The Hoops Fund was set up seven years ago and resulted in £15,000 being raised with the idea that the money would be spent on buying shares in QPR to be managed by the Supporters Trust. For some time it has concerned the Committee that this sum of money is merely sitting in a bank account when it could surely be put to some better use.
The primary intention was of course that this money would enable QPR1st to become a significant shareholder in the Club so that it could exert an influence on Board decisions.
Developments within the Club since Briatore et al have taken over have effectively put paid to this ambition. Even if we used the entire Hoops Fund to convince existing shareholders to sell their shares to us, then we still would only be a minority shareholder and have no greater say in how the Club is run.
Of course it is not unthinkable that the Club could face a future financial crisis, but the reality is that £15,000 would be a negligible amount to off-set the Club’s running costs or to clear its debts.
The original leaflets promoting the Hoops Fund which were dispatched with season tickets in the Summer of 2003 stated ‘ideally it will be used to fund initiatives such as youth development, community projects and ground improvements’. We believe that any further investment in youth development and ground improvements should be funded directly by the Club.
This leaves the area of ‘community projects’, in which ‘QPR in the Community’ is the obvious charity to approach. The work of QPR in the Community in many ways epitomises the values QPR1st would like to see associated with the Club. For this reason we have entered into talks with QPR in the Community in order to be officially recognised as one of their key partners. In return we would use a significant percentage of the Hoops Fund to make a financial commitment over a five-year period associated with specific projects.
The funding of this project would account for approximately 2/3 of the Hoops Fund. The remaining third of the Hoops Funds would in effect also be passed onto QPR in the Community but with more flexibility to enable us to sponsor or support particular one off activities or fund raising events. This is likely to include increased sponsorship of QPR’s very successful ladies team.
We would also like to reassure our members that we are keeping back approximately £3,000 of the Trust’s own money which we would use if we felt that we needed to gather and organise fans on a large scale in response to developments within the Club. This ‘rainy day’ fund is separate from the Hoops Fund.
We discussed these proposals at our last annual general meeting and have written to all our full members to gauge their views. The feedback we have received has been very positive so we now intend to go ahead with the plan. In due course we will let you know about some of the projects we will be supporting.