Trust Diary May Update

Diary Update

Wednesday 8th October 2003

Lots to report on as regards what we’ve been up to since the last entry and I’ll do my best to ensure I don’t leave anything out.

The Hoops Fund Sub Group meeting, which took place just after the last update, proved to be fruitful. Items to be discussed were:

– QPR World and an offer received from Billy Rice regarding the Hoops Fund for an interview on there.

– The Management Board. Although concerns were expressed that a bigger management committee consisting of individuals from the wider QPR fanbase is required for the overseeing of the day to day workings of the fund, it was suggested to wait until a significant amount of money was in the fund before asking others to oversee a fund of this proportion. It was agreed for the sub group to carry on pushing the fund and for the management board to be looked into once the fund builds.

– Raising Money. The need for raising money was discussed and it was agreed to get the prize draws going asap now that we have the lotteries licence. It was agreed that the need for professional people to sell tickets inside the ground will be a must and that it is something we must look into asap. If anyone knows of such people/organisations *please* get in touch.

Matt agreed to contact one of his printing people and I agreed to contact one of the Trust usual printing companies as regards a quote for the cost of prize draw tickets.
I showed everyone a list of fundraising ideas sent to us from various fans and it was agreed for this list and for all the suggestions to be discussed with the club at our next meeting.

– Prize Draw. The agreement was to work towards a Christmas prize draw, with tickets going on sale around November time through til almost Christmas. The tickets would have a 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize. Perhaps one top one with the two other prizes to be QPR orientated

– AOB. Dave Anderson mentioned how he is hopeful of getting a deal between one of his financial contacts and the club to take over the club’s financial services with the provision being a certain percentage made from any deals to go into the Hoops Fund coffers.

Juzza took part in the interview on QPR World for us earlier this week and the footage should be appearing on there soon, whilst the remainder of all the above issues have either been actioned or are still being dealt with.

Despite several requests and communications with the club, our meeting with them (postponed from August) is still outstanding and Juzza is currently in communication with David Davies in order to secure a definite date. Once we have a date we’ll update the info on the mainpage of the site.

Also, following discussions between Juzza and David Davies, the legal correspondence between the Trust and Club has now been terminated to prevent further unnecessary expense by both parties on lawyers.

Talking of Juzza he has been a busy Chair on a variety of matters in recent weeks including: working on the Fulham survey analysis; starting the process of a programme sale service via the website to raise funds for the Trust; he has set up an AOL mailout list for AOL members who can’t receive mass mailouts due to the filtering procedure which AOL uses; has responded to a member’s query on the QPR forum; has communicated with Harold Winton, David Thorne, David Davies and Haleem Kherallah for basic updates; has composed some text to go with an article for the mainpage of the website, and which one of our writers has pledged to polish up before it’s published; and attended a meet a couple of weeks ago with members from the Brentford Trust, Bees United.

Dave Anderson has also communicated with Harold Winton, David Davies and Haleem Kherallah recently in order to seek clarification on a number of points and to ask for updates (if any). He also attempted to meet with David Davies and his financial services contact a couple of weeks ago in order to talk about the proposed deal as mentioned above in the Hoops Fund update. Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances (in other words the traffic on the A40!) this meeting was unable to take place and Dave is currently attempting to arrange an alternative date.

Ant has also been a busy bee. The background paper and statement for the recent consultation was his work and he is currently gathering responses which come through on email, the forum and our phone line. Once these have been gathered he will then work on the follow up report for the end of October. He is also about to work on the content for a Trust flyer for the Tranmere game (and yes we will be requiring *lots* of volunteers to help out!) and he is also working on the wording to accompany Juzza’s analysis of the groundshare survey.

Andrew has just very recently sent a large pack of merchandise to Norway. A Trust Polo shirt, clock, mouse mat, road sign and Ollys cave Tshirt. His merchandise is quite excellent and I really would recommend paying a visit to our merchandise page on the website…especially with Christmas not too far away.

Andrew, along with Graham and Peter, is now also part of our new membership sub group which has been set up to take an urgent and radical look at the entire membership issue. The idea is for the sub group to report back to the main committee on whichever proposals they feel will improve the membership situation for the Trust and to enable us to then push on with a programme in the hope that these proposals will help boost the membership numbers.

Graham has been ensuring that any queries sent through to us receive responses by the board member most equipped to deal with each query. And he has just sent off for his application to enrol in the Health For Life course, as advertised by QPR.

Peter, despite his Northerly distance, has been very busy. As well as, along with Juzza, attending the meeting with the Bees Trust folk for a basic update on their own situation, and being part of the membership sub group, he has also been beavering away on his website duties including: setting up the new policy debate forum on the site; updating the mainpage with the various news updates; and he has sent a mass mail out to our email members regarding the consultation paper.

Leon has still been nagging companies house about missing pages from the latest share register. Thankfully this has now been sorted and the updating of our own shares database has now begun. He has also processed a number of new memberships; contacted various members as regards queries they have had; and he organised the posting out (including doing a mail merge, stuffing envelopes and sticking stamps) to postal members regarding the consultation paper.

I’ve been busy with numerous activities including: the compiling and then sending off all our own correspondence regarding the legal matter to our solicitors in order for them to keep a record of the matter on their files for reference; I wrote a letter to Wasps rugby club’s legal advisor asking if he would be kind enough to furnish us with an update on various matters concerning Wasps including share issues, who actually owns Wasps now, and a general update on the Wasps situation; I’ve been communicating with the Plc board members regarding our postponed meeting with them, but am now happy to leave this matter in Juzza’s hands; I’ve posted my own views on Trust policy on the special dedicated forum in order to encourage others to post their opinions on there; I am currently in the middle of writing letters to both Ross Jones and Chris Wright – To Ross in order to put forward our proposal in asking for independent trustees to take care of the shares in the QPR Nominees account – and to Chris Wright to also ask him a similar thing, (but to request if he will transfer those shares to the custodial care of independent trustees who will have QPR’s good at heart) as well as a couple of other outstanding issues, including the Twyford matter. I am aiming for these letters to be polished up and sent out by Thursday of this week.

Recently brought to our attention were a couple of issues which have affected some of QPR’s disabled fans. I have been in touch with the local council regarding one of these issues and hope to report back on the response we receive very shortly.

I’ve also sent a reminder to everyone on the committee regarding our action points from the previous committee meeting minutes because our next meeting is scheduled for this Friday evening. I will also work on the agenda for this meeting over the next couple of days and after the weekend I will give an outline on the issues discussed by us.

As the new boy on the block, Matt has been settling in very well. He has been chipping in as, and when, necessary on a variety of issues and he is currently looking at ways for us to raise funds for the Hoops Fund. He has also been able to offer us some good ways of thinking from the ‘outside’ perspective so to say, and the QPR Nominees shares proposal to the board and Chris Wright has been one example in the ways his experience can help the Trust to progress and flourish.

FWB has been away on business a lot during the course of the last couple of weeks but now he’s back within the fold he is going to start working on a document which will outline any possible conflict of interests regarding committee members and club duties but this will be explained in detail once he has completed it. Whilst Will has needed to take a back step currently because of being unwell.

That’s about it for this update. Look out for the next entry soon.

Tracy