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FC United Board report - 19 November 2012

The latest meeting of the FC United Board took place on the evening of Monday 19 November 2012. Board member Phil Sheeran reports.

Our latest meeting started by welcoming the two new board members, Des Lynch and Pete Burke, who were elected at the recent AGM.

We then received the latest management accounts, which were the first to be presented in a newly revised format that will allow the board to use the data and information more readily. The meeting recorded its thanks to the club’s Finance Manager, Christine Cottrell who has been working on revising the management accounts format.

The board also received the minutes of the previous meeting and the 2012 AGM minutes. In the lead up to the AGM, the board spends a great deal of time discussing the AGM business which means that at the first meeting after an AGM there are always a number of non-urgent items to pick up that may have been postponed until after the annual meeting. Club Secretary Lindsey Howard highlighted those issues which remained outstanding from earlier meetings.

Democracy and governance came up next and the issues raised by board member Alison Watt at the AGM were discussed. The club board agreed to seek the assistance of an independent external advisor to conduct an independent review of club policies and procedures and address the concerns raised by Alison. The text of an outline brief, unanimously agreed by the club board, to be sent to selected consultants for their comment and proposals can be viewed in the co-owners online forum.

The meeting then received a marketing communications report on FC’s web and social media. Interestingly, 76% of our 17,000 Facebook likes are under the age of 34, which is a significant audience for us. The club recently won an award for use of the media and with 10,000 website hits per day and more than 28,000 Twitter followers, our online audience continues to grow rapidly, rivaling many clubs in the professional game.

We received a ground update and a report on the judicial review progress. Board members understand the frustration of co-owners as a result of the ongoing delay to our plans and as soon as we have something further to report we will make an announcement via the usual channels.

We then agreed the terms of reference for a new finance and audit committee that will further improve FC’s governance structure and accounting processes. Still on governance, the board were informed that a Supporters Direct position paper on football governance, just launched at the European Parliament, had featured FC United as an example of a well-run supporter-owned club, the full version and summary of which are now both available online. We also received a report from Phil Frampton who had recently returned from Ireland after speaking at a supporter-owned clubs event at Cork City.

Board members then heard from club secretary Lindsey Howard, who had prepared a document on the appointment of a supporter liaison officer. This voluntary role will be advertised on the members’ forum and the club website.

We then discussed FCUM Radio and FCUM TV and approved financial support for an FM license application to OFCOM. If the application is successful, this will mean that FCUM Radio will in future be able to be heard on radios as well as the internet.

Next on the agenda was football management and players. Alison Watt gave an update on ongoing discussions on future friendlies and team management. Most areas are on track but reference was made to red and yellow cards, which have been much improved in the early part of the season, and the need to remain vigilant to ensure that these don’t increase.

The membership report showed that we have 2,754 members currently, which compares favorably with the figure of 2,697 at the same time last year.

Board members received an update on our community work and were informed that FCUM defender Adam Jones has been appointed to the role of Coach Educator to work on the club’s expanding community education programmes. This post was advertised on the FC website and Adam was appointed to the role following an interview process in line with the club’s recruitment policy. Adam, who will report to FC United’s Community & Education Manager, is an experienced youth worker and has a proven track record in achieving targets with challenging young people. He comes highly recommended by the people he has worked with in the Tameside youth offending team.

The meeting closed at around 10.45pm.



First Posted ~ 13:07 Mon 26 Nov 2012
News ID ~ 4585
Last Updated ~ 01:52 Tue 16 Feb 2021