As a moderator, I ought to remain neutral here but this time I can't. I know Machiavelli/Sun Tzu said something like 'keep your friends close and your enemies closer' but IMO, using the club's e-mail list to send out The Charlton Supporters Trust Survey is too bloody close for comfort. And as for giving a free season ticket out as an inducement to fill this damned thing in, when people are having to cut back to afford the new prices, words fail me. What next - The Red Division newsletter? All views welcome, as always.
I don't mean this to sound rude but... What are you talking about Tewks?! I'm not on nay email list so...
I must be off their mailing list, probably because I changed my e-mail address a couple of months ago. Good luck to the supporters trust. Not my cup of tea, but they're not doing anybody any harm.
Sorry, should have taken a minute to clarify the whole thing on my post. If you're on the club's official e-mail list you get regular updates on news and promotions etc. Fair enough. But to use this list to send out a survey from this organisation is bang out of order. If they wanted to make something positive out of this survey, why didn't they offer to donate a fiver to Demelza House for each completed one, rather than stick two fingers up to all those who dug deep to fund this year's season ticket? I'm off to see if Brighton can deal out a right stuffing to Palace tonight, I think it may be the only thing that's going to put a smile on my face at the moment.
The Club didn't provide the ST Tweaks I'm also not on the Club's email list so have not been troubled by this
Wise words, FHB. I have just watched the worst 90 minutes of football I've seen this season - absolutely dreadful. I met a real Supporters Trust member today a Pompey fan who's just stuck his hand in his pocket to buy one share in the club he loves to the tune of a thousand quid. My conversation with him today may well have fuelled my rant earlier on as he talked about the prospect of his club spiralling into extinction - a situation our beloved club is light years away from. OK, calm restored Chez Tewkes.
I looked at the survey and completed it but their range of suggestions for improvement seemed focused on improving the drinking experience not the match day or the team performance. A somewhat strange value set. Yes the food and drink can always do with improvement but i dont go to the valley to drink (i drive 60 miles to get the match) but to watch football, this fortunately is what my entry price secures for me. Do I want a small unrepresentative group who seem more inteested in the quality of the bar staff than the playing staff to represent me, no! I am perfectly capable of communicating directly with the club to express my thoughts if something concerns me or needs improving. My days at Bedonwell Hill county primary school did in fact teach me how to communicate using the written word.
I filled it in, thought the questions were odd & I saw little point in them, declined to have info from the trust. If they have the boards support which they clearly have to use the clubs data base, they are hardly the dynamic pro supporters group. More a vehicle for the board to use as it feels fit. Most supporters want a healthy positive improving club and team. I rely on the board, who dig very deep into their pockets to deliver these results.
I can see the frustration- Tewkes has signed up to the clubs mailing list, not the trust. Though like most, I'm not on the list so haven't seen it. But my thoughts on it were summed up by what typical had to say about the formed association between club and trust.
What did annoy me was the fact that the Brizzy match programme was increased by £1 because you also had to take some ****e by the Supporters Trust.......fecking liberty if you ask me!
The club actually said that the trust supplement was free. The extra £1 was because an extra feature on Chris Powell made it a "Bumper Edition"!
Surely nobody believed it? I don't mind supporting the club with an extra £1 but that statement is taking the piss!
I think £1000 is very cheap for buying a share in/saving your club, wonder if they're going to pay off their debts (even after the two administrations, there would still be a lot of debt)... I work with a Hearts fan. He and his dad put a lot of money into the club at the end of last year. I think he said around £6000. And he doesn't even get a share in the club. The thing I'm always brought back to is that my other club were very much on the edge of existence throughout 2012, when the owner announced he didn't want it any more, and would hand it over to "the people of the town", whatever that means. While there was a reasonably well developed supporters trust, the fans mostly turned around and said that, given the experience of fan/trust ownership in the past, they didn't want to go down that road. I don't think I'll bother with the survey. I understand most of the criticisms of the trust, but what I'll say for them was that people used to say it was all about Rick Everitt and people's mates not being on the board. To be fair to them, they do seem to be working with the board now, which is a Good Thing. That said, my prediction last summer was that a few wins in a row would kill off the trust. If it didn't have the club doing its marketing for it, I think it would have died away by now.
Maybe this survey is all about trying to gauge interest in the trust rather than actually achieving anything. I'm amazed at the amount of money some people put into these Trusts. I would never dream of taking anything like that amount out of the family budget. A question of priorities I suppose.
