Update from the Chairman - November

Dear All

We are now a few months into the season and I wanted to write to you all again to provide some updates. I am delighted to have seen so many of the kids playing and enjoying their football. Other than one weekend we have been blessed with relatively good weather to date, but as we now enter the winter months I'm sure this will change. However with the benefit of the 3G pitch we should be able to, with some clever scheduling from the team, hopefully get most games at home played. Please can I ask that managers be understanding of the challenges we have and follow the guidelines given re pitch usage. If we do hopefully we will get our full program of home games played on time.

In terms of activities at the club the Halloween party, for those that attended, was a fun event and thank you to those that put in all the time and effort to organise. We have scheduled some dates for the younger ones to hold Christmas parties and if anyone is interested in organising one for their team please contact Pauline.

We have for personal reasons had a couple of departures from the club committee but I am delighted that Mark Venis, Sam Lewis and Kevin Jenkins have come on board and all bring a number of useful skills to the committee. In addition I am happy to announce that Kevin has agreed to take on the role of Vice Chair where his background in local politics will be a real asset.

Finally as a club we are always exploring ways to increase our income / limit our expenditure and Mark and Pauline are looking at a number of initiatives at the moment to address the significant rent increase we have just received from the council and the rising energy costs we experience. To that end should you as parents and coaches come across any funding opportunities or know of firms that will sponsor teams or activities the club would love to know, all contributions to the club are gratefully received.

Finally in light of the above with Kevins help I want to advise you all that I am exploring the potential of converting the club into a Community Interest Company in line with the Charity Commission guidelines as this will allow us to access vastly more charity grants such as national lottery funding which at present we cannot access.

I hope to see many of you at weekends over the next few weeks and that you all enjoy watching the World Cup, the England games will be shown on the club TVs and the bar open for evening games.

Dare I say to Come on ENGLAND!

Simon