Trust news
As we all know that final whistle at Stockport brought our continued membership of the EFL come to an end. Whilst the writing has been on the wall for many months, it did little to soften the pain and if truth be told, it actually hurt a lot more than had been expected.
Things aren’t helped by knowing how difficult the National League will be. Historically, we have never strayed too far from Scunthorpe so their plight this season will act as a warning to anyone assuming an automatic return to the EFL. We are currently on working on getting as much information regarding the National League that we will share with you as soon as we can.
The important thing is how we react to this as a Club, as a Trust, as Supporters. Nobody can shy away from any criticisms when you finish bottom of the Football League and that includes ourselves. There’s a thousand “if only”‘s about what might have been and lessons need to be learned to ensure that we never experience that post-Stockport feeling ever again.
Part of that reaction has been our Supporters’ meetings. We have hosted three Supporters’ Meetings in the Ratcliffe with the final one taking place this afternoon. From our perspective, these have been amongst the best thing that we have ever been involved with, and the feedback and ideas that we have received.
The meetings have demonstrated the wealth of support and knowledge that exists within the fanbase and the genuine appetite to see and support improvements to take our Club forward. There was a real positivity to each of the meetings that have taken place, and we hope that those who have attended have found them to be worthwhile.
Of course, the stand out thing from this is what happens next. If we do nothing and don’t take advantage of them, then it will be a completely wasted opportunity. We have published the findings from our first two meetings on our website (Meeting 1 and Meeting 2), and we will have the minutes from the 3rd meeting on our website by Wednesday at the latest. These have all been fully published directly from the meetings with no filtering no matter how uncomfortable it might be at times.
Following on from that, we will be starting work on action plans for each category which we will publish on our website before a series of meetings with the Club as we get things in place. It is our intention to provide answers for everything single thing that has been put forward. We aim to get all action plans published on our website by the end of the Month with some appearing from this week. We will be inviting further comments from Trust members in relation to these.
As we stated earlier, these changes aren’t limited to the Club. We as a Trust have received plenty of feedback concerning ourselves as an organisation, and we will be making a number of changes as a result of that to ensure that we are a a body that is ready to act on the concerns and wishes of the supporters. This will be one of our priority areas and will be amongst the first wave of action plans that we release.
Watch this space!
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Trust on the Board
Relegation from the EFL after a 102-year unbroken membership has been difficult to accept, to say the least, for all of us, including myself as a Supporter, a Trust member and its representative on the Club Board, to accept, having managed to survive through many difficult times in the past. No one underestimates the task ahead to regain our place once more within the EFL, but I believe that with your continued support we can achieve this ambition.
All aspects as a result of our participation in the National League from next season are currently being investigated and reviewed against the Club’s current operation, and the results will be communicated to the fanbase as soon as finalised.
The Board continues to investigate the possibility of considering all approaches of outside investment. Irrespective of the proposer, the only criterion to be considered being that the prime objective obtained is the contribution to the continued sustainability of the Club. Although restricted by the confidential nature of any discussions, should any firm proposals considered to meet this criterion be received, Trust members, shareholders and the fanbase will be updated.
Finally, the Club are grateful for your past support, most forcibly experienced when all working together in the manner displayed most recently in defending the Club against those threatening to deprive us of our very existence. That same spirit will certainly prove invaluable in assisting us to fight this latest setback and regain our rightful position in the EFL.
Up the Dale
Murray |
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Questions from members
The subject of my ability to report back on matters discussed at Board level was one of the topics raised at the recent meetings held by the Trust with Supporters, the final one taking place today. Part of the protocol agreed on any Director is the confidentiality aspect on matters discussed. I mentioned in the April Newsletter of my understanding of the frustration this causes, but I do try my best to represent the views of members and the fanbase in general with the Board, I believe a vital aspect of having the Trust represented on the Board.
However, I can only represent you by you contacting me regarding your views, suggestions and concerns for me to take up with the Club on your behalf. Take advantage of the opportunity to have your say! Please send any emails to info@daletrust.co.uk with the subject line FAO Murray and I shall do my best to get back to you as soon as possible.
As you will see from reading this, we are attempting to give this a higher profile to improve the communicatiion by giving it a separate section within our Monthly Newsletter.
Just one simple example of how I was able to assist one of our members concerned coach travel for the Mansfield Town game on Easter Monday. Due to the Bank Holiday the ticket office was closed from Friday night till Tuesday. The member had tried to book online but the booking facility for the coach had been closed down. I checked and there were still seats available but no way of adding the reservation to the list of passengers for the coach leaving on Monday. I contacted Jan (Office Manager) and she arranged for the member to pay on the day.
To prevent potential coach passengers assuming the coach is full in similar circumstances in the future, I am now checking if the system could allow booking to remain open by providing an updated passenger list to be made available at the time of the coach departing. In this instance, there may have been additional potential passengers who didn’t book assuming the coach was full, so if this change is possible it could encourage last minute coach travel whilst reducing any subsidy by the Club.
Murray |
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Membership 2023-4
We have now opened membership for the 2023-24 season. We have decided that yet again that we will stick with membership at £5 for next season.
As always, we have more than one option for you to sign up for the new season:
Adult Membership
Exile Membership
Junior Membership
Family Membership
Auto Renewal Membership
Many of you are already signed up on the auto renewal membership. We emailed everyone that applies to on Sunday. Anyone making a duplicate application will have their membership fee refunded (this regularly happens 🙂 )
Last season, we had a total of 1089 members, which was our second highest total since we started back in 2003-4. Amongst that, we had 346 Exiles which was higher than four seasons’ total membership. We would love to have you back on board for the new season.
If you are signing up again online, you will not have to sign up to receive the newsletters again. The membership application automatically takes you to a sign up page for the newsletters but this will be unnecessary for renewals.
Officially our membership period does not kick in until 1st July, so we’re not planning on sending out any of the membership cards before then, so if you don’t hear anything straight away, don’t worry.
Trust in us!
Scott Goulding- membership officer |
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Share Purchases
We were delighted to purchase a further 757 shares in the Football Club. This was funded by a profit of £923 from the Curry Night, and £855 that was accumalated from monthly donations to the Trust for the specific purpose of share purchases.
We wrote to all those making the monthly donations last week to inform them that we are doing things slightly differently, and will purchase shares on a monthly basis based on those donations, and we will bring you an update on that in each newsletter.
Following April’s donations, we will be looking at purchasing a further £411 worth of shares this next week.
If you would like to join the monthly donation scheme, where you can donate as little as you like each month, you can do so by going to https://www.daletrust.co.uk/monthly-donation-to-the-trust/ |
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Trust Director Election
Murray Knight is coming to the end of his first two year term as the Trust’s Director on the Club’s Board of Directors and as such we are inviting applications from anyone interested in that position.
The Election Process
- Anyone wishing to apply for election must have been a member of the Dale Trust for the 2022-23 season and at least one previous season. They will need to be proposed and seconded by current members of the Dale Trust.
- All candidates will need to submit in 500 words or less why they consider themselves to be the most suitable candidate. This will be shared with all Trust members at the start of the election process.
- We will email all members on 1st June with details of those putting themselves forward for election, along with their pitch. Voting will be open to all 2022-23 Adult and Exile members until the closing date of 30th June.
- The result will be announced early in July to allow a starting date of 1st August. For verification purposes, the results from the election will be shared with the FSA.
- In the event of only one candidate putting themselves forward, then that candidate will be automatically elected as Trust Director.
Trust Director Role
- The winning candidate will be required to attend the Trust’s Monthly Board meetings, and others requiring Board Directors’ attendance, and to provide feedback to the Trust Board.
- There will be a requirement to reply to emails from Trust members and to contribute towards each month’s Newsletter.
- There will also be a requirement to be involved, as with all the Football Club’s Directors, in matters affecting the Club’s operational matters.
- The elected Trust Director will sit for a two year period from August 1st 2023 to August 31st 2025. The extra month is to allow for any handover requirements.
- There will be a requirement to pass the OADT that all Board members are required to pass. Information on the OADT can be found at https://www.efl.com/-more/governance/efl-rules–regulations/efl-regulations/appendix-3-owners-and-directors-test/
- Also, as with all Directors, there is the requirement to pass the Disclosure and Barring Services (DBS) enhanced test, relating to safeguarding.
- Any elected Trust Director can sit for a maximum of two terms on the Club’s Board of Directors
If you are interested in stepping up, please email the Trust by 25th May with your nomination, with your case for suitability for the role. Details of the election will be contained within the June newsletter.
If you have any further questions, please contact the Trust at info@daletrust.co.uk |
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Trust Board Meeting agenda
The Trust Board meeting will be taking place on Tuesday 2nd May.
The agenda will be:
1) Response to Supporters’ Meetings
2) Trust response to ownership issues at RAFC
3) Membership 2023-24 actions
4) AOB |
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Player of the Season
We were delighted to announce on Saturday that Dale keeper Richard O’Donnell had been voted as the Supporters’ Player of the Season.
We had more votes for this than we have ever received before with almost 1200 votes in. O’Donnell picked up just over half of the votes with 50.5% going his way ahead of Danny Lloyd who picked up 25.5% of the votes.
In doing so, he becomes the first goalkeeper to receive the award since Josh Lillis in 2015-16.
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Former Players Association
The ex players have been busy during April attending matches for hospitality plus the every-popular annual “Curry Up The Dale” event featuring Steve Taylor, Nathan Stanton and Lyndon Simmonds, who made the long trip from South Wales. There were fabulous stories about their time at Dale including insights about Vic Halom’s time in charge in the 80’s by Steve, Lyndon’s goal scoring feats that kept Dale in the League at the end of the 1987/8 season plus comical snippets about Keith Hill’s exploits including Play Off Final and promotion later in his reign as the most successful manager.
Hospitality diners were treated to stories from Shaun Reid at the Walsall match, where he spoke of his clashes against Wimbledon, he felt they didn’t seem to know what had hit them when they arrived at Spotland, he felt he had Vinnie Jones under wraps for most of game, he also talked about getting sent off whilst on the stretcher in another match.
Paul Butler made an appearance at the match against Bradford City recalling memories of his time at Rochdale in a mostly poorly performing team before his expected departure a few miles down the road to arch rivals, Bury.
Wayne Goodison Wayne spoke at the match against Tranmere Rovers of his time at Rochdale during the late 80’s/early 90’s in a team that reached the FA Cup 5th Round for the first time ever using his experience from his spells at Barnsley and Crewe Alexandra to good use seeing him appear in 78 matches, scoring 4 goals.
Lee McEvilly was due to entertain diners prior to kick off for the Sutton United match.
Stories about our ex-players can be found on www.rochdalefpa.com and Facebook (Rochdale Former Players Association) |
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Easyfundraising
Now the football is coming to an end, many of you will be looking at getting away to try and take your minds away from it all, and who could blame you. Holidays tend to be one of the best money spinners for us with Easyfundraising with options at flights, hotels, travel insurance, car hire etc.
It works like this. You register with Easyfundraising and use their page as the starting point for searching for whatever you wish to buy. By doing that, the retailer will make a donation to the Trust. The price you pay won’t be any different than it would be had you gone direct to that site, so it literally is free money for us with any additional cost to yourself.
Easyfundraising has brought us a total of £7,050 since we first started partnering with them. Throughout that time, we have sometimes used these funds for specific purposes or good causes, and sometimes it has gone to Trust funds.
To visit and register with Easyfundraising, go to https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/daletrust/ |
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Trust Diary
Monday 1st May – Supporters’ Meeting in the Ratcliffe 1pm
Tuesday 2nd May – Trust Board Meeting
Monday 8th May – Harrogate Town (a) – ground guide |
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