MINUTES FROM THE OCTOBER CUSG MEETING

CUSG Meeting Summary - Remote meeting via Zoom, 21.10.2024

Attendance –  John Kukuc (Chair), Simon Clarkson (SLO), Alastair Woodcock, Claire Winder (CUFC Supporters’ Trust),  Keith Ward (Scottish Supporter), Andrew George (South Cumbria Supporters’ Club), Nataly Mason (Womens’ Rep), David Gale (EDI Rep), Nigel Clibbens, Amy Nixon, Peter Dunn (CUFC)

Apologies –  Dan MacLennan (CUFC Supporters’ Trust), Dave Brown (London Branch), Teresa Mulholland (EDI Rep), Sonny Kirkwood (Warwick Road Enders), Keith Elliott (CUSAT)

John Kukuc introduced the meeting.

Peter Dunn introduced himself. He is the Executive Support Officer at CUFC. He is responsible for collating and analysing data at the club and undertaking projects. He explained his role is to allow a more detailed analysis of all relevant data held by the club at a more granular level to improve the club. He has been at the club for a month.

He did a degree in Science and football, then did analysis for the NHS.

1. Club Update

The update had been circulated prior to the meeting - click HERE to read it. 

Nigel explained that two of three phases of the East Stand upgrades are complete. With 90% of the final phase of offices now complete. Minor painting was still to do, then flooring and furniture. The club has grown from 31 full time staff to 50 (excluding footballers/coaches) since the takeover last year.
Saturday had been a sell-out for the opening of the new East Stand hospitality areas.

A “gala open night” for businesses is coming up on Friday this week at Brunton Park to showcase the new facilities. On Wednesday 30 October there will be a ‘festival of football’ day held jointly with Tullie House. 

John said it was 'noted' from the other side of the ground that the East Stand executive boxes were 'empty' as the second half kicked off. Nigel said that the new boxes all have one-way glass so people were probably in the boxes, if not out on the balcony. They were all sold out for the game.

It was noticed also that the players lined up nearer to the East Stand, for the first time. The players had their backs to the cameras, which Nigel acknowledged. Claire observed that, when cameras had been on the other side of the ground, the players had not been facing them then, either.

Simon asked about the structure of the 1921 board now that John Nixon has stepped down. Nigel said there were no plans to replace him, leaving nine people on the board. The Holdings board had reverted back to the status it had before Nigel joined CUFC.  Responsibility for day to day administration and strategic matters have been amalgamated into one board (1921). Its role now confined to statutory duties only – it meets once a year to approve accounts. 

Claire, as Supporters’ Trust representative, explained that Dave Noble had stepped down as 1921 board alternate. Billy Atkinson had stepped in to that role. He also remained as Holdings board rep. Nigel added that 1921 board meetings are now generally held quarterly. The club had introduced a new layer of supervision below 1921 level, with a leadership group meeting weekly which included all directors, head coach Mike Williamson and James Tose, CEO of the community sports trust.

2. Backing the Blues

The exhibition will run until 10 November at Tullie. This National Lottery Heritage funded project is the first exhibition at the museum after redevelopment work. The wider project celebrates and preserves the club’s legacy and is a collaboration between Carlisle United, Tullie, Carlisle United Community Sports Trust, University of Cumbria and Cumberland Council.

The project has so far brought a huge programme of activity including school workshops, community wellbeing activities, youth programming and bespoke events. Other scheduled events have so far included free talks, closer look tours and the hugely popular player appearances. 

A Festival of Football will be held at Brunton Park and Tullie on Wednesday 30 October, from 10am - 4.30pm

The day kicks off on both sites at 10am. Visit Brunton Park for stadium tours including the new East Stand hospitality lounges and boxes, see the players in action in training and test your skill with football activities in the Fan Zone, from teqball to penalty shoot outs with the team from Pitch Parade. Come and meet Olga, get your face painted and get your fill of football arts and crafts with the team from Tullie. The CUFC team coach will be on display, and you can even catch a ride to Tullie for afternoon events at the end of the morning.

All activities at Brunton Park are free on the day. Free car parking is also available in the supporter's car park at the rear of the stadium.

At Tullie 10am-1pm we’ll be hosting tours with the experts from the CUFC Collective. There’ll be souvenirs from matches past to take away and do bring any pieces of football history you’d like to share or get an expert opinion on.

From 2pm-4.30pm Mike Williamson, his staff and the full first-team squad will attend the exhibition at Tullie, and the lads will be available for autographs and photographs.

Tullie is offering special Festival of Football Day tickets. £5 per adult and all children are free. If you are an annual ticket holder you get in free of charge.

Following the exhibition, a pop-up mini version of the exhibition will tour to local venues. Longer term the volunteers known as the Carlisle United Collective will archive all the items and establish a permanent display of objects to be exhibited at Brunton Park.

We have received a huge amount of donations but items can still be donated for the archive. If you would like to donate any items or join the Carlisle United Collective to support various aspects of this project, please contact slo@carlisleunited.co.uk 

Simon thanked all those involved with the memorabilia project, including all volunteers, the council, university staff and staff at Tullie House.

John put on record his acknowledgement of Simon's 'incredible involvement' in overseeing the project to date. This was echoed by Nigel on behalf of the club. 'This [exhibition] would not have happened without Simon', he said.

It was noted that the representatives from Jacksonville had been impressed by the exhibition when they took it in as part of their visit to the city this week.

Andrew asked if some of the archive footage will end up on CUTV. Simon said that was the plan. He said that over 3,000 photos have now been digitised and stored online, as part of the archive.

4. Finance and disabled group bank account

Update from Michelle as follows: £5268.31 in the bank. £3500 ring-fenced for the memorabilia project. £72 reserved for prediction competition prizes. 

David Gale has discussed the disabled group bank account with Teresa. He wanted confirmation of the amount on balance. Simon would advise on this.

5. 1974-75 50th Anniversary event - December 13

This had been covered in the club update from Nigel. 

Simon explained that invites have gone out to former players and families of former players. The amount of them who attend will dictate the capacity available at the venue. The catering set-up had been agreed. Simon estimated that in 2-3 weeks time, the tickets would go on sale. All players attending will be invited to be VIP guests the following day at the Chesterfield game. They will be be housed in the 74-75 lounge.

6. EDI update

EDI & Mental Health Representatives meeting 

Our latest meeting was held on Tuesday 15th September, this meeting was held for us to go through the feedback report from our disability representative David Gale on his time in the Warwick Road end.

Report has been sent to Nigel Clibbens and feedback from NC was shared with the EDI group.
Dave Gale has offered to sit in the East Stand during the Wigan Cup game to gather/share his experiences as a disabled supporter from this viewpoint.

Huge thank you to Dave Gale for his excellent report and willingness to explore new areas of the ground to gather different perspectives.

Dave Gale has also sourced some funding options for hoists for the Warwick Road end toilets. I will pass on to Nigel Clibbens for the club to explore what options may be available to us.

BHM

As part of Black History Month I have been working with my colleague Niall McNulty(Also member of Anti Racist Cumbria) and CUFC Media team(Particularly Rob Elder) to film videos of past and current black and brown players to gather there perspective on BHM and there experiences of playing football back in their heyday.

I touched base with Derek Walsh who put me in touch with Dean Walling, George Oghani and Andy Watson.

We conducted the filming at various locations including Brunton Park, CUFC Community Sports College and Keith Ward kindly drove us down to Newark to film Dean Walling and some of his BTEC students. We have arranged for a breakfast, special preview of the films followed by a Q&A at Tullie house on Saturday 19th October followed by a tour of the Blues Exhibition and walk to the match. I am hoping to continue this partnership with ex CUFC players to promote the great work they do in the community and how we can celebrate that and work together at CUFC.

Sensory Packs

We discussed the Boxing Day match V Morecombe and have arranged for Bee Unique and Workington Pan Disability to join us. We are also hoping for a launch of CUFC Sensory bags on the run up to Christmas. I will be arranging a EDI meeting with Steph (CUFC Club shop) to organise a preview of some of the items available via the shop that will be included in the sensory bags.

The purpose of the sensory packs is for the club to purchase a small number of packs/bags where fans with SEND can loan on a match day, however we hope that this will encourage users to go on and purchase the items from the club shop as all items will be readily available.

We are working with our EDI Autism rep Ross Mattinson on this and will liase with Nigel Clibbens, Steph and a number of other Autistic Fans to be part of the media launch, further information to follow.

Her Game Too

Nigel Clibbens has approved for the go ahead to purchase a HG2 selfie board which will be used on match days as well as a custom CUFC HG2 flag.

Dementia Group 

Our Dementia group was a huge success with 41 people attending the first session!!!We are now hoping to use Foxys for the next session as due to the shere volume of numbers the study centre is too small for this provision.

A huge thank you to Keith Ward for all his help and support in getting this off the ground and his continued collaboration as a CUSG member on this.

Walk to the Match 2024/25

Walk to the match to continue this season with groups booked in with Tullie house prior to the walk up until the exhibition closes in November.

Remembrance Sunday/Veterans

The remembrance commemoration will take place before CUFC match on Saturday 26th October.
The British Legion will be doing a poppy collection, we have veterans that will be attending in their regalia to lay a wreath on the pitch, as well as standard bearers present.

Dave commented in the meeting that more tickets appear to have been issued to disabled fans than there were spaces available in the ground. Nigel was investigating this with club staff. He said it should not be happening and he would ensure there was no repeat. There had been some non-disabled supporters parking in disabled spaces. Nigel said he was checking the situation with stewards to help remedy this. 

Keith updated the meeting on the dementia cafe. The next one was scheduled for October 31 in Foxy's. He thanked Teresa for her help with the project. There was a discussion about a possible switch to the new East Stand facilities, as these are considered more convenient for some disabled supporters to use.

7. SLO update

The new facilities in the Warwick Road End and the success of the West Stand Fan Zone mean that more fans arrive much earlier than before and so the SLO team have changed where we base ourselves. With EDI reps in the fan zone, this allows the SLO team to expand our ground coverage on a matchday. We collate issues to raise with the club, so that they can be resolved (where possible). 

Key to providing excellent quality information for our fans travelling away is the development of strong relationships with other SLO’s and the Dedicated Football Officer. An additional and extremely rewarding new offering is an away mascot where we have reciprocal agreement from the opposition. The demand for this was phenomenal with all games being allocated within a few hours and we now work with the London Branch mascot co-ordinator to finalise arrangements, which includes the provision of a goody bag. 

We are always on the lookout for more meeters and greeters, so please get in touch if you would like to join the team. As a thank you for helping you will receive a complimentary match ticket.

8. Upcoming events

A revised calendar of events has been issued.

In Memoriam – this had been moved to the Cheltenham Town game (Oct 26) but likely now to be postponed until November 2 (Wigan cup tie).

Remembrance Day – events to mark this will take place this Saturday (Cheltenham Town game).

9. Group updates

Scottish supporter

There had been concerns expressed about programme sellers getting wet.

The back of the Warwick Road End was described as being ‘like a wind tunnel’ due to the door to the fan zone being open.

Supporters’ Trust

AGM planning has begun, Sun 1st Dec pencilled in, expecting confirmation and full details shortly.
Annual Foodbank Appeal is going to be Sat 14th Dec, in conjunction with Club and Community Sports Trust - Would appreciate if all could share the planned Poster when it goes live in due course.

Memorial Plaques. First batch is in hand, just awaiting installation - Weather is our lead here! Second batch will be ordered shortly, we just need to double check the lists etc.

Fantastic to see new East Stand facilities now open, we got great feedback on these from our 'Boardroom Experience' winner this weekend. Credit to all who've worked to get this project done.

With the opening of these facilities, our second planned draw for 'Lounge Access for Two' will be launched in the next few weeks. This prize is unaccomponied by ourselves, winners just turn up and enjoy their day!

London Branch

1. 50th Anniversary

       1.1. Despite the football on the pitch, we had a wonderful time celebrating our 50th anniversary after the Wimbledon game at Sutton Cricket Club. Guests included all the Piatak family, Nigel Clibbens, John Halpin, Jimmy Glass, Jabo Ibhere and Jon Colman who all proved fascinating subjects for MC John Bowman. The evening finished with a chat with two of the branch founder members – Richard Wood and Dave Spencer followed by an entertaining music set from members Simon Hindley and Frank Beattie.
   
    1.2. A big thank you to all the guests for their support.

2. Donations

       2.1. We were pleased to support the Carlisle United Community Sports Trust in paying for tickets for the 21 Huntley Avenue Children’s Home at the recent Harrogate home game.

       2.2. We also made a donation to the Joe Thompson crowdfunding appeal.

CUSAT

Keith had sent his apologies for this meeting. CUSAT coaches to away games continue to leave from Irving’s yard on Jesmond Street.

South Cumbria Supporters Group

The group reported a successful trip to Bradford City. 26 were booked to go to Salford. The group has become associate members of the FSA. The committee thanked Simon for sharing their post about the recent Kendal Town break-in. £900 had been raised to replace stolen kit. 

Phil had asked about progress towards the appointment of  a Sporting director. Nigel said the club was holding face to face interviews this week. They hoped to select a candidate before the Piatak family return to the USA.

There was a question about ex-players attending games. Was enough prior PR being done about this? CUFC would seek to sort out comms on that.

10. Any Other Business

There was no other business

11. Next meeting

Monday December 9