Thursday 10th November saw the club have a AGM meeting with all of the fans who are members/shareholders of Banbury United. The club shared there vision, finances and how we got on with last years aims and objectives .
As ever Ronnie Johnson was welcoming to the roughly 80 members who attended and was in fine form opening the meeting and sharing all of his current work he is doing at the club as chairman. Since arriving at the National league level, Ronnie admitted he underestimated the amount of work/emails he now receives each day. This has prompted the club legend to now leave his full time work to ensure Banbury United are his full focus and ensuring the club is being ran smoothly - as the chairman states we are practically in a “Pro league”. Ronnie is a peoples man, and he loves to please the fans, which was clearly noticeable as he has thanked everyone for there wonderful support this season, and thanked everyone who has come away from home as he has found the atmospheres incredible.
Secondly, the chairman discussed about the ground in which we don’t own as we sold it back in 1989. This sale was probably the worst mistake the club has made in there history due to we are forever leasing our ground. Due to not owning the Spencer Stadium or The banbury plant and skip hire stadium to any newer fans, this means we lose out on a lot of local and National funding. To put this in context, Peterborough sports have got 300k this year through funding because they own there ground. The lease is up at the end of the season in which we must renew up until the 23/24 seasons. Since entering the National league however our ground did not meet the requirements and after spending a lot money to meet the league demands and some fantastic work from the volunteers we have already made great leaps into getting the ground up-to National league standard. The requirements we have met so far is that we have 6 turnstiles and floodlights at an average reading of 180 LUX. Yet this is not enough as we also need to improve our capacity by 110 so we can officially hold 3000 fans. As it stands after a thorougher and rigid check from the National league they have stated we have a capacity of 2890 currently, fitting roughly 72 fans in the puritans radio stand. Our next step as club is to ensure we meet the capacity needs and our next target goes hand in hand with this. Lastly, to get to National league standard and be eligible for playoffs we will need another seated stand by March 31st and have 500 registered seats. It is important to note this can’t not be a temporary stand.
We have plans for a seated stand to go at the Sutton end close to the clubhouse in which will be able to hold 250 seats, therefore surpassing both league requirements as we will be upto 3140 capacity with 500 seats. The setback in cost for this stand will be roughly 58k and with healthy sum of money in the bank through making profit in the past two years, affording this is viable. A strong question was asked can this be put on finance and so we can balanced the books which it can but we must pay 20k outright to start with. As well as this we will be looking for this stand to be sponsored to raise funds for the club. This stand can be moveable if we did ever upstick and relocate grounds which has been talked about for the last 10 years or more. However, when the talk of relocation came up, it was a unanimous vote if we had a choice all fans said they would rather stay here at the Spencer than move if we can redevelop the ground. Ronnie is holding regular meetings with tilstones (I can’t remember the company name now but it’s something like that) but as this is the company who owns the land he believes they will enable and grant the club permission for construction to ensure the stand is being built on time. Fans offered there support in helping build the stand, once the parts have arrived, again showing we are united in helping out.
Last years aims, Stephen Barlow discussed. Overall it was a very successful season on and off the pitch with the club Winning the league at step 3 but also coming out from the season with 40k profit. It is important to note we actually did not receive a single penny of prize money from the Southern league either. The aims were set to become a step 2 club after 3 years which was met within one season. The work in the community was ranked orange (still work in progress) as the active learning programme has now have 36 students inducted on the diploma programme as well as the club being continually active in the community with Ryan Jones performing football sessions but Banbury aim to deliver a whole sport approach by offering sessions with archery etc too which can help the fan base grow as our name so we will
be at the forefront of the Cherwell District area. However, the club ranked Red on the aim of getting more Women volunteers and Women fans into the ground as the board believes they can still do more in targeting a market which is so high at the moment due to the lionesses’ Euros success. In addition to this, We set an aim to increase profits by 10% which has massively improved due to our attendances. By Christmas 2021 we was averaging 600 fans and by the end of the year we was surpassing 1000 fans per game. This helped increase revenue as well as creating a knock on effects as the bar takings have gone up from 12,287 to 97,550.
Our ambition and aims is to ensure we are financially stable (this aim for me seemed very vague and what everyone could of said, I would off liked to know more about what do we classify as financially stable is this debt free, £1 in the bank, 10k or 100k etc). We have a 10 year plan of reaching the National League. We aim to have a better website and more user friendly website, with large sections about our club/history, the Banbury lottery, BUFC in the community and a better design. This is being done by a website designer for “pittance” as we speak.
As well as this with the influx of the new fans, the ambition and next step is to ensure the fans unite to the following phrase which was made 7 years ago “WE ARE UNITED”. This has prompted more fans to become supporter liaisons to work closer with the board to enrich the match day experience of the club we all love and follow. From this myself (Alfie) have put myself forward as well as a few from the tramway army and I am happy to work with Brain Baker alongside other fans to ensure we can have a say about how the club is run to the board to ensure all fans are being heard.
The club are having an open training session on December 1st in which all are invited to and not just members. This is designed to see how the club train and have an evening to feel even more connected with the club, the bar will be open🥂🍻. As well as this the club are having an Christmas dinner to raise funds for Age uk in late December.
👏🏻This is the perfect time to note about the generous donation from the tramway army travel club as Gary fuller raised his hand and stated the travel club will donate £100 to the charity.👏🏻
Lastly, the club states we are not racist and there was only 1 person with a racist comment so to be tarnished as racists is misleading and wrong. The club have stated they got it wrong on Tuesday about segregation and all matches going forward will be segregated. The board faced some tough questions regarding Tuesdays game about segregation but in complete fairness they raised there hand up and admitted they have got it wrong even with the intelligence from Chester’s police liason officer that said there will be no trouble. On this note, some fans stated that the statements Banbury as a club put out make us sound like the instigators when other clubs don’t bother releasing any statements and the club again apologised as it is not there aim to come across like that.
The club looked at employing a general manager for 30k salary at the beginning of the year who would monitor safety, the bar, the trade, and be stadium operator on the day but after speaking to other step 2 clubs only 1 club so far has a person in a similar position so as a club the board believes the money would be better off in the playing budget and still be solely volunteered led. In perspective even Chester as a ex football league club only have two registered employees one of which is a social media manager.
Overall. the meeting was a success and some vital questions from the fans was asked. The aim now is to Become United as “WE ARE UNITED” to ensure we all follow the business plan to eventually reach step 1 football.
Please reply to this tweet, if I missed any key information or have got the wrong end of the stick due to information overload.🤣
Also keep a look out on Monday for our latest blog about your favourite Banbury XI reliving the nostalgia. For now though, let’s hope Banbury get the 3 points vs Buxton and safe travels to anyone attending and sing your hearts out for the lads.
Up the Puritans
Spencer Reds 🔴🟡
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