Minutes of the meeting held January 14th 2008

Meeting Started:  7.30pm

Members Present:  12

Guests Present: 0 

Apologies Received:  Sarah 

Treasurers Report:  Bill reported a balance of £X

Local Membership Secretary Report:  Lesley reported + 4 memberships, 2 local & 2 paypal.

National/International Membership Secretary Report:  Neil reported +1 membership increase.

Matters Arising: 
Merchandise Update: Ebay is now up to 10 items, mostly badges, total sales worth around £X [less minimal fees] & full accounts to be provided next month.  Re-stock of garments has still not taken place & will be in place for next month.  There has been a slight change with the committee for merchandise in that ‘meetings’ will now be online using the OSC forum for what it was designed for, to enable decisions to be taken quicker without external meets taking up valuable time, especially with the added steering group meetings.  As OSC Treasurer, Bill will take any casting votes should they be required. 
Website Update:  Matt updated meeting on statistics from the OSC website.  From 14th December 2007 – Jan13th 2008, site visits increased from 747 to 963 on previous months visits. All traffic sources sent a total of 963 visits were, referring sites was 49.22%, direct traffic 44.44% & search engines were 6.33%. Top 3 traffic sources were direct to site 1st place, accringtonstanley.co.uk 2nd place & Accrington web in 3rd place. Countries visited OSC site in the past month are in order of popular are, UK 920, USA 10, New Zealand with 6, Netherlands 5, Ireland 5, Italy 2, Brazil 2, Germany 2, Australia 2 & finally Yemen 1. Top 3 content pages last month were, home page 1.258 increase of 46.45%, away fans 101 increase of 94.23%, & finally links 49 increase of 6.52%.

Exhibition Update:
Brentford match on the 19th January 2008, has definitely been sponsored by the exhibition funds on behalf of the OSC & all members should of received the official invitation to the event asking you to be in the bar no later than 12.30pm.  Proceedings should begin at 1pm & is hoped that we will have a good turnout, particularly as Sky & Granada TV should be filming.  We are expecting the mayor/mayoress, leader of the council & Opposition and Greg Pope alongside various former players from the old league days.

The steering group has now broken into some smaller groups with particular responsibility for various aspects of the exhibition:
Mel will be looking after the stories & memories
Lesley is looking after photographs
Jim is looking after the timeline
Bill & Dave Barnett will be looking after archive research
Rob will be looking after memorabilia.

Mel updated her progress so far, she has been in regular contact with Gregor Lindberg whom has an ASFC history website, whom has provided her with old former player’s contacts, whom may be able to help us with the project.  As a result of Gregor’s input, she has been in touch with a few former players in particular Les Cocker’s son David [world cup 1966 links with Stanley giving Les his coaching badge] has been in regular contact with her & will be helping with memorabilia, Bob Wilson – whom will be visiting the ground by Rob Heys invitation in March & Gordon Stones whom is very interested in the exhibition has some memorabilia & willing help, plus many others whom she is awaiting responses from & hope some will turn up to the launch. She has had a few stories come in to be followed up upon. Gayle has dropped off the recording equipment with Mel, so she can familiarise herself with them in order to show volunteers how to operate them for taking oral histories.

Kids Christmas Party:
The collection bottle on the bar raised £X & the donation from Vic Allonby on behalf of the now defunct Junior Reds was £X.  Buffet came to £X & £X was paid to the DJ, 32 children attended who all received two presents from Father Christmas and still managed to make a healthy profit this year from this event.  Thanks to all involved to this event. 
Adults Christmas Party:  A disappointing turnout of round 60 people managed to attend & the OSC was well represented amongst the winners of the raffles & quizzes.  After the buffet, band & various prizes were paid for, we roughly broke even but the bar should have had an excellent evening with bar takings.  Again thanks to everyone that helped in this event.

Observer Update:
Neil couldn’t get hold of the competition winner, despite trying to contact him.

Election of Vice Chair:
Callum Gibson was unanimously voted in as the new vice chair, we welcome him onboard.

Any Other Business: 
Upcoming presentation night – volunteers required helping out with the following; 1] supper; 2] entertainment; 3] raffles/games; 4] advertising; & finally 5] awards.  Stressing the point that volunteers are needed to staff these events to make them a success & money in the pot.  The two main parties we host have always been a major contribution to our annual fundraising but the last few have been major disappointments.  One of the main criticisms has been lack of advertising particularly around the ground – this needs volunteer help to hand out the leaflets.  Any volunteers for this event please put your name down for any of the categories of help required at the next meeting. 
We have been approached by the club to pay for a new defibrillator at a cost of approximately £X.  After this was discussed in the meeting it was felt that we should ask for a proper breakdown from the club contact for next meeting to discuss further. 
Poker night will be making a return on Sunday 24th February 2008, held in the sportsbar & all those interested or for more details see Pete.  Pete said he is still awaiting confirmation from Rob Heys, Pete is going to give it a further 2 weeks to see if there is a better response as he needs a minimum of 20 or else he will have to pack it in. 
 
Next Meeting:  11th February 2008

Meeting Closed:  8.25pm