Supporters vote in favour of trust
As supporters will be aware, a meeting was held before the home game against Braintree Town on Saturday 7th January 2006 to discuss whether a Supporters Trust should be formed. The following is a summary of the meeting, informing supporters of the current situation at the club and what is now required so that the working group can move forward with the formation of the trust
The meeting was attended by over 70 people, all but one of whom voted in favour of forming a Supporters Trust (the one dissenting voice being a local resident who chose to abstain).
Consequently, the Working Party will now proceed to establish a Supporters Trust as an Industrial and Provident Society (IPS)
The Trust's objective is as follows:
"The Hendon Football Club Supporters Trust will do everything within its power to ensure the continuation of Hendon Football Club playing at the highest level of football consistent with its financial position."
To support this objective, we have set ourselves the following targets:
- to raise a minimum of £25,000 before 30th June 2006
- to raise a minimum of £100,000 per annum thereafter.
The follow sumarises what was discussed at Saturday's meeting:
- there is little if any likelihood of us being able to play our football at Claremont Road beyond the end of this season.
- there is no likelihood of the Arbiter Group continuing to provide financial support for the football club beyond the end of this season.
- there is a possibility that the Arbiter Group will provide a sum (likely to be in region of £300,000) to the football club from the sale of the lease on Claremont Road. We had preliminary discussions with Arbiter Group and intend to continue these discussions with a view to reaching an agreement in principle to purchase the football club with no debt.
- we believe that it will be possible for a Supporters Trust to obtain full control of the club and, if we can raise sufficient funds, we believe that it will be possible for a Supporters Trust to maintain a football team playing at current level of Non-League Step 3
- the cost of establishing and maintaining a football ground at Copthall Stadium is likely to prove prohibitive. Consequently, we will not be pursuing this option any further.
- faced with the options of folding, merging or groundsharing with another local non-league club, we believe that groundsharing is the the best means by which to establish a "base camp" for the club from which we can plan our long-term future.
- we have had preliminary discussions with Wingate & Finchley and intend to continue these discussions with a view to reaching agreement on groundsharing arrangements for season 2006/7
- there can be no guarantees of success. Our ability to maintain Hendon Football Club is directly linked to the Supporters Trust's ability to raise sufficient funds to meet the necessary financial obligations. In the event that the Supporters Trust cannot raise sufficient funds, we will be forced to reconsider our options.
With this in mind, can we please ask you now to complete the Application Form which can be downloaded from the Documents and Join sections of this website and to return it as soon as possible by one of the means set out on the form. If none of these return options are possible, please complete the document and email the completed document back to Simon Lawrence via info@hfctrust.co.uk.
There's no need to send membership fees yet but, if you want to pay now that'd be fine too. If so, please make cheques payable to Hendon Football Club Supporters Trust. The basic subscription fee is £10 a year for adults and £5 a year for children under 16.
However, we're not going to get there on annual subscriptions alone - a number of you have previously indicated that you would be prepared to make a one-off or a monthly donation (or both). Please complete the Application Form accordingly. To those of you who haven't yet indicated whether or not you'd be willing or able to make a monthly donation, please could you give this some thought and do what you can. While we're grateful for any donations at all, monthly donations are extremely useful as these will allow us to start to develop annual budgets. There's no amount that is too small - by the same token, there's no amount that's too much!
Please also pass copies of the application form on to anyone you know that may just be willing to join the trust, whether or not they are Hendon supporters.
We intend to explore all possible fund-raising avenues and intend to involve everyone in our fund-raising activities.
As we said at Saturday's meeting, this is a unique opportunity for us to take control over our football club. Whether we can make a success of it or not depends on all of us, including you. So, please please complete and return your Application Form as soon as possible and please donate as generously as you can.
If you have any questions on this summary or on any aspect of the proposed Supporters Trust, please get in touch, either by emailing us at info@hfctrust.co.uk or by speaking to any member of the working party (Mark Bohm, John Neville, Mike Harte, Bryan Roberts, Simon Lawrence or Phil Rogers) at a match.
There's lots more to come in the next few weeks/months but, for now, thanks for listening.