So let's try and gauge the interest in the idea.

If there were a meeting to discuss the formation of a new supporters association, with potentially the involvement of a club official such as Stuart Duffy and Laura from Supporters Direct, who would be prepared to attend?

I'd go

I feel another list coming on...!

Evening or weekend?

I would go. But I'd suggest maybe meeting as a group first, to ensure that Laura doesn't have a wasted journey.

I would suggest an evening, but whatever's most popular and/or we can get Stuart to.

I'd go too.

Lots of good points about workload and the harsh reality of what is involved. I am happy to concede to being naive on this so a sort of scoping meeting would be good.

I'd suggest though that it would be best having initially a meeting not involving the club but probably involving Supporters Direct and also one or two people from previous incarnations, irrespective of whether they wish to be part of this one. This would enable us to set out what we're looking to do and contribute and also look at what can go wrong, before we're in using the time of someone from the Bulls. Time is money after all and we don't want to be taking up resource from the club on day 1 of this.

As in a meeting, to decide if we should have a meeting?



Can we not have a poll first?

Either way, count me in.

Whoever goes to the meeting, we need someone who is knowledgeable enough about such things to know what structures need to be put in place and time is required, be that Laura or someone who has experience from BISA.

Ditto.

And when I helped Michaela and Nick found BISA, it was on the strict understanding my involvement would be limited to matters financial legal etc. Never quite worked out that way...but yes I could give some initial input if people found that helpful.

Here you go again....

He probably won't appreciate me mentioning this, but Adey would be a very good person to have for this. He was there from the start (and I think to the end) of BISA and was heavily involved in the legal & finance side of things as well as a hand in almost everything, certainly the important stuff for setting up an association. I wouldn't have the first clue how that sort of thing was set up and was more than happy to let the more knowledgable deal with it!

I'd certainly attend a meeting to find out what was involved and whether there was anything I could do to help. Although due to other commitments, I too would consider myself more likely to be a foot soldier than a leader (and I don't really have much experience in this type of thing).

Is there any harm in agreeing to have an intial meeting and see where we go from there?

Can I suggest you start putting forward some basic goals on here before you meet. 3 pages so far but nothing about what you want to achieve. Unless you get something aired & discussed on here you will not have sufficient time at your meeting to decide meeting to let everyone have their say. Each of you - what do think the group can contribute/achieve (& I don't mean your individual skills) to the Bulls cause?

Very important, what would we consider to be important to the Bulls cause and what would we be trying to achieve.

As we have said on another thread that we would as a group like to sponsor a player next season is this a good starting point for a meeting of like minds ? if nothing else we could hand over our promised money to WB. I would be interested to see whats involved in the trust idea, and as I work as a photographer so I could help with publicity.

I agree that we should try to start simple see how it goes. The two objectives I think would be worthwhile and achievable would be:

1. Try to increase the average attendance at Odsal next season.
2. Try to make supporters feel less isolated from the club.

What does anyone else think?

Think also that people need to consider whether they want a Supporters' Trust (as in title of this thread) or an ISA (as one or two have alluded to as an "or".

If the former, then its a more formal affair because it is a Trust, so there are quite a few legals involved (as I understand it). See that link I posted earlier to the WIRE ST for an indication of what the objectives are.

A ST would typically work closely with the Club, I think?. Since the main purpose would appear to be fundraising, I expect there will be fiduciary responsibility and supervision issues because of handling monies in trust. I would envisage whoever takes on the treasurer and the secretary roles will need to be prepared to commit a fair amount of time and accept significant responsibility, to be honest. But as the lady who offered to come and talk about what's involved will be well-qualified to explain the details, I'm just flagging this up so maybe interested parties can start thinking about it.

And ISA is by definition an Independent association, therefore by implication you would expect it to work alongside the club for areas of common interest, but also perhaps to act a bit like a "trade union" for supporters to collectively engage with the club where there are issues of concern or disagreement. Constructively of course, else understandably the club would be less prepared to engage. We tried to do this with BISA, and in fairness the Whilst you still need formalities (like a Constitution and the usual officers Chair, Secretary and Treasurer as minimum) if to be able to open a bank account and be taken seriously, there will likely be less other formalities involved since there is no Trust situation.

I suspect the objects of a ST will be able to be quite specifically defined - and the lady would advise on that. An ISA maybe a bit less so - I posted the BISA objects somewhere a few days ago, and these could perhaps be better and certainly more narrowly defined (BISA was initially supposed to be wider than just Bulls) but may give a bit of an idea. I would suggest that anyone considering an ISA (I'd go for the ST route personally, if it HAD to be done and it was one or the other) needs to think especially carefully about what its objects - aims - are before going much further.

That's some quick thoughts on the distinction between the two, and also to help compare against the more straightforward group sponsorship proposal being considered elsewhere.

Some differences between ISAs and STs are here

[urlhttp://www.supporters-direct.org/page.asp?p=2074[/url

I suggest we guage interest first though. Once we know who is available and what our objectives are, then we can look at how to go about it.

Count me in for this.

I love the club so much and would like to help in any way or form even be it posting the mail out members etc

That is one very very useful site!

This para especially so (IPS = the legal vehicle you use for a ST):

"An IPS imposes certain disciplines on a group that we think can only be a good thing – democracy, accountability and transparency, and this can only reinforce the points you make. Basically, it comes down to what you want a body to do. In our view, an ISA, whilst a perfectly legitimate form of organisation, often becomes identified with a small band of individuals and might always seems to be criticising (even if it isn't in reality!). It is also limited in how it can grow, and how secure that growth is. A trust, constituted as an IPS stays in existence until its members decide to dissolve it, and so they have greater ability to stay around. Often, ISA;s go into a lull when key individuals become inactive. All these are of course applicable to a trust, but the disciplines we mention above make it more likely that weaknesses are identified and rectified. For starters, the act of becoming an IPS is a collaborative effort so you need a good team from the off.

Spot on that, IMO.

From reading the posts on this item, it appears there are quite a lot of us who are willing to help out in any ways we can but I suggest before we meet up and discuss the who's, what's and when's, surely we need to estabish our objectives on these boards for why we are doing this.

I think we would be rather silly to think we would be able to have a significant impact straight away, therefore do we want to help the development of young players? Do we just want to create a link fo communication between club and supporter? Or do we want to have somewhere to go to have a chin-wag and a moan about our club and never actually acheive anything?

Agreed to all that, and maybe we need an updated list of who would be prepared to attend an initial meeting? Having got a gauge of numbers, I feel sure the club would provide a room if asked. Maybe its time to try and move this on now, from a discussion to the next stage?

Agreed. Let's try to get a list of members together, as well as a list of possible objectives to discuss. Then I suggest we arrange a date and venue (possibly at the club).