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NUFC Fans Utd Meeting  20.01.2014 - Tyneside Irish Centre

26/1/2014

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FANS FORUM

NUFC Fans United’s Forum representative, Steve Hastie reported back on the second fans forum which was held on January 6th. It had originally been due to take place on December 16th. Steve felt that there was nothing untoward in the postponement, as the club’s Secretary Lee Charnley and Finance Director John Irving had been called to a meeting in London that day on unavoidable club business.

As in the previous fans forum meeting, Steve explained that the club once again answered an array of questions on various topics. He felt that whilst in the first meeting the club had been open from the start, this time they seemed to be more reserved - perhaps following the banning of NUST – though they did open up more as the meeting went on, and encouraging progress was made.

Steve reported that as requested, he along with a number of other forum members called for NUFC to reinstate NUST to the forum (as was agreed by those present at the last NUFC Fans Utd meeting in November). However, the club insisted that the bans on both NUST and NCJ Media are not negotiable or up for discussion.

The topic of payments and costs between Newcastle United and Sports Direct was also raised at the forum meeting. Steve said that the panel were told that Mike Ashley sees Newcastle United and Sports Direct as two separate entities. The point was made by the club that Ashley owns 100% of NUFC and 64% of Sports Direct. NUFC are able to benefit by using Sports Directs buying power which means merchandise for the club shop can be bought in bulk cheaper. The money that NUFC pays to Sports Direct and which was reflected in the Sports Direct accounts, (£498,000) is to cover shipping, storage and handling of NUFC stores merchandise, as NUFC uses Sports Direct for these services. Other details concerning specific Forum related matters can be viewed in the forum minutes which are available on the clubs official website.

A number of questions were then put to Steve about the validity of the fans forum and concern was raised about what would happen if NUFC Fans Utd did or said something that the club didn’t like. Steve made it clear that if NUFC Fans Utd disagree with the club on matters, it will be made known, as has been the case on a number of occasions. The fans forum should be viewed as positive and valid as it allows for dialogue between the club and its supporters and it is important to use this as a vehicle to raise concerns, suggestions and opinions with the club. Respectful, open and honest dialogue is the only way forward for both club and supporters.

Following the first fans forum meeting and the subsequent banning of NUST there was one resignation from the fans forum panel, which was subsequently filled. There was concern from some regarding the process as to how this vacancy was filled as the process seemed to happen very quickly and quietly.

Concern was expressed that Supporter Liaison Officer Lee Marshall was not in attendance and whether this meant NUFC’s interest in NUFC Fans Utd was declining? Steve explained that Lee was aware of the meeting but sent his apologies. He was unable to attend as he had media duties at the FA Youth Cup match at St James’ Park. Lee intends to attend future NUFC Fans Utd meetings mainly as an observer; gauging opinion, although he will hopefully be available to answer some questions and to speak with supporters one to one after the meetings.

Despite the club’s non-negotiable stance on the NUST ban, the meeting’s attendees still felt that although NUST should have adhered to the rules of the fans forum, and had disrespected the forum and its members in not doing so, NUFC Fans Utd should continue to support the call for their reinstatement. One suggestion was made that NUST appear in front of the fans forum panel to explain their actions, before the panel themselves vote on whether NUST are reinstated.

A question was asked regarding dialogue with NUST and it was made clear that NUST are and always have been welcome to attend NUFC Fans Utd meetings. An email was sent to them inviting them to this meeting; as there have been for all of our meetings. Sadly, there was no response.



TICKETING ISSUES

Again, a number of ticketing issues have been raised, in particular the difficulties many people have experienced trying to buy tickets for the Sunderland game. There has been a lot of anger that people spent hours on a premium rate phone line or online trying to obtain tickets for the game, and yet many of those who purchased tickets have been put up for sale on websites such as Viagogo and Gumtree at higher than face value prices. This in turn has raised an issue amongst many fans re the difference between Viagogo and ticket touting. One attendee who had experience of Viagogo was able to talk directly about how they saw the process working for them.

Steve explained that he had taken the matter up with the club to obtain the facts and their opinion on these matters and advised that the club see Viagogo as the safe option as it guarantees the buyer the match ticket and the seller their money. A season ticket holder selling their seat for example simply has their card deactivated for that particular game, whilst the buyer receives a paper ticket, and the club are aware of who is sitting in that seat. Therefore, should any incidents arise, the season ticket holder would not be held responsible. If this was sold outside of Viagogo, the buyer cannot be traced and therefore the seller would be held responsible for any trouble caused by anyone using their ticket.

However, sales of tickets on other online forums or websites is considered by the club to be ticket touting and it is actively looking in particular into the issue of tickets for the derby that are currently featured on sites such as Gumtree.

Issues were raised concerning problems with away tickets, particularly at the West Bromwich Albion match on New Years Day. A number of supporters had obtained their ticket legitimately through the club (NUFC) only to find that they could not gain access to the stadium as someone had already entered with a ticket for their seat. It was felt that this was caused by the club’s travel group system and tickets being cancelled and reissued. The way the Travel Group system works is also causing problems as these groups are created from who people have applied with and travelled to away matches with previously. Often the tickets are sent to the person in the group with the most amount of points. This has meant on occasions people have bought tickets but they have then been sent by the club to people who either are not going to the away match concerned or aren’t travelling with the buyer on that occasion. This is causing confusion, anxiety, chasing around and tickets going missing. This often means fans are travelling to away games without tickets they’ve paid for to have a ticket reissued to them by the home club. This in itself has left fans feeling anxious and apprehensive and the queuing and waiting around involved at the home club has impacted on the enjoyment of their away trip.

It was also reported that on many occasions, supporters were finding that travel group tickets were coming up short and families were struggling to have issues resolved to their satisfaction and having to rely on tickets being left at the visiting club’s ticket office for collection.

Concern was also raised about the telephone ordering process and the long waits encountered by many supporters in trying to purchase tickets for the Sunderland fixture. Anecdotal evidence was put forward regarding callers being held in a queue for up to 5 hours and running up expensive call charges (in some instances over £35). This must be regarded as totally unacceptable.

It was generally felt amongst the meeting’s attendees that the ticket office has been poorly ran for many years, but that it is currently worse than ever and that many fans have little confidence in the way that it is currently administered and organised. Some believe that the whole matter of grouping tickets and family and friends ticketing arrangements needs reviewing and that the club should set up a working group that includes supporters with experience of much of the problems and issues to enable it to come up with a more manageable system of group ticket purchases.



SUPPORTER INITIATIVE/CHARITY

A suggestion was put forward for a St Patricks Day charity event on the evening of the 17th March at the Number 9 Bar on Stowell Street, with a talk-in compared by former NUFC player Joe Allon and featuring some Irish ex-NUFC players, as well as a quiz. Funds will go to the Stroke Association. This is a UK-wide charity, but it is currently trying to raise its profile in the North East. It was agreed that this should be explored further, with a view that the event takes place. Further information would be posted on our social media sites once arrangements were formalised.

Steve Wraith informed the meeting that he will be doing a Fire Walk in aid of the said charity at the Baltic on March 20th and donations can be made via his Just Giving page.

http://www.justgiving.com/Steve-Wraith



TOON TIMES EXHIBITION

The Newcastle United Foundation has been working on a heritage project documenting the club’s history, which will result in an exhibition at the Discovery Museum running from February 8th to October 5th; Recommended attendance for all supporters, young and old.



FANZINE

The Number 9, the online fanzine was launched this summer and NUFC Fans Utd have taken over its publication from Steve Wraith. A transitional issue was released over the Christmas period and it is planned to produce two more editions this season with the next being released in late February. It is hoped that many of the fanzines writers will continue with the fanzine, but we welcome anyone who would like to contribute articles on a casual or regular basis. The suggestion was raised that NUFC Fans Utd ask the fans themselves what sort of issues and articles they would like the fanzine to cover, and that this could be done via the website, email and social media. The online blog ‘Shite Seats’ announced that they are producing their own fanzine (which will be a traditional hard copy) with the first issue coming out in February. Both fanzines will be great additions to an already burgeoning fanzine scene in the North East.



FAN GOVERNANCE

Bill Corcoran addressed the meeting and informed us of a letter from Chi Onwura, the Labour MP for Newcastle Central (the constituency in which St James’ Park is located) Which she asked him to read out to the meeting. Chi has recently met with fellow MP Alison McGovern regarding ways that Labour could improve fan governance and increase supporter participation in the running of football clubs. Their findings so far have concluded that fan organisations are fragmented and that this impairs the opportunity for supporters to play a bigger role in becoming involved with the running of their clubs. Labour is currently developing policy and Chi hopes that NUFC Fans Utd will work with them to formulate opinions and ideas on this matter. It is hoped that NUFC fans will play and active roll in this.

The meeting ended with a wonderfully full, frank and open discussion on a number of matters that impact directly and or indirectly on our clubs supporter base, including ♯Time4change, MAOC, Fan group relationships and the strength of NUFC Fan Unity.



NEXT MEETING

The next meeting will take place in February; date tba.




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NUFC Fans United Meeting Minutes from 31.07.13

3/8/2013

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To download the minted please go to our Meetings page

OPEN MEETING, NEWCASTLE LABOUR CLUB 

INTRODUCTION AND WELCOME
Steve Hastie gave a brief introduction, outlining the agenda which all attendees received copies of, before introducing Newcastle United’s Supporter Liaison Officer, Lee Marshall.  Lee began by talking about some of the things that have been achieved by the Club working in partnership with Fans United. These include the return of the Gates to St James’ Park and Steve Harper’s 20 Years Charity Match.


FANS FORUM
Lee provided information on the Fans Forum recently announced by the club. He stated that much of the format and views have been shaped following meeting and talking to fans and fan groups. The club want to establish a robust structure for the forum so that it will stand up to scrutiny. They have worked to do this by working in consultation with the Football Supporters Federation who have provided feedback and constructive criticism to the club. They have also looked at examples from other clubs where forums are already operating.  The forum will contain 15 fans. Three of these will be held permanently by established fans groups, NUFC Fans United, Newcastle United Supporters Trust (NUST) and Newcastle United Disabled Supporters Association (NUSDA). 

The 12 remaining fan seats are open to all Newcastle United fans to apply and they will represent different segments of the clubs fans base. These will include season ticket holders in the Milburn, East, Gallowgate and Leazes stands, an Away Season Ticket Holder, A Long Distance Traveller (attending at least five home games a season), a Young Person’s representative (under 21),  an over 65s representative, a supporters club seat (for the secretary or chair of any supporters club containing a minimum of 20 members), a Black and White member (non season ticket holder), a corporate member  and an equality representative. Two board members, John Irving and Lee Charnley will also sit on the panel, along with the club’s heads of safety, security, ticketing and media. The Newcastle United Foundation and Wonga will also be represented. Lee stated that the forum will meet for the first time in September. Lee stated that the introduction of the fans forum does not signal the end of him attending Fans United meetings and that the club will continue to attend.

When questioned about how non-ST holders can be represented by the Fans Forum, Lee explained that that was why the Trust, Fans United and NUDSA have permanent seats on the Forum. We can act as funnels, gathering views and opinion from fans and non-ST holders and feed that back to the Forum.

People were concerned that the Fans Forum is just a UEFA box ticking exercise as UEFA have a directive about improving supporter engagement with Clubs and the Supporter Liaison Officer (in NUFC’s case Lee Marshall) is a UEFA mandated position. Lee accepted this, but went on to explain that although the SLO is a UEFA mandate; the Fans Forum is not. The Fans Forum has been set up to give fans a line of communication with the boardroom, and two senior directors will sit on the Fans Forum when it meets quarterly.

People were also dismayed that Mike Ashley will not be in attendance and once again the question of why he does not address the fans, talk to the fans or explain his plans and motives for the Club to the fans was raised. It was suggested from the floor that Mr Ashley writes the programme notes occasionally as this would provide him with his own unedited platform to tell fans what is happening.

Malcolm Dix, Steve Wraith and Ian Cusack all said at various points that the Forum is great progress, coming from a regime that has had such a poor relationship with the fans; and that it should be given a chance to see what it can achieve. 



YOU TUBE
Linking in with Lee’s information about the Fans Forum, Steve confirmed that Fans United will use our seat on the panel to pass on queries, comments and issued that have been raised by fans through ourselves. In addition to being able to do this via the meetings, social media, website and emails, Steve also announced that Fans United intend to create a You Tube account. This will allow fans to send video comments which will be uploaded to the Fans United website and can be viewed by other fans.


GATES
Both Lee and Steve updated the meeting on the progress of ‘the Gates’. They are currently undergoing restoration which is nearing completion. They are set to be installed on Friday August 23, the day before the first home game of the season against West Ham. There will be an installation ceremony on the day of the game itself.  


TICKETING ISSUES
Issues concerning away ticket allocations have been raised with the club previously through a number of sources including Fans United. The club has not always taken full allocations due to clubs having to reimburse the home club for unsold tickets. The club has pressed the Premier League to change this ruling and has obtained support from a number of other clubs. This has resulted in the Premier League changing the allocation rules to allow away clubs to take up the full allocation without being charged for unsold allocations, which is at present being ratified.

A number of ticketing issues from the floor were raised with Lee, in particular problems experienced as to how tickets are linked (with regards to applying for away games with friends/family members), and also the fact that though season ticket prices are frozen the compulsory membership fees are still rising year on year.

These are issues that Lee will feed back to the club on.


STEWARDING 
Questions were raised with Lee regarding the possibility of allowing fans to bring in flags, banners and surfers. It was noted that on occasions the club and or sponsors have had large scale banners and surfers in the ground, yet fans have not been allowed to bring their own on the grounds of health and safety. Lee agreed that if this is the case, it needs to be looked at. He stated that fans wishing to bring flags and banners should contact the club, to meet with the security team for advice. It was raised from the floor that fans had already done that were generally fobbed off with health and safety commonly being used as an excuse.  Lee invited any fans who would like to work with him on this issue to contact him.

After a point raised from the floor, re flares and smoke bombs, Lee explained that prior to the Man City game all away fans were not routinely searched on entering SJP. Following the flare incident at that game, NUFC changed their policy and ALL away fans are routinely searched.  Steve Hastie added that it might seem hypocritical to outsiders that we complain about away fans bringing flares into the ground when our away support routinely let off flares and smoke bombs during our Europa Cup campaign. Wendy Taylor (NUFC Head of Media) confirmed that NUFC were fined heavily for both flares and streakers by UEFA last season.

Points from Twitter included “why is the stewarding in the Strawberry Corner so aggressive and OTT?”  and “even after Man City, flares were still a problem at SJP”



SINGING SECTION
Calls for the return of a singing section have been brought up with Lee previously and the issue continues to be brought up with Fans United. Lee was asked if he had any further progress on the issue. Lee has fed this back to the club and the matter is being discussed within the club, though he does not have any specific updates or information at this time.  NUFC Fans United will continue to press the Club on this matter.  The consensus from Twitter was if the singing section is to be reinstated can it be located in The Strawberry Corner.


JOE HARVEY
Steve talked about the recent Joe Harvey tribute night.. The organisers have raised £10,000 for a plaque which will be installed at St James’ Park. NUFC Fans United extent their congratulations to the Fairs Club for their sterling work in ensuring that the Joe Harvey Memorial Plaque will be installed.


NUMBER 9 PLATFORM
A new online fanzine, The Number 9 launches in August and hopes to become a platform to promote various NUFC related angles online. The fanzine and Fans United hope to establish a regular #NUFCHour on Twitter to help in this.


ANY OTHER BUSINESS
Lee was asked if there was an update on the issue of the club providing/running its own travel club for away games. No update as yet.

It was also suggested that the club set up regular ‘Footballers Dinners’ events at St James’ to allow fans and players to engage with one another.


WENDY TAYLOR
At the end of the evening Wendy Taylor stood up and explained that although she and Lee might appear to be relatively junior members of staff, they do work at the Club and there aren’t “twenty layers of management” between themselves and Mike Ashley. She meets Mr Ashley “every few weeks” and feeds back what she hears from the fans; “he does get the message”.


The meeting took place on the fourth anniversary of Sir Bobby Robson’s death. It was suggested that in the future a regular pre-season tournament could be established involving Sir Bobby’s previous clubs. This suggestion proved to be popular with those in attendance.

The meeting ended with a minute’s applause in memory of Sir Bobby.


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