Catch-up: Robins Trust Updates - November 2023 & December 2023

9th April 2024 — 13 minute read

November 2023 Newsletter:

Below is the email that was sent out to Robins Trust members on 30th November 2023:

Join the Trust to receive news and updates before anybody else.

Dear Robins Trust Member,

The nights are drawing in and the temperatures at matches are taking a nose-dive, but even with the fortnight's break from first team action in November there's no risk of the Trust hibernating: it was great to meet many of you at the AGM and Fans Forum on the 23rd, if you missed the Forum, you can listen back on the link below.

At the AGM we saw the election of Ryan Grimmett and Sam Nair to the Robins Trust board - we're delighted to have them contributing to the work we can do for our members.

And welcome to yet more new members who’ve joined us over the past month – it’s great to see our numbers continuing to grow. You can find out who the board members of the Robins Trust are at the bottom of this newsletter, and if you have any ideas or questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us at: info@robinstrust.org

In this issue:

Update from Fan-Elected Director Dave Beesley
Update from Trust Chair James Young
Robins Trust Fan's Forum - Listen back now
Episode 2 of the Ornithology Podcast
Community Noticeboard
Who are the Robins Trust Board? (see the bottom of this post)

As always, thank you for your ongoing support.

Update from Fan-Elected Director Dave Beesley

Hi Fellow Trust Members,

The last couple of months have been very interesting at Club board level - as has the season I suppose.

As has been mentioned by David Bloxham at the recent Robins Trust Fans Forum, and by Jon Palmer on Twitter, we have started the process of looking at ourselves and the "business".

Rightfully, when things are not going well on the pitch, questions are asked of everyone - including those at the top level of the club.

We have taken these questions on board, and spent a couple of dedicated meetings thus far, asking ourselves difficult questions - and performing an introspection. Looking at our strengths and weaknesses as a football club and as a business which supports that.

We have surveyed ourselves, the club staff, and in the New Year our biggest stakeholder - you, our fellow supporters. Look out for this survey when it is released, it will give you an opportunity to help shape the club going forwards. Most importantly, be honest, be candid, and be brave.

Without this knowledge, we cannot grow and evolve as a club.

Out of this we hope to create a clear vision and direction of travel for the club - to move into a new era - to keep pace with on field progress in all aspects of how we work.

This process is ongoing, and the fruits of this work will take time to develop. But we do intend to learn, change and adapt.

Update from Trust Chair James Young

First of all, a massive thank you to everyone who made our AGM and Fans Forum a great success.

I am sure all of those who came along to Deya, enjoyed the evening - and not just because we bought the first round!

It was fantastic to hear Darrell Clarke and Adam Murray speak with such clarity and passion about what they believe can be achieved.

For those who couldn't be there, BBC Radio Gloucestershire put an hour-long forum special out on the following evening - which is still available on their listen again function. (see the link in the section below).

Final thanks to Tom Watt for being our host, to Murry Toms for helping sort the venue and to all at Deya - we'll be back next year!

At the AGM I was able to report on some real successes for the Trust over the past year.

Our membership figures have increased dramatically, albeit from a low base. At the time of writing we have 252 members, up nearly 100 from this time last year.

The new membership system we use has been a roaring success and we are really pleased by the number of monthly 'investors' we have.

This means that revenues in 2022/23 are more than double, and nearly treble that, of the previous year. Thanks to our monthly investors it is growing all the time.

This has allowed us to look at carrying out a project that was a key recommendation of our end-of-season survey last year.

It is a project that will benefit a growing number of Robins fans - more on that soon.

On December 6, as part of my role with the Football Supporters Association, I have been invited to one of the regular Structured Dialogue meetings with the EFL in London.

The key focus of that meeting will be the new fan engagement standards that will be overseen by the new Independent Regulator for Football (IREF).

I'll report back on that meeting, and hopefully the next steps of the establishment of the IREF in our next newsletter.

The establishment of the regulator was formally introduced by the Government in the King's Speech earlier in November, and the process is gathering pace.

Crucially, it has cross-bench support from all sides of the House of Commons, so should be unaffected by any coming election.

It will be a significant change for football and is one that we as a Trust, and me personally in my FSA role, have worked hard to help bring about.

It is one of the reasons I am really looking forward to 2024. Not only will we hopefully see the continued resurgence of the Robins under Darrell and Adam, but significant change to the way football works.

There's plenty to look forward to.

James

Robins Trust Fans Forum - [No longer available]

The recording of the Fans’ Forum was available through BBC Sounds until just before Christmas.

Episode 2 of the Ornithology podcast launches on 4th December

In the second episode of Ornithology we feature a chat with Cheltenham Town Board Member, Fan-Elected Director, and Trust Vice-Chair (triple threat) Dave Beesley. Dave lifts the lid on how the Club board works, how board meetings are organised, the roles that each of the Directors play, how decisions are made, and the privileges and tensions that come with being an FED.

You can find details on how to access episodes of the Ornithology podcast here: https://www.robinstrust.org/posts/robins-trust-podcast-launch-listen-to-ornithology-now/

The Cheltenham Town Community Noticeboard

A slightly more parochial item this month, but we’ve now made recent Robins Trust documents available on the website, so that they are readily available to all members; you can find the latest Accounts, Minutes, Rules and Policies here: https://www.robinstrust.org/trust-documents/

December 2023 Newsletter:

Below is the email that was sent out to Robins Trust members on 31st December 2023:

Join the Trust to receive news and updates before anybody else.

Dear Robins Trust Member,

On the cusp of New Year, we want to say thank you to all of our members for your support over the year, and look forward to another very fruitful year for the Trust and the Club in 2024.

As always, if you have any ideas or questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us at: info@robinstrust.org

In this issue:

Update from Fan-Elected Director Dave Beesley
Update from Trust Chair James Young
Premier League Fans Fund Project Announcement
Episode 3 of the Ornithology Podcast
Community Noticeboard
Who are the Robins Trust Board?

Update from Fan-Elected Director Dave Beesley

No update this month, but there will be a full round up of the past couple of months in the January newsletter.

Instead, we wanted to share a photo of the five runners up (and, of course, the winner) of the Charity third shirt competition. We were so overwhelmed by the entries to the competition that the Robins Trust arranged for Hope and Glory Sportswear to produce a one-off shirt for each of the five runners-up. Here they were before the Boxing Day fixture against Shrewsbury:

Thanks also to everyone who donated to Cheltenham Open Door via the Robins Trust and the Club. This year's campaign resulted in a delivery of over 230 items of food and toiletries.

This is the third year running that fans have supported this magnificent local charity with their generosity.

Happy Christmas to all @CheltOpenDoor and thank you for the fantastic support you provide in our community.

Update from Trust Chair James Young

On December 6, I was part of a group from the Football Supporters Association to meet with the top brass from the EFL at their offices in London.

It included a presentation from PGMOL's EFL lead Kevin Friend about the numerous rule changes in the past month, with special reference to added time and a clamp down on dissent.

Those changes have led to an increase in the time the ball has been in play and led to an increase in goals in 19 of the top 20 supported divisions in Europe...

The only outlier is League One - and that is entirely due to our record-breaking run at the start of the season. I passed on our apologies, and said that we were doing our best to improve it!!

It was a really good, honest and open meeting where we were able to give some - at times - forthright opinions about some of the issues that will dominate our game in the next year.

Key among those will be the establishment of an Independent Regulator and new standards for fan engagement and governance at clubs.

Sad that it is to say, the current plight of Reading and Morecambe, are indicative of a system that is broken and doesn't work. In both cases the fans of both clubs were the first to ring the alarm bells.

Having new standards, upheld by a legally-established independent regulator will be a significant step towards ensuring those situations - and those of Bury and Macclesfield before, never happen again.

The full minutes of that meeting are still being signed off by the relevant contributors, but we will share them as soon as we can in the New Year.

Meanwhile, we're told that the legislation for the regulator will be introduced early in the New Year, and has cross-party support in the House of Commons.

Here's hoping that 2024 is a year where football really does change for the better.

James

Premier League Fans Fund Project Announced

The Robins Trust are once again delighted to be working alongside the Cheltenham Town Community Trust to deliver a project supporting Robins fans and serving the wider community.

The collaboration between the trusts was recently successful in its bid to secure Premier League funding for this latest project.

The project is centred around addressing health and wellbeing for women and girls in our county through football. It is hoped that this will encourage more women and girls, who are often unrepresented fan groups, to attend matches and enjoy supporting the Robins in a welcoming and friendly environment.

The Cheltenham Town Community Trust will be delivering, between January and December 2024, 38 mental health and well-being sessions built around football, to groups of women and girls in schools and other establishments around the county. The Club have recognised the importance of this and have embraced this project with full support and will be providing complimentary tickets to a selection of women and girls identified by the Community Trust for every home match until the end of 2024.

They will be met and welcomed on arrival by Robins Trust and HerGameToo representatives before each match, be given information about the Club, Trusts, HerGameToo and Proud Robins and shown the facilities. Feedback will be invited on their experience.

It is hoped that the fund will also provide a new hot shot machine to be used as a as pre match activity for all and also enable the provision of free sanitary ware in all the female toilets.

With the collaboration of both trusts and the Club, this project will continue to evolve over the next year. This promises to be a great step forward in both supporting health and well-being in the community through football and encouraging more women and children to enjoy the matchday experience at Whaddon Road.

Episode 3 of the Ornithology podcast launches at the start of January

The next episode of Ornithology will arrive at the beginning of January and will feature a chat with Cheltenham Town Director Murry Toms - covering all of the steps involved in producing a Cheltenham Town shirt. With the recent release of the Charity third shirt, and a new home shirt coming for next season, we follow the process from start to finish.

You can find details on how to access episodes of the Ornithology podcast here: https://www.robinstrust.org/posts/robins-trust-podcast-launch-listen-to-ornithology-now/

The Cheltenham Town Community Noticeboard

Chatting amongst ourselves as the Trust Board, it's easy to assume that everyone is aware of the long-standing (and not quite so long-standing) message boards and forums that exist, so we thought it would be worth giving a shout out to a couple that not all of the Trust members might be aware of:

Firstly, longstanding enough to have originally been available on wax cylinders, it's the Robins Nest: https://robinsnestforum.co.uk/ - there is plenty of lively discussion and a useful pooling of news items on the site.

Secondly, the Cheltenham Town Forum (https://www.facebook.com/groups/Cheltenhamtownforum/) on Facebook.

As mentioned last month, we’ve now made recent Robins Trust documents available on the website, so that they are readily available to all members; you can find the latest Accounts, Minutes, Rules and Policies here: https://www.robinstrust.org/trust-documents/

Who are the Robins Trust Board?

Please come and say hi if you see us home or away, we're always happy to answer any Trust related questions, discuss your ideas or just chat CTFC:

We are: