Minutes of 2012 AGM
MINUTES OF 2012 AGM: CRYSTAL PALACE SUPPORTERS’ SOCIETY LIMITED
(trading as the Crystal Palace Supporters’ Trust)
Thursday 20th September 2012 at 7.15pm
Speroni’s Restaurant, Selhurst Park
1. Q&A with Lennie Lawrence
CPFC Assistant Manager Lennie Lawrence spoke for 45 minutes in a Q&A session with members on a wide variety of topics ranging from individual players to tactics in a very open and refreshing manner. More details on this can be found on the Trust website.
2. Training Ground Project
Chairman Alan Palmer gave attendees an update on the training project: The project arose as CPFC chairman Steve Parish wanted fan involvement in the club but did not want fans to pour money down a black hole. Thus the training ground project was mooted.
The current training ground is too small, not owned by the club, has a high rent, and has no long-term security of tenure for the club. This means that the club cannot spend huge amounts of money on it. Thus the Trust began to look for a suitable location for a new training ground.
Croydon Council suggested Ashburton Playing Fields, and a lot of work went into this. Local politicians were very supportive and the Trust engaged with local residents and presented the project to them at a meeting, naturally most of the audience who attended were opposed to the plans. Objections = votes and in a marginal ward crucial to overall control of Croydon Council meant that the opinion of local politicians changed and the Trust was informed by the Council CEO that the politicians could no longer support the scheme.
This meant the search began once again as it was decided not to spend more time and money on Ashburton. The search area widened and a couple of new locations were identified. The sites are bigger, and one in particular has been visited by club management / the groundsman / CEO and been approved by them. Negotiations with the owner have now commenced. Preliminary meetings have been held with the local council and their view is that getting local residents onside is key to planning being accepted.
3. Review of the Society’s Financial Accounts for the year ending 31st March 2012 and the approval thereof
Furhad Zaidi (Treasurer) talked through the accounts (which you can see by clicking on this link CPST 2012 Accounts.)
Project Management costs were one of the bigger costs in the year, and included Raj Chandarana’s fee when he was Project Manager – he delivered many things in his 5 months in the role including a substantial reduction in architectural fees. There was also investment made in the new website, as explained by Chris Waters.
It was pointed out that subscriptions had not been requested for the past 3 years and had never changed from £5 (ie remained at the same amount for over 10 years). After discussion and feedback from the floor it was decided to increase this to £10 a year (proposed by Tim Young and seconded by Peter Hacker). It was then voted in by those present.
The accounts were proposed by Keith Powell and seconded by Chris Waters, and accordingly approved by those present.
4. Resolution to approve an Independent Examination, if appropriate and subject to the Society’s rules, instead of an audit of the Accounts for the year ending 31st March 2013
The Chairman pointed out that the audit exemption threshold has been increased from £25k to £100k. The resolution was approved (proposed by John Finn, seconded by Liz Wells).
5. Elections to the Society Board
Keith Powell was up for re-election to the Board, he was duly re-elected (Proposed by Richard Wilsher, seconded by Chris Waters).
6. Any Other Business
The Chairman revealed that the Trust had been able to get a grant from Croydon Community First for approx £1,000 to help fund football training courses in October half-term in Selhurst Ward with coaching provided by CPFC Foundation coaches. This grant has been matched by the CP Youth Trust. The Chairman thanked Liz Wells for her efforts on this.
There being no other business, the AGM was closed.
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