15th April 2005

Furlong away shirt auction

QPR1st are offering the chance to bid for Paul Furlong's actual away shirt (not a replica with his name on the back) and an opportunity to attend the Sponsors evening at Loftus Rd on May 9th to be presented the shirt by Paul himself and meet all the other players.

This event is restricted to player sponsors only  and you will have a one-off opportunity to mingle with all the players and to take pictures and get autographs. To look at the auction and bid please click on the link below.

Furlong away shirt auction

Auction ends 22-Apr-05 15:44:07 BST

14th April 2005

Notification of Special General meeting

Notification of Special General Meeting
QPR 1st, Supporters’ Trust
12 noon-1pm 30/4/2005
Downstairs
The Green Pub
Shepherd’s Bush Green

The Trust regretfully announce that due to work and personal commitments the board of QPR 1st, bar two, will be standing down. In view of this, the board have taken the decision to call an SGM (Special General Meeting) under Section 31 of the Trust Constitution.

At the SGM, along with the audited accounts for the last two AGMs being ratified/approved by the members, it is proposed that Tracy and Leon Stent be co-opted onto the Trust board and at the same time the current board (except those proposed to be co-opted) step down from their Trust duties with immediate effect.
It is also proposed that Tracy, Leon Stent and others will form a steering group in order to take the Trust to the forthcoming elections. Peter Gridneff (Webmaster) and Geoff Gibbs (Treasurer) have agreed to be reco-opted to the interim committee for the sake of continuity until the next elections. Any current members are invited to put themselves forward for the steering group on the day.


The following motions will be voted on at the SGM:

1 To fulfill the 2003 AGM and receive the Trust accounts

2 To fulfill the 2004 AGM and receive the Trust accounts

3 To co-opt to the committee, Tracy and Leon Stent

4 To seek approval from the members at the SGM that the current committee all step down from elected/co-opted duties, except for Peter Gridneff, Geoff Gibbs, Tracy & Leon Stent.

5 To seek approval from the members at the SGM to install Peter, Geoff, Tracy & Leon as a steering group, with the powers to co-opt, to take the Trust to the forthcoming elections, to be held no later than August 2005, along with any current members who put themselves forward on the day.

We urge all members to attend on the day and we thank you for your continued support of the Trust.

Eligibility to vote:

All adult, paid-up members. You may join/ rejoin on the day. Current annual fee for 2005-2006 is £10, although this may be changed by the interim board at a later date.

Justin Pieris
Chair
QPR 1st
On behalf of the Board of QPR 1st, Supporters Trust.

11th April 2005

Furlong shirt auction result

The Paul Furlong home shirt and sponsors evening auction was won by T Little of Harrow. The winning bid was a fantastic £180.00. Details of the away shirt auction will appear here soon.

31st March 2005

Furlong shirt auction

QPR1st are offering the chance to bid for Paul Furlong's actual home shirt (not a replica with his name on the back) and an opportunity to attend the Sponsors evening at Loftus Rd on May 9th to be presented the shirt by Paul himself and meet all the other players.

This event is restricted to player sponsors only  and you will have a one-off opportunity to mingle with all the players and to take pictures and get autographs. To look at the auction and bid please click on the link below.

Paul Furlong shirt auction

There will be a second auction for the away shirt when the first auction finishes.

22nd March 2005

Minutes of latest meeting with the QPR board

QPR1st 22nd February 2005 meeting with QPR board - minutes

Present
* From QPR1st: Justin Pieris (minutes), Graham Barnes, Roger De Freitas
* From QPR: Mark Devlin, Bill Power/ Kevin McGrath


Rules of engagement

As usual. This was the first meeting since 28 Sep 2004. NB: Although these minutes have been with the board for a month, they have not been checked for accuracy by them and some figures are missing that we will establish at the next meeting.

Minute taker's observation; this was, as on a previous occasion, an encounter full of discussion and observations and light on straight questions and answers and minuted as such, thematically. It started at 5.45, and ended at 19.20 with nearly all agenda items covered. A board member was present at all times, although Bill had to swap with Kevin half way through to allow for the shooting of a testimonial in favour of the prospective member of parliament for NE Hampshire . a Mr K McGrath.

1 Merchandising

The meeting kicked-off with Mark vigorously defending the shirt selection process. We were shown a sample of Dennis the Menace with the vertical mesh panels. To be fair, the panelling looked a lot better than images of the kits on the website. The panels were thinner and less obtrusive.

However, all agreed that the right kit had been produced in the end and both the club and the Trust are hopeful for record kit sales next year with the return of the popular Dennis the Menace away kit and the preservation of the hoops all the way round for both kits.

The away kit should be released in June and the home kit in July in time for the trip to Ibiza .

2 Ground

I Redevelopment

Barry Hearn has helped the club get in touch with Orients' planners. They are currently doing a feasibility study for a redevelopment of Loftus Road along the lines of the on-going Orient development. (Orient are currently rebuilding the entire stadium - mostly financed by building blocks of flats in the corners between the stands). The chances of such a plan stacking-up at LR are currently considered slim.

II Stewarding/ Council requirements

The requirement to prove a correct quantity/ quality of stewarding was still under review. Mark had appointed Chris Doyle as Safety Consultant whom he had worked with at Swindon . Their efforts had reduced the number of stewards employed by the club from about 300 to about 200. Which has produced a significant cost saving - £5k/ match. Whilst the total numbers of stewards has been reduced, the quality (and thus cost) has had to be improved to meet requirements. Mark is hopeful that the issue will be closed within a month and the requirement to not sell tickets on the day for most matches will be dropped. Those present congratulated Mark on getting to grips with the stewarding issue - something that has been required for many years and cost this club untold money. Mark said they were looking at holding some unpoliced games now. (Games with no police in the ground, just outside).

III Aston Villa steward

Those arrested had subsequently been released without charge. The inquiries are on-going. The local police and Villa possibly have differing perspectives over responsibility for the lack of policing.

Apparently the QP&R block corner is still proving troublesome. Measures will be put in place to try and prevent further occurances. We suggested one policeman in the corner might be a better deterrent than a couple of stewards. The suspended fine is still hanging over the club, but may be lifted at the end of the season. The club may suspend sales of season tickets in certain areas to try and get a more mixed crowd in and diffuse the concentration of trouble.

3 Training Ground

Twyford is in a very poor state. It made sense to purchase a new purpose-built site with (or with the possibility of developing) better facilities for all the clubs' teams.

The club had looked at purchasing (with mortgage) a number of sites in West London .

The mortgage cost would be partly financed from the money not spent on rent for Twyford.

They had recently been outbid on one site by a grouping that had had a community angle, but were exploring the possibility of other sites. The possibility of buying back Twyford from Chris Wright was not on the radar.

The club had recently appointed Mark Austin from Wycombe in the position of Commercial Director. MA has a remit to review and improve the marketing and sponsorship/ commercial side of things. Mark Devlin admitted that marketing had recently taken a lower priority within the club, but MA has already produced some ideas for review. In2win is currently standing at 750 members without it being very heavily promoted. The club are looking to get that figure over he 1000 mark.

A marketing committee including the two Marks had recently been set-up.

I Gillingham update

Whilst Gillingham had technically been acting within the letter of league law in charging QPR fans maximum price for our televised visit, it was felt by some trust members that they had not acted fairly considering it was a live televised midweek game and QPR fans had been seated in an unroofed temporary stand. JP had investigated amongst some other fans and Brighton had not had to pay as much and neither had Millwall. This was because Millwall fans had complained and Millwall had taken the matter up with Gillingham , who subsequently dropped the prices. If we have to play Gillingham away again, it was suggested that we get a complaint in early to prevent unfair ticket prices.

Recent events at Brentford had shown what happens when a club is caught out unprepared for an unusual ticketing scenario. We had a number of similar problems when QPR got the play-offs two years ago. We suggested that the club would be wise to make contingency plans for such an event to avoid some of the problems that occurred last time. MD suggested we compile a dossier of some of the good and bad practice that had been experienced. (NB: Any feedback on this can be addressed to info@qpr1st.co.uk with the subject matter "ticketing".)

6 Team matters

There were no plans to replace Mel Johnson as Chief Scout. These duties in the short-term would be spread between the three coaches (Garry Penrice, Tim Breaker and Gary Waddock) along with John O'Brien the recent recruit from Arsenal who has been brought in to help Joe Gallen manage the youth set-up. There was a possibility that the backroom structure under Ollie might be reviewed to accommodate changing requirements.

The recent release of eight youth team players was a reflection of a much tougher attitude to the youth team. Only those who had a realistic chance of breaking into the first team (EG: Pat Kanyuka, Scott Donnelly) would be kept on.

Ian Holloway had recently signed a new contract until June 2008. It was felt this contract gave Ian what he wanted, yet was sufficiently flexible to protect the club from being over-committed financially.

The club had parted with Kevin and had saved a significant amount on his salary that would go towards defraying the net transfer deficit.

The departure of Kevin was part of a general squad restructure now relegation was a very small possibility.

B FINANCES (Dealt with equally by those present)

1 Club Accounts

At the AGM it was stated the club accounts would be filed on time (ie before 31/12/2004). They had still not been filed, was this because David Anderson had left the club or was it because the auditors had not been paid in full for previous years?

Bill Power (BP) and MD stated the delay was simply down to the club accountant Chris Penningtons' workload. Chris was more than capable of delivering the accounts on his own. In fact they will be filed within the week.

BP then went into a lengthy description of the impact of the departure of DA. Suffice to say, the club were grateful for the huge amount of work he had done to help turn the club finances round, but they were critical of the timing of his consortiums' bid which, they claim, may have been detrimental to the negotiations with Chris Wright.

The club accounts, when published would show a loss of £4.3m for the year 2003-2004.

Current projections estimate a turnover of around £8m. And a loss of £2-2.5m. A payment plan had been agreed with the taxman. A bill of £2.25m needed to be dealt with. £1m had already been paid (from recent investment income) and the remainder was being dealt with by a payment plan that should see it dealt with by aug/ sep 2005.

Playing/ coaching staff wages will be at 45% of turnover, and administration staff will be at ?% of turnover. This gives an overall figure of wages at ?% of turnover which will be within the X% Football League guidelines that are statutory for divisions 1 and 2 and may become statutory for the Championship too.

The Trust requested regular financial progress updates. KMcG suggested the best way to do this was through fans group meetings.

The plan was for a zero balance for next year (2005-2006). Although, in football there are always things that crop-up to upset the plan. It is important that the club show improvement year on year and stem the losses. This will give the club better credibility with the banks and should allow us to refinance the loan. It was felt that next year may be the year to push for the play-offs.

5 ABC Loan

As stated above, banks were reticent to loan to football clubs, particularly ones showing regular losses. ABC are willing to negotiate, but any early release will undoubtedly have significant penalty clauses attached.

Currently the board comprises . Bill Power (Chair), Kevin McGrath, Dunga, Caliendo, Olga Paladini.

Board meetings will usually involve Bill, Kevin, Gianni Paladini, Mark Devlin and Chris Pennington.

7 Board Remuneration

Currently Mark Devlin, Chris Pennington & Gianni Paladini are the only ones drawing a salary. Dunga may be remunerated through sell-on clauses should he unearth some Brazilian superkid.

8 Negotiations with CW

Despite denials, negotiations have been on-going with Chris Wright and have now picked-up again. Kevin McG has represented the board and an intermediary has been helping the communication. Wasps timetable will probably bring matters to a head.

21st March 2005

On-line store supports Trust movement

The UK distributor of Pantofola d'Ora football boots has launched a donation scheme to support the Trust movement. Pantofola d'Ora make the handmade italian football boots favoured by many top stars. Best-for the UK distributor will donate £4.00 from every purchase over £75.00 to the Supporters Trust of your choice. for further details please visit http://www.best-for.com/supporters-trusts-donations.html

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