociferousness? I don't think it's a bad idea in principal, but I'm not vociferous about it and I don't even know until next week what the opinions of the other committee members is. I know exiled has been calling for this for years(but he's not actually on the committee), but I have no idea what the other 14 committee/sub-group members think, as we haven't discussed it yet. Ironically, Nash on CI is on the committee, yet hasn't(as far as I'm aware) even been asked by Dutch what his opinion is on the stand move. Does it not strike you as odd that I get non-stop snide remarks on here, while my fellow committee members don't even get questioned elsewhere? I'm sure you don't care, you've been sniping at CTWD since the day it was launched, but let's not make up **** about vociferous people who don't exist.
I'll have to have a look for it but I distinctly remember a negative story about disabled people no longer being able to bring their carer for free. Thinking about it is was actually 2 years ago, during that couple of months before Bruce came in where everything that came out of the club was bad news. EDIT: Doesn't matter, it only applied to those getting the lower rate of DLA.
I haven't asked nash, you're right, but I have raised it with others beyond you, but I'm not sure what the relevance of that is. You're the CTWD rep on here, so surely spreading the question around would be superfluous? You may feel the posts are 'snide' comments, but they're not intended that way, it's just frustrating to be told several different things by the same person, depending which invisible hat they decide they're wearing. I've had a scan of the Twitter and Facebook pages, and understandably as it's (sort of) a single issue group, it seems to be mainly about the name change, so I'm still not clear how the disability issue's taken prominence, other than it affecting a committee member. Now it may well be a noble cause, but I'm not sure it's a name change issue, so it's part of the new wider remit, which is fine. But it hasn't just cropped up, it came up some time back I believe. So, we have an issue that affects a committee member that gets progressed to some degree, and an issue that affects a reasonable number of supporters, that doesn't because the committee like it. This 'not heard much opposition" stance is frankly cringe worthy. There's enough discussion on and off the boards to realise it is/was a significant issue. Now I've no doubt that will piss you off, which is a shame. I'd rather it didn't and you could look at why I'm saying it. I genuinely want the fans group to work, I see that as a bigger issue than the seat move, but it's got to be a FANS group, not some individuals pushing their own personal agenda. We've had those before and they fail.
I have no problem with being asked questions about anything, but I can only respond with a CTWD position if they have one and currently, CTWD don't have a position on anything other than on the name change. It's fine to press me on here, but there's two of us that you know don't object to the seat move and another fourteen who you presumably don't know the opinion of either way. It strikes me as odd, that you would continue to take pot-shots at those two, while not bothering to ask any of the other fourteen what they think, particularly as one of them runs a forum you post on daily. Just for the record, the disability issue is one that affects a few of our members, none of them are on the committee, or the sub-groups, or have any involvement in the running of CTWD. As I've stated several times, if you want to address CTWD as an organisation, then email them. Even if you don't, your concerns will be raised by me at next weeks meeting, when we discuss the issue of the seat move, as it's my obligation as the rep for this board and I do take those obligations seriously, despite what you might think.
It's not pot shots, it's me raising an issue with the board rep on here. Where else I do or don't raise it is immaterial. You say the disability issue wasn't raised by a committee member, in which case I misunderstood your earlier comment when you said it was a founder, I assumed it was a committee member, but that still begs the question of how one issue seems to have progressed further than another, when both are submitted by members. Do you know which rep they raised it with, as (on the face of it) they seem to have got it further along the agenda than the seat move, which is to be discussed a week after the last real chance to help smooth it over. Is there no option for extraordinary meetings, or even a quick mention in the daily emails you mentioned? You may see it as 'snide' or 'pot shots' but can you not see how it's frustrating to be told there's nothing can be done because when I mentioned it to you, I did it via this board rather than on an official email? Especially as at the time you said there's no point as CTWD are a single issue group? That's not me pot shotting, that's me saying why I'm frustrated and suspicious of what's going on. I see that as a bad thing. Going defensive doesn't help, plus, talking on here isn't all I've done, and not just about the seat move. Maybe, the additional stuff could have tied in with other issues you've mentioned. It would have been better than the piecemeal approach it's ended up as.
I personally don't see any issues with the seat change, as such I doubt there would be the strong objection from the large numbers who objected to the name change simply because it affects so few people & a lot of those I know aren't bothered about moving seats anyway. As far as CTWD acting to oppose a change, surely that is an issue for the majority of CTWD members to decide on ? You (DMD) cannot expect them to automatically oppose the change or object to it if the majority of it's members don't, that's how democracy works. On that point are you even a member of CTWD ? If not why should they even consider the issue ? Unions don't represent the problems of non members so why should CTWD
