Given that it's going to take Mr Elliott some time to transcibe the "official" minutes (apparently he has to sleep and eat occasionally, the wuss), I've put a wholly unofficial, completely unreliable summary of the main points on the Trust site. Which to save you having to click through, I'll repost below. Before you read on however I should point out that these are in no way intended to be accurate minutes, they are merely scrambled personal recollections and I'm sure will fall some way short of the standards demanded by (for example) Marlborough town councillors
<Big disclaimer>These are not the official minutes so I stand to be corrected when those are published, but there's been a lot of interest in what the outcome of the meeting would be so in advance of the huge amount of work Andy Tuck is going to have to do to type up the minutes, I thought a summary may be helpful</Big disclaimer>
The main items for discussion were, obviously, concerned with the talks re Fans' Consortium, the CVA, discussion around orange-based dissent, then whether the Trust should formally call for/back active protests.
On the Fans' Consortium negotiations, Mike Wilks explained that talks were still ongoing but that we are currently waiting for a response back from the club's solicitors. Phil Emmel was present and reiterated his and Bill Power's view that the Fans' Consortium is very much a working coalition between him and Bill, Mike W and the Trust and that the whole aim is to get the club back on its feet, with fans playing an active role at board level. Much as was said by Bill Power in the Adver piece at the weekend. Phil took questions from fans present as to how he sees things going, what the end aim is etc and I think it's fair to say answered with a candour and openness that is a breath of fresh air for Town fans.
Moving on to the CVA, it was noted that while the board's strategy, as set out by Mike Diamandis in his interviews in Decemeber, and restated since, appears to be based on the idea that the CVA is dependent on the ground redevelopment, that is not what it says in the CVA document. Equally it was noted that the CVA is posited on the basis of a 3-year business plan which projected profits of at least £100k pa that the current board have wholly failed to deliver - as we have repeatedly been told we have a year-on-year operating loss of c £800k, they're not even in the same ballpark. Comments were made as to the likelihood, given this background, of them being able to deliver on their current 5-year plan of which much has been said, but little detail given.
Much of the meeting was taken up with discussion around protests/shows of dissent and what form they should take. There was strong support for a continuation of the "orange revolution" idea, with a general call for fans to keep wearing orange hats, armbands etc and for orange-based "visual demonstrations" to continue. Less straightforward was the issue of whether or not the Trust should formally back more active protests, with the specific example of the Trust issuing a call for protests behind the Arkells after the game on Saturday. After hearing from Phil Emmel and Mike Wilks about their desire not to upset what may be a delicate balance in terms of ongoing talks and not wishing to cause antagonism to those with whom we are attempting to negotiate, the idea emerged that we (ie the Trust) should wait until we saw the progress of those talks before stepping into more active protests. After much discussion, three motions were put to the meeting (and please forgive me I didn't take the minutes so I'm paraphrasing the wording here):
1) That the Trust should call for fans to show their support for the Fans Consortium by protesting behind the Arkells after the game on Saturday - not passed.
2) That the Trust board be mandated to keep a "watching brief" on the progress of talks between the club's solicitors and the Fans' Consortium's solicitors and that should the Trust board, after consultation with Mike Wilks, Bill Power and Phil Emmel, judge that those talks had broken down or were being blocked, then they would call an emergency meeting/email and postal vote of Trust members to reconsider the question of whether the Trust should engage in more active protest - passed
3) That the Trust will produce informational leaflets to be distributed to fans as to why the Fans' Consortium can take the club forward and offer a better future for STFC - passed
It was noted during the course of the discussion that it was highly likely that fans may choose to make individual protests (as is their right) irrespective of the Trust's position and that the Trust would respect their right to do so, but would call for any protest to be peaceful.
Overall it was an extremely positive and impressively thoughtful meeting, well-attended (standing room only by the time I got there, tho thankfully the chaps had saved me a seat!) and once again I for one was impressed by the resolve and intelligence with which Town fans are approaching what is obviously a potentially difficult and emotion-laden set of issues. It's night like these that just reinforce how short we have been sold and that Town fans deserve so much better.
