The Trust want to know your thoughts and opinions

Good afternoon everyone and a very warm welcome to all those that have made the trip over from Chesterfield. We hope you enjoy your visit to Edgeley Park this evening.

Having been a member of the Trust Board for a year now has given me the opportunity to speak to many County fans about the Trust, why they are a member, why they are not a member and have plenty of other positive, and not so positive conversations relating to the Trust.

One of the not so positive comments I hear from fans is that the Trust is a “closed shop”, “an old boys club” and that the Trust Board don’t listen to the fans. So with this in mind, we wanted to canvas opinion across as many County fans as possible.

In the recent issue of TrustTalk that was distributed to around 2000 fans before the home match against Wycombe was a two page survey asking County fans their thoughts and opinions about the Trust. The response was not what we expected; we only received 2 or 3 back.

Rather than just giving up and putting the poor response down to experience, we wanted to find out  fans’ thoughts and opinions of the Trust\Trust Board as the Trust exists solely for the fans. If the fans thought changes needed to be made we wanted to know about it. The Trust is all about the fans, it’s YOUR club!

An on-line version of the survey was published to the Trust website a couple of weeks ago and has been heavily promoted on websites, emails, message boards, mailing groups, membership renewals and also on Pure 107.8FM Radio. I’m pleased to say that the response has been much better but still only represents 4% of the average crowd at Edgeley Park.

It’s been very interesting seeing the completed surveys returned with various comments and suggestions the most of which are very constructive and informative. There have also been a lot of questions asked and requests for clearer or more detailed information on various topics. We want to answer these questions and give you as much information as we can.

In the very near future, the Trust will be holding a Q&A session at a local venue where fans, members and non-members can come along to hear the results and responses from the survey and also discuss and debate the points that have been raised. As soon as we have a confirmed date and location, we will let you know and you can come and hear why the Trust Board feels we are not a “closed shop” or an “old boys club” as well as responses to plenty of other questions and comments.

The Trust Board exists to represent the members and fans of Stockport County, to ensure a successful foundation is in place to allow the Club to flourish both on and off the field. We want to do this with the fans and members of the Trust - the more of you who join the Stockport County Supporters’ Trust, the larger the pool of skills and experience that we can call upon when needed.

Keep your eyes peeled for the dates and location of the Q&A session; we will promote it in as many places as we can to make sure everyone knows about it.

If you haven’t filled in the Trust survey yet, you can still do so at:

www.stockportcountytrust.com/survey.asp

Have a great evening.

C’mon County!