Following conversations I had with various London Bluebirds toward the end of last season, I thought I would start a thread about membership for the coming season.
 
In our one and only “formal” meeting, we elected a committee and passed certain resolutions (minutes attached below).
 
My personal view is that, as we only have about a dozen members who regularly use the Message Board/travel to matches, there is little point in opening up a paid membership for this coming season. I don’t believe we have spent any funds this season, so any funds we have should be adequate to keep us going through the next. Glyn has established a good relationship with the Ticket Office, and all we need aside from this is a functioning MB to arrange meet ups etc. During my travels last season, I did meet several supporters based in London/the South, and told them about the London Bluebirds, but there seems to be limited interest in joining a formal organisation.
 
As it stands, the MB is open for anyone to see, and I believe Dave Samuels pays a monthly fee to keep it going (I have sent Dave a private message so we can reimburse him and take over the payments). I would like to establish a more impressive website – something simple and along the lines of the 1927 Club one when we were members, with a front page saying who we are (Mission Statement below) and a locked and unlocked forum. This may help attract new members and of course deter any potential Trolls. Is there anyone reading this who is both willing and capable of doing this? If not, I will ask a couple of friends who work in computers to see if they are willing to do it, and as a last resort see if I can source a fairly cheap web-designer to do it out of the funds we have. Before I spend any money, I will contact the committee for their approval.
 
On other matters listed in the minutes below, here are my thoughts on the current state of play:
 
Club name – shall we stick with London Bluebirds?
Officers – aside from Glyn’s sterling work with the Ticket Office, and moderation of the MB (again, in the main by Glyn!) very little was done last season. A committee of half a dozen people is useful, even if everyone may not perform the role assigned to them. We can all be moderators of the new MB (when it has been developed), and assist Glyn with tickets etc. Is there anybody listed below who wants to drop off, or likewise anyone who wants to join the committee?
Supporters Club – seems little point in joining if we are not charging membership ourselves?
Players sponsorship – if anybody is keen to do this next season, do they want to start a separate thread on this MB?
Tickets/travel/debit card – suggest we keep going next season as we did this with people using the MB to suggest trains, keep up to date with tickets etc. As the season drew on, it (unsurprisingly!) got easier to get tickets, and I don’t think we will have a real problem in the Championship next season.
 
Please can you post your thoughts on the above in this thread – all of the above just represents my thoughts and I am happy to go along with the majority view if people feel differently.

Minutes of meeting
 
Mission statement
It was agreed that it would be a good idea to have a “mission statement” to agree the club goals and objectives, which could be put on the front page of the website – something along the lines of :
We are a supporters club for Cardiff City fans living in the South of England, with the goals of facilitating tickets and match travel, and ancilliary social events.
Please feel free to suggest any improvements to this wording.

Club name
We will stick with the name “London Bluebirds” for the rest of the season. Once we have a fully paid up membership (see “Membership Fees” section) we can take nominations for alternative names and vote for a name going forward.

Officers:

Chairman Chris O
Membership Sec Jo Murray
Treasurer The General
Travel Officer Glyn Thomas
The Entertainment Shandy
Message Board Admin Tom Carter plus the rest of the committee
These roles to remain in place for this season, and once we have a fully paid up membership we can hold a proper vote for these posts in the hope of finding a better bunch than this lot (!)

Funds
Chris O to ascertain from the General how much was transferred from the 1927 Club (£380?).
Funds are in the first instance to be used to lock the message board (see “Message Board” section)

Membership fees
No fees to be charged for the rest of the season.
Membership fee for 2014/15 season will be £10, with under 18s free (There was a suggestion of £20 for a family membership, but we agreed for next season that kids go free)
We will open membership for next season very early – May? – as once we have a fully paid up membership we can then vote on various issues such as name, committee etc.

Supporters Club
Glyn to liaise with the Supporters Club in order to ascertain cost and benefits of us affiliating and report back

Message Board (MB)
Following agreement to allocate funds to lock the MB, we are to ask Tom Carter/Dave Samuel if either of them are able to take this forward for us. We will pay any fees associated with it, plus pay them for their time . Chris O to e-mail Tom/Dave.
If anyone posts abuse on the MB, the post will be deleted by one of the moderators and a warning issued. If they post abuse for the 2nd time, they will then be banned from the MB. Let’s hope it never comes to this…!

Player sponsorship
Next season, we will consider sponsorship of a player’s shirt (blue away, and not number 27!). The money for this not to come out of club funds, but to come from individual member contributions. At the end of the season, draw to be taken place amongst the contributors for who gets the shirt, with draw tickets to be allocated in proportion to money donated. From the general consensus on Saturday, we should get enough money to sponsor a shirt.

Tickets
Glyn to speak with Mona at the Ticket Office to see if our tickets can be allocated in a block together, so we can all sit together when the host club enforce a “sit in your allocated seats” policy.

Travel
Glyn as Travel Officer will pick a train for away games and post it on the MB, so people can book tickets and travel together

Credit/Debit card
Can we get a club credit or debit card? If so, we can use it to block book tickets for games/trains and then collect the money from individual members. Chris O to ask the General if he can investigate this and report back.