Please find our latest update below, including details of the 2020 AGM Date and the launch of our UTST fundraiser.
You can read all previous updates here.
2020 AGM Date
This year’s WST AGM will be held on Saturday August 8 and will be hosted on Zoom. Formal notices will be sent out in the next few weeks detailing how you can stand for the Board of the WST and how you can submit resolutions for Members consideration.
Having an online meeting is a major change for us as is moving the meeting to a Saturday afternoon. We are also making some changes to the electoral process by introducing a form of hustings to the procedure. There is already a provision for this in our Election Policy although it has never been utilised.
Members will be invited to submit questions for candidates to answer in written form and these answers will be distributed as part of the AGM pack. We hope that this will be a great success and that members will have greater information when voting.
We are also looking at the possibility of holding a “Question Time” event where Members can question prospective candidates. This will be held at some point in July.
n.b – Should there be a significant change in government lockdown regulations we will review these arrangements.
Questions For AGM Candidates
We are inviting Members to submit questions for prospective Board Members to answer. Please be brief and ensure that the question applies to all candidates.
Please submit your questions for AGM candidates to – secretary@wst.org.uk
UTST! – Unite To Save the Town fundraiser launched
The impact of COVID-19 has been great on all football clubs, and Wrexham AFC are no different. We have detailed our financial situation in these updates and we are now calling on supporters to Unite To Save the Town.
In these unprecedented and uncertain times, the club has suffered a £250,000 loss in match-day income and seen other income streams closed off due to the need to shut down non-essential business activity and furlough all paid staff.
We have a number of rewards available to anybody able to contribute to our fundraiser, from signed letters and photos, a chance to be in the team photo, legends tours and director for the day at an away game.
Any donation would be most welcome, however, and you can donate without claiming a reward too.
These are difficult times for everybody and certainly not just our Football Club, so we have also arranged to donate five per cent of all money raised to Nightingale House Hospice and a further five per cent to Awyr Las.
For more details, including how to make a donation, check out the full brochure here. Enquiries should be directed to treasurer@wst.org.uk.
Furlough Scheme Update
We can confirm that the Job Retention Scheme grant for May has been received for £75,533.68.
Members will note that this is less than the previous grant as April included a claim for March, while also there were no matches scheduled for May and therefore no matchday staff.
P60
We have posted all remaining P60s for the previous tax year for all employees who do not have a registered e-mail address ahead of the HMRC deadline of 31st May 2020. These are normally distributed during matches in April but due to no games this was not possible.
National League Update
As of yesterday (Thursday May 28), we can confirm that we have had no official correspondence from the National League regarding the conclusion to this season or a possible start date for next season.
We will update fans as this information is made available.
Zoom Solution For AGM
Following a member’s query regarding the above issue, as discussed in our last update, we issued the following clarification on Facebook:
“The cost is for the Zoom Webinar 3000 service as it is the best option we found at a reasonable price that could deliver the number of attendees and administrative capabilities we need to run a meeting to our whole Membership with the ability to interact.
“From discussion with Zoom, you cannot run concurrent host accounts to deliver one meeting at this level of attendees, hence using the Webinar 3000 option. Should we find that, when we have finalised the arrangement, and we have more Members who want to attend than the 3000, we can then quickly upgrade to the Webinar 5000 option (obviously at additional cost!)
“As part of the research necessary to ensure we have the most efficient and cost effective solution for our needs, a number of other systems were looked at including Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, GoToMeeting, Zoho Meeting, Cisco Webex Meetings, BlueJeans Meetings, Join.me and number of other such services. In comparison, and based on the required criteria, Zoom provided the best option.
“This doesn’t mean that we will be tied in to Zoom in future, one of the existing systems may at some point start offering a better solution for us, but the Zoom licensing model is easy to work with, and, more importantly, get out of should we want to move on.
“We are hoping to try out test runs over the next month or so with various large groups to try and ensure we are fully conversant with any issues we may face, but, in our opinion, this is the best short term way of allowing us all to communicate, and from our understanding there are few, if any, other Trusts or Football Clubs even thinking of such solutions at this time for AGM’s and Member meetings.
“It may not be a perfect solution, but it’s the best that is available in our opinion under the current constraints.. We are, however, always open to any ideas you may have, and would encourage you to send them to us.”
AGM Volunteers for Election Management Group
In response to an appeal in the last Update we are delighted to announce that members, Mark Felstead and Gaz Ellis have volunteered to work on this group supporting Mark Jones of City Fans United who will act as Chair.
Thank you to all who volunteered, members were selected on a first come, first served basis.
Constitutional Review
Thank you to those members who have fed back on policies to date. Please keep the suggestions coming as it is a great support.
This week the group has been looking at the Board Membership Policy which is the document that all Board Members sign when they join the WST Board. The existing policy can be found here.
The suggested changes to the policy, to date, are as follows:
- Introduction of a Whistleblowers Policy – Detail to be discussed but would cover serious issues such as theft, illegal activity and breaches of WST Rules.
- Duplicate the disciplinary process that has been proposed for the Membership with the whole process handled by an Independent party.
- Ensure that basic training on Board roles and procedures is completed as a first task and prior to the appointment of Board officers.
- Create a rota for Board Members to attend away games so that the Club/Trust Board are represented. (concerns that this is not always the case)
- Reasonable expenses to be paid to Board Members who are on WST/Club business. These expenses are to be agreed with the Board before incurring costs. All efforts must be made to keep expenses to a minimum.
- Term limits for WST Chair.
FA Community Shield Fund
Wrexham AFC are pleased to announce we will be donating our £2,000 share of the FA Community Shield Fund to Nightingale House Hospice.
All 124 clubs competing in the FA Cup from the first round onwards receive an equal share of the money raised from the Community Shield to distribute to local community projects.
The Football Club are pleased to confirm Nightingale House Hospice are our chosen beneficiaries.
