Minutes of Meeting held on 5th October 2006
Agenda items 1-3 & attendees are at the foot of this piece
4. Matters arising:Lindley Catering had been asked to provide a healthy option for half time snacks and they are considering sandwiches as an additional healthy choice. The South Stand beer pump offering a quicker pouring is in full operation.
The loyalty scheme will start on the 18th November.
5. Andrew Taylor
Andrew stated that he had two areas to report on, our financial status and ticket prices.On the financial status AT confirmed that we were looking for new streams of investment. The company has had working capital issues since administration and this has obviously been made more apparent as we have now lost our parachute payment. One of AT’s objectives is to raise further investment in the Club and he is meeting and talking to potential investors, whilst ensuring that we are operating in the best of intentions for the Club, its fans and its shareholders.
On ticket prices we accept that football is an expensive pastime and we are therefore doing selected offers in order to reduce the price and attract more people into the stadium. We are doing all we can to drive the business forward and CT will continue to come up with more offers to attract people to the stadium. He confirmed that over the season our season ticket holders will always get the best deal. ….
6. Ticket pricing and offers
The club has been offering various promotional offers and deals to both season ticket holders and match ticket buyers for forthcoming games. This has been done to increase numbers at home games and to try to tempt old fans & new fans to the stadium. TD asked for opinions on this. Kev Bunney said that he thought that it was a good idea. Linda Barron said that we would not have this problem if the football was entertaining on the pitch. She also stated that she had only received good and encouraging reports about the ticket offers. TD confirmed that over the course of the season, season ticket holders will always get the best deal. Damian Finney suggested that we do offers on the more attractive games as well as the not so attractive ones.On the whole everyone though that the offers were a good deal and understood the reason behind them.
7. Roadshows
TD explained that we wanted to take the club out into the local towns and county and asked for ideas and comments. Alan Digby said that he though it would be good to have roadshow’s in satellite towns such as Loughborough and Coalville etc, Simon Winfield added that we should also include towns closer to Leicester such as Wigston and Oadby, Nick Fordyce suggested that we note when fetes and festivals are taking place and to have a presence there, Raj Kumar suggested targeting leisure centres & Simon Winfield suggested Sunday league football teams.
8. Stadium Configuration
AN explained the background to the stadium configuration. Since the new stadium has been built there have been no major changes to the location of supporters. As part of a consultation process views are being sought to see if there would be a better way to configure the stadium. There are several options:– Move the kop to the family stand and vice versa, – Move the away fans between the kop and east stand, – Reduce the back rows from around the whole stadium, – Put in a community corner where sales are low, – Leave it as it is
All of these options were discussed and due to consideration given to all our supporters. Any relocation of away supporters would have to discussed with the Police and Safety Advisory Group. Although there were a number of different opinions expressed including how supporters are located effecting the atmosphere within the stadium no firm proposal was established.
However there was general feeling of acceptance for ‘community’ tickets in a designated area.
9. Supporters Band
TD stated that the website vote was 55% in favour of organising a band and asked for opinions.It was felt that match atmosphere was an important and different views were expressed as to when and if a band should be organised. We have several empty areas around the ground for home games and there may be an opportunity to trial it to gauge how successful it would be.There was then a general conversation about half time entertainment including The Foxlot presentation. TD explained the fact that we currently had contractual obligations to fulfil.
10 & 11. 2007-2008 Season Tickets and Kit
TD stated that we would like some volunteers to join two sub-committees to assist the club with next season’s options.TD asked for any comments at this stage re season tickets/kit.Everyone agreed that it would be a good idea to have a monthly direct debit scheme for people to buy their season tickets.
12. Foxlot
Linda Barron asked if maybe the promotions girls could perhaps be organised differently and be grouped at the turnstiles so that you were not approached each time you took a few steps.TD confirmed that the discussions were currently taking place with FoxLot regarding a number of issues.
13. Any Other Business
Andy Gubbins, Secretary of LCFC Disabled Supporters Association (LCFC DSA) noted that a female steward in G1 called Jo, was exceptional in her job. She had often looked after one of the disabled supporters who had recently passed away. Jo had not only sent a card and flowers to the family but also attended his funeral and put a piece in the paper from the stewards here at LCFC. Andy wanted this exceptional service noting.
AT stated that at a later date he needed to discuss with the LCFC DSA the possibility of moving the wheelchair spaces so that they did not cover the sponsorship boards so that we could maximise the value of club sponsorships.
AN stated that we were constantly looking at the relationship between the fans and stewards and reflected on how the inter reaction was generally working, Kev Bunney stated that unless you were causing trouble then you would/should have no need to encounter a steward, Raj Kumar noted that the stewards were fine but the police were over zealous and indeed created more problems sometimes, for example at the Southend game there was a line of police around L1 which simply caused more friction than was needed. Damien Finney noted that it was better to use stewards as the fans could get to know these people and situations are resolved a lot easier than the police wading in.
Damien Finney noted that there needs to be more signage around the stadium on the rules of smoking and indicating the areas outside the stadium where smoking is allowed.
14. Next Meeting To be confirmed.
In attendance: Tim Davies, Andrew Taylor, Andrew Neville, Darren Bernstein – Football League, Chris Tinbergen, Peter Jones, Linda Barron, Ellen Bale, Raj Kumar, Andy Gubbins, Kevin Bunney, Andy Wilford, Chris Gubbins, Alan Digby, Simon Winfield, Kevin Bourgault, Nick Fordyce, Damian Finney, Sara Ainge, Linda Ainge, Carey York for minutes
1. Tim Davies welcomed everyone to the meeting and introduced the visitors to the meeting, namely Darren Bernstein –Customer Services Manager from the Football League and LCFC supporters Damian Finney, Nick Fordyce, Sara Ainge and Linda Ainge.
2. Apologies for absence had been received from Lisa Hunt, Steve Robertshaw and Cliff Ginetta.
3. The minutes of the previous meeting were confirmed as a true and correct record.