Thetownend.com

Dear Jamie,

First off a very happy Christmas to you and yours. Right, that's the
pleasantries out of the way, now onto business. Before I commence the the usual
begging for help, could I ask that you consider renewing your membership of the
Trust which appears to have expire? As I hope you can see from what follows,
we're doing a lot of good work at the moment, but we can do much more with a
broader (and more active) membership. Go on, you know it makes sense!

OK, on with the begging for volunteers! ;-)

Leaflet Xmas shoppers for Blackpool game
========================================
Actually first order of business is to thank all those who turned out to help
leaflet Xmas shoppers on the Thursday evening before the Blackpool game. We
split into four "teams", handing out both the club's promotional leaflet re
reduced prices for the game and the Keep Town in Swindon leaflet, receiving a
(generally) positive response on both. In the event, the gate for the Blackpool
game was at least 1000 up on what would have been expected for the time of year,
and given the poor showings of both sides. And it's fair to say the bulk of that
increase was down to successful promotion of the reduced ticket prices - not all
of that due to the Trust volunteers, obviously, but we certainly played our
part. Once again, shows the positive results that can be achieved when the club
listen to and work with the fans.

Boxing Day - Keep Town in Swindon lobbying
==========================================
As you will no doubt be aware, we had two trestle tables out at the Blackpool
game where people could fill out a postcard(s) to send to their local councillor
in support of the Keep Town in Swindon campaign. We also had some people making
(slow) progress around the Winners with the cards and lists of councillors, pens
etc. We managed to get over 470 filled in which was a tremendous effort, but
obviously very much only a start. We're aiming to build on this at the Boxing
Day game - meet Trust office 1pm.

Boxing Day - Red Army Fund collection
=====================================
We have one of our very limited "slots" to collect for the Red Army Fund on
Boxing Day - the last such collection before the transfer window opens. I heard
on the radio this evening that Beckham's looking for a return to England so with
one big push .... Seriously, the total amount raised for the Fund now stands at
over £14,500 which is fantastic. Although a good chunk of that has been spent,
it's fair to say there's still a decent amount available for Iffy to spend in
January if he needs it. But it has to be worth a big push on Boxing Day to bring
in those extra quids that could make all the difference when casting about to
bring someone in in January.

If you can help with either the postcards or the RAF collection, meet at the
Trust office at 1pm before the game.

Please try and make the effort - several of our regulars are away for Christmas
and so won't be able to make it (including yours truly, so there's no danger of
running into me which should be an incentive in itself!) so we could be low on
numbers. A good time to step into the breach if you haven't tried this out
before!

All the best for a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Paul Davis
TrustSTFC Membership Secretary

http://www.truststfc.co.uk/

PS Next members' meeting is provisionally booked for Mon Jan 9th, probably at
the Holiday Inn at Coate again as that seemed to work well last time. More in
New Year

PPS Apologies in advance to anyone who replies to this and doesn't get a reply
for a few days - as mentioned above, as of tomorrow early I'm away with the
family for Christmas and don't get back till middle of next week.