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Originally Posted by Ninian1962
Who could that possibly be?
Trouble is, Keith got it right in this thread when he said;-
“Generally though , we do need a new membership push and there is no problem with the new joiners other than the fact that it was triggered by an individual who seems to have a huge personal dislike for me personally , the Trust in generally and most senior people at the club (other than the senior employee there that feeds him information which he then uses against the club)”.
He may or may not have got it right.
I would suggest that Trust members need to know the motivation for the increase and whether it is because of a 'personal dislike' of the Trust Chairman or 'dislike' of the job he is doing as Trust Chairman. It is perfectly legitimate to criticize the job he is doing (for example flat lining membership) without it being personal. Trust members really need to know the context.
Quite simply, Dalman has a direct line into the trust. Ken has a line into the CCSC.
After the previous banning by the club, the trust is impotent.
However as mentioned earlier, unless Choo and Tan go nothing will change anyway. It's all futile with the current status quo.
As one of the parties directly involved, he’s more likely to have got it right than you or I.
Have you decided the Football Governance Act is a figment of someone’s imagination?
The Trust was only banned for a short period of time and is far from impotent as you suggested. We still have access to board members at the club, to the national FSA , through representation on the FAB and direct to the IREF.
As for the direct lines you refer to, both Ken and Mehmet have direct access to my personal phone number and I have theirs. I believe Steve has as well but most contact there is via the FAB meetings where he is the club director who meets with the FAB. Nothing exclusive about that as I believe CCSC committee members have the same two way access.
Unfortunately itÂ’s too late for us, the owner is in place as is the culture and hierarchy which is slowly killing the club.
WeÂ’ve seen the success of progressive supporters trusts up and down the country. Fresh blood and a change of direction may be a good thing?
The Trust were happy with themselves getting comms from the club following relegation. A review was promised and better comms. A basic ask yet not a whisper from the club or trust. The FAB seems even less effective
We don't know that it is too late for us, they have only just started consultations on what the new owners and directors test will be!
Certainly the current test would n ot have stopped Tan from owning the club, or continuing to do so
I believe the catalyst for the recent upsurge in membership was this particular meeting with club officials and the subsequent report on the Trust’s website:
https://www.ccfctrust.org/cardiff-ci...alk-the-facts/
The Trust’s public statement that these are THE FACTS is apparently strongly disputed by a significant number of fans (or at least a significant number when the Trust’s membership levels are taken into consideration). Those people apparently believe these are merely ‘the facts’ as presented by Mehmet Dalman rather than being the actual truth.
Rightly or wrongly, there is a perception among some City supporters that the Trust is now effectively the Keith Morgan show, and Keith has become far too cosy with Messrs Dalman and Choo. It is apparently believed that Keith is now content to help promote the club’s public position on important issues such as the alleged takeover talks and the Sala litigation without proper scrutiny. It is also perceived that the Trust's board has made no effort in recent years to attract new members simply because the organisation’s hierarchy are content with the current status quo and the opportunities it presents to them on a personal level with regard to press coverage and attendance at meetings with club officials.
I should point out that these are not my personal opinions. I’ve known Keith for a long time, I have a good deal of respect for him and consider him a friend. I also know what a thankless task serving on the Trust board can be. However, I have noticed the tone of some of Keith’s contributions on CCMB in recent times seem to have changed a little, particularly where the legal case is concerned.
As regards the Trust itself, I was genuinely surprised to learn that there haven’t been any proper elections since 2019 and membership numbers dropped as low as 350. I don’t recall seeing any social media or leaflet campaigns aimed at attracting new members in recent years, so perhaps some of the criticisms I’ve mentioned above do have a degree of validity.
As far as I’m aware, the Trust has only ever had one female board member and she resigned in 2012 after threats from outside the organisation that followed her opposition to the rebrand. Since then, the Trust board has seemingly comprised entirely of middle-aged or retired men, so it could hardly be considered to be genuinely representative of the club’s wider fanbase. Under the circumstances, perhaps a shake-up and some new faces at board level wouldn’t be a bad thing.
Ever since we originally formed CCST, I’ve been telling anyone who’ll listen the same thing - instead of grizzling on social media about what the Trust does or doesn’t do from the outside, the way to go is to join the organisation and attempt to change it from the inside. The Trust isn’t a political party and it’s open for anyone to join, so I don’t see what harm a democratic election in the near future could possibly do and I don’t really understand why some people are seemingly so opposed to the idea. What are they afraid of?
Supporters Trusts across the country have indeed witnessed some successes but mainly at clubs where the owners and directors have clearly breached the rules of the football authorities and/or brought their clubs to the brink of financial ruin (in some cases over the brink). Whatever the faults and errors of the CCFC owner and board (and there have been several) they have not broken those rules and the owner continues to put very large sums of money into the club to "balance the books".
Representatives of the Trust, the Supporters Club and the Disabled Supporters have all put work in through the FAB, which they provide members of, so that pressure on the club to have better communications with fans has brought some results but this is a continuing project not just a one off, Are you suggesting therefore that all three of those fans bodies are in need of a change of direction?
Were you also aware of the work the Trust has put in to help bring about the new Football Governance Act which will compel clubs to have proper consultation with their recognised fans groups? Also that the Trust now has direct contact with very senior people at the Independent Regulator which is the body in charge of implementing that law?
What exact change of direction are you looking for?
What exact change of direction are you looking for?[/QUOTE]
Instead of focussing on the regulator and the FSA who can’t change the club’s current ownership and power structureÂ… focus on uniting fans to drive Tan and his lackeys out of the club.
The easy starting point would be the incumbent CEO who made his annual visit to Cardiff over the weekend.
The OP was regarding membership increases, that has to be a good thing in the Grand scheme of things given perception of the trust. Providing AA individually is kept at bay
I attended the first meeting at Sophia Gardens and made the points that to be truly representational the TRUST needed thousands of members, not hundreds, and needed to know the views of individual members, not just the loud voices.
I joined but let my membership lapse when I confirmed my fear that it could it could not claim to be representative and membership was falling rather than growing.
There is no argument that dialogue with the club is better than none and that working with other fan based organisations is a good thing.
Whilst small it is still being heard if not always listened too. There are areas where working together is useful to both but anybody who thinks that the TRUST or CCSC are going to create fundamental change that is disagreed with by the club are living in cuckoo land.
So, now many others suddenly want to join, supposedly rallying behind a leader with a motive and using the TRUST as it’s war horse.
Assuming that the current board members and leadership remain in place they might still have a chance of being heard.
If not, then they may not be heard at all and TRUST would become pointless.
Again if, the prime motive is a change of ownership and the presumed hope of being able to tell the new ownership how they should run the club the we’re back to cuckoo land.
The new members should not be enabled to bring about a coup.
They should wait until the planned elections in May and then put forward their proposals for change and themselves as candidates for election.
Presumably they thought about creating a new entity and realised they wouldn’t get a hearing.
Okay, I can see that the increase in membership from mid August could have come as a result of the message posted on the Trust website about a week earlier., still not sure about the demands for elections straight away though.
I don't see how the lack of women on the Trust Board (think rhere may have been at least one other woman Board member who left as soon as we went back to playing in blue) can be held against the Committee - it's not as if they've ever been in the habit of turning down applications to join the board by women, or men, in recent years.
You mention that the Trust isn't a political party, but my concern is that the new influx could lead to something akin to party politics in that it all becomes a matter of Mr Morgan v Mr Abraham, rather than a genuine desire to see the Trust improve and grow while becoming more representative of Cardiff City supporters of all ages and genders.
I wasn't holding the lack of women (or younger fans) against the committee - I was merely highlighting the lack of diversity on the Trust's current board and fact that it isn't representative of the wider fanbase. I'm not apportioning any blame for that, I'm just seeing it for what it is.
I can understand your concerns about a potential power battle on the board, but I don't believe it would come to that and I genuinely believe it would be beneficial for all Cardiff City supporters if the Trust became truly representative of a wider range of views from across the fanbase. I've believed that from day one. I think there's a danger here of giving too much credit to one influential individual - from what I can gather, he's certainly not the only person who is uncomfortable with how things have progressed in recent times. The influx of new members should demonstrate that.
Some of the comments in this thread do tend to suggest there are those who are content with a tiny Trust membership and the same people heading up the organisation year after year. As far as I'm concerned, it was never meant to be that way. I also believe that some senior club officials have had a tendency to run with the hare and the hounds, so to speak. If we had one genuinely representative fans group, perhaps they would be less inclined to do so.
350 or so members is really small.
It definitely needs more members and a representation of the wider fan groups.
It probably isnt realistic but couldn't there be a option when purchasing a Season Ticket to become a Trust Member for a nominal fee like 2 or 3 quid. Better to have several thousand members than 350 paying £12.
That would incorporate the club (season tickets and an option to join the trust at a discounted rate) and I think that the Trust should be completely independent of the club. I know it's only a small thing, but do the club just allow the trust that broom cupboard of an office at the club?
They do - the Trust was given that space as soon as the stadium opened if memory serves. The Supporters' Club also have an office just around the corner (or at least they did last time I ventured that way before a match).
I know it's easy for me to say, but I don't think that the Trust should have anything to do with the club in terms of promotions ( Like Hilts alluded to) or even free office space, it's conflicting in my opinion, although I get why they use the space.
You may recall that there was a Supporters club including a bar at Ninian Park. Giving them space at CCS would have been a natural thing to incorporate into the plans and they did.thing. Then CCST emerged and the club followed suit albeit they never had to.
I doubt that the Trust feels compromised.
Apparently, in the dim and distant past, the Trust paid the club £3000 for the broom cupboard that is their office. I think that sum included some kitting out. Of course, if you believe a certain messageboard, they’ve got luxury accommodation with a coffee machine. I’ve been there in the past and seen the Trust volunteers sweeping it out as the office was flooded out from the toilets located directly behind it.
Thanks for that, I stand corrected then.
Diversity? Representative? What do these tropes mean in reality?
Any fan who agrees with the Trust's aims can join and be represented. Any member who meets the legal criteria can stand for election: there is no discrimination nor the quota systems so often associated with 'Diversity' policies. That would be absurd.
I'm a member, and in the past myself and others have spent hours distributing membership leaflets at CCS promoting the Trust and encouraging people to join. We went all over the site to reach what you call 'the wider fan base', also known as fans. The Trust is always seeking new members and welcomes them.
Explain what you mean by 'diversity' and how you plan on achieving your targets.
Yes it is small, despite efforts to encourage people to join. The door is open.
Wider fan groups? Who are they? I know about The Supporters Club and the Disabled Supporters Club. Some Trust members are also members of these groups. Which groups is the Trust missing?
To show that the Trust was entirely independent of the club it paid for that (very small) space to be created - it wasn`t given the space. I have no idea if the Supporters Club paid for their space - no reason why they should have been obliged to
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