Summary of board meeting minutes 18th January 2018

In addition to board members attending this meeting, Richard Lynes in his role of chair of the Governance Committee attended to audit board meeting processes and procedures.

Report from CEO
Mark Maguire said that his main focus had been on the 100 club and that the PR launch was planned for later in the month, some commitments had been made by businesses and others were expected following the launch.

A date was still awaited for the James Alabi.

Following the Safety Advisory Group meeting there are no obstacles in respect of the Stagecoach proposal and a detailed proposal is now awaited which will be submitted to the board in the first instance.

Finance update

Laurence Kirby highlighted his concerns regarding the financial position – full details to be explained at the CFU meeting on 25th January.

Working groups

Following a meeting of the board, with some former directors, key stakeholders and volunteers, it had been agreed that a number of working groups be established, these were:
• Football
• Membership/community/fan engagement
• Commercial/Fundraising
• Strategy

Terms of reference will be set for each group and they will meet regularly and feedback to the CFU board, their notes will be published on the CFU website.

CFU meeting

The agenda for the CFU meeting was agreed and subsequently published on the CFU website.

Operations board

The minutes of the Operations board held on 18th December, 2017 were noted, also that an update on Health and Safety had been produced.

Volunteer strategy

Andrew Morris had produced a draft volunteer strategy which will be discussed at a future meeting.

When the board met on14th December, they received a presentation on the General Data Protection Regulations from Susan Oldfield who is a member of the governance team; these new regulations will be introduced in 2018 and plans have to be put in place to ensure that the football club is compliant.

The regulations will cover how data is:

· Collected
· Stored
· Processed
· Secured and handled
· Clear responsibilities will have to be assigned to both CFU board members and staff.

The first step in staring to implement these new regulations will be to undertake an audit – Mark Jones is the director with the lead on this issue.

Mark Maguire attended the board to provide an update on progress in the establishment of the 100 club that has previously been referred to at CFU meetings, the aim is still to launch this initiative in January 2018. MM reported that discussions are ongoing regarding the possible Stagecoach development and there is a new initiative to tray and increase attendances at home games with the use of advance ticket sales.

In addition to a small selection of merchandise being on sale in the Evening Leader Office, the Tourist Information office on the Town Hall square have a limited range of merchandise.

LK provided an update on the financial position which showed the continuing trend of match day attendance being lower than planned and the associate spends also being down – programmes and 50/50.

Following the recent announcement at the informal CFU meeting in November, there was further discussion relating to reporting arrangements by Directors at CFU board meetings, JH had produced a template for income generation reports and also for membership and engagement reports. It was agreed that these should be used by all directors.

A policy regarding safeguarding of vulnerable adults was approved and it was agreed that there should be a page devoted to safeguarding on the club website and this will include copies of relevant policies relating to safeguarding.

The minutes form the operations board held on 27th November and 4th December were received – the issues covered at these meetings had already been discussed as part of MM’s report.

A calendar of meetings for the year was agreed Board meetings
18th January
22nd February
22nd March
19th April
17th May
14th June
12th July
9th August
6th September
4th October
1st November
6th December

Calum McIntyre attended the most recent board meeting on 16th November, 2017 – he briefed the board on the Academy Strategy and highlighted the professional approach of our volunteer coaches and the work that had been undertaken in respect of Continuing Professional Development in preparation for the new season.

Calum also provided details of the working of the recently established Youth Team Scholarship scheme. This scheme enables the club to offer a similar programme to that of other clubs at the same level and above and will help with recruitment.

Ron Smith, who has previously been co-opted to the Operations Board was co-opted again for a further year.

Finance – noted that in terms of gate money the club is slightly ahead of budget with the Wrexham game having taken place recently, although some areas are below budget including programme sales. Changes were agreed to the bank mandates with the change in director appointments.

The main issue for discussion related to new ways of working for the board with all business being grouped into 3 areas – see full details on the CFU website.

Future CFU meetings – it is proposed that there will be 6 formal meetings a year (including the AGM) the dates for these will be published in advance at the start of the year. In the months in between it is proposed that these meetings will become more along the lines of a fans forum and be open to wider than CFU membership; they will be held in various locations in and around Chester rather than at the football club.

The board met on 19th September 2017.  The following reports were made: (more…)

The board met on 24th August, 2017 and were joined by Ron Smith who is a co-opted director on the operations board, his perception from an external perspective was that the operations board was working well and played a vital part in the day to day running of the club. (more…)

The board is working in a slightly different way and future minutes and summary notes will be based on reports back from the directors and secretary on their various portfolios: (more…)

This is a summary of the board meeting held on 29th June 2017

Matters arising:

• FLi contract – noted that the new website is due to launch on 30th June, JH thanked all involved for their work in taking this forward and the importance of actually owning was agreed.

• Facilities for disabled supporters – still on-going; a written quote from Gibbs was higher than expected. DHW had suggested another company from which a quote is being obtained. As previously discussed there will be additional cost for creating more disabled parking spaces and improving the pathway access.

• Proposal to have a 3G pitch – LK reported no progress, but that he hoped to get further information from Bala and Newtown in respect of their business model. Also noted that there was less support from the football side. MD said that the Community Trust had met with the Council who were supportive of developing a 3G pitch at Kings playing field. MM is investigating the availability of grant funding.

• Health and safety – BB reported continuing progress with the H&S action list and a range of risk assessments had been produced which are due to be signed off next week.

• CRM database – MD said that following the launch of the new website the move to the new arrangement would now be progressed. There had also been discussions regarding importing of season ticket data, and with LK regarding the introduction of go-cardless which would enable direct debits to be undertaken. MD said that in view of season ticket activity it was likely to be mid August before the new arrangements were progressed.

Output from the Board Away Day:

• Portfolios – allocation agreed and that there were gaps in key areas namely community and volunteers. NB agreed to take on the link to the Exiles and Senior Blues and JH with support from DHW would take on the Junior Blues. DO’T to take on volunteers with support from MN.

• Appraisals – arrangements proposed agreed.

• Communications between directors – noted that MM had been investigating cloud based office 365 and SS was looking at Slack. Board reports normally to be circulated with the agenda to allow proper consideration.

• Engagement with CFU members and wider supporter base – agreed to ask members at the next CFU meeting what they want in terms of frequency and content. Agreed that there was a need to promote general fan engagement and CFU membership out in local communities.

• Operations board – agreed that no changes need to be made to the current reporting.

• Standards and behaviour for volunteers/employees – actions from away day noted, this is a work in progress.

• Current strategy document – agreed that the strategy needs to be owned and refreshed.

• Volunteers on match days– the board accepted by a majority decision the proposal that all volunteers should pay for their match day admission. Further work needs to be undertaken regarding an event for volunteers.

• Governance and risk – AM and AS to take forward.

Finance:

LK referred to the paper he had circulated at the start of the meeting. He highlighted the importance of the healthy balance sheet with strong liquidity. In respect of the budget for 2017-2018 this had been unconditionally approved by the national league and will continue to be refined with version 2 being available at the start of the playing season. Also noted that JMcC is due to attend the CFU meeting on 27th July.

Operations Board:

Minutes from the meetings held on 5th and 19th June were received. Noted that MN would be taking on the role of Welfare Officer following attendance at a training course in August; also that there is still an intention to relocate the office into the shop.

CFU:

Agreed that a further email reminder regarding membership renewal should be undertaken, also a reminder on the club website which would link back to the CFU website. Any paper communications needed to be linked to AGM mail shot. Also agreed that any potential future board members should be invited to meet directors prior to the next CFU meeting.

Youth Section:

Noted that CMcI had been offered a permanent contract. The youth section would be having their annual pre season trip to Scotland and there was no further information regarding the trip to Poland. Coach recruitment had been successful and CPD sessions had taken place and a series of meetings with parents.

AGM:

MN referred to the board paper which set out that there would be 7 director posts available for election at the AGM, to bring the board up to the level of 10 which had previously been agreed as the optimum.

The next CFU Board meeting will be held on 25th July, 2017 at 6.30pm with JMcC attending.

This is a summary of the board meeting held on 6th June 2017 (more…)

This is a summary of the board meeting held on 9th March 2017 (more…)

CFU board – summary of the minutes of the meeting held on 9th February 2017 (more…)