Continuing our series of answers to questions we’ve recently been asked online or in person recently, here is a slightly delayed round-up of questions and answers for July and the start of August which we think would benefit our wider membership.
Special General Meeting (SGM) 23rd September
Having listened to concerns from members and the request for a formal meeting, the board of the Dons Trust would like to announce the calling of a Special General Meeting on Monday 23rd September. The meeting will be available to attend in person and online.
Any resolutions can brought forward by members for that meeting. The deadline for member’s resolutions for this meeting will be 26th August. Papers will be finalised and sent to members on the 2nd September
In the meantime the board are happy to work with any members on resolutions should they wish.
Season tickets
The Dons Trust would like to confirm that all season tickets purchased that are assigned to a supporter’s name (aged 16 or over) will receive membership with rights and benefits included in their season tickets – at no extra cost, unless they opt-out.
There was some confusion earlier in the week about hospitality and multi-year season ticket holders needing to renew or purchase membership but we are delighted to confirm that is not the case.
We apologise for any confusion and any concern members may have had. The volunteer DT membership team are working hard to process memberships and renewals for our biggest ever membership year.
If you have any questions please email us at contact@thedonstrust.org
Q. Are you able to share with us how many non-season ticket holding debenture holders we have?
A. We don’t have the exact number but believe it is under 500.
Membership
Q. How many members are there now in the Dons Trust?
A. We dont have final numbers yet but it is looking like 5500-6000. By the end of September the numbers will have settled and we will provide an update.
If you have not received your new membership card by email by the 19th August please get in touch by email at membership@thedonstrust.org
Finances
Q. Is the playing budget up or down on last season?
A. The player budget this year is of understandable interest but must be treated with commercial sensitivity. Our Head of Football, Craig Cope, commented on it at the recent Meet the Manager event, confirming that it had increased this season but that it would likely not be until October that we would know where we are in terms of budget in the League. You can watch the full Meet the Manager event here: https://www.afcwimbledon.co.uk/news/2024/august/08/double-bill-captures-club-spirit-before-new-season/
Dons Trust Board changes
With former DT chair Michele Little moving to become Vice Chair of AFCW PLC, Angus Fox stepped up from vice chair of the DTB to become chair and James Macdonald was voted in as the new vice chair of the Dons Trust. You can read more details on the changes on our website: https://thedonstrust.org/2024/07/18/joint-board-update/
To answer some specific questions raised:
Q. Is PLC Vice-Chair a new role?
A. Yes.
Q.Does this mean that Mick will no longer be paid, or will he be paid less?
A. Yes. The revised Chair role is unpaid.
Q. What are the exact jobs of both Chair and Vice Chair of the PLC? What is the exact time scale ahead?
A. The Chair is the public face of the club with the FA, EFL, with our local community representatives. The football side of the Club reports to the Chair. The next Chair appointment will be for a three-year term.
The Vice Chair is on the business side of the Club, in stadium operations and supporting the management team and the appointment is until the end of December 2025.
New Club website
We’ve had quite a few questions from members on the new Club website: https://www.afcwimbledon.co.uk
The Club’s previous website was part of an EFL-wide deal for website hosting which came to an end across the League in June this year.
The Club marketing team has done a great job at a very busy time, with limited resources in getting the new site up and running. It’s a big change to have made and there’s huge potential in the new platform. The site we have today is very much an early version of what is achievable.
There’s loads more that can and will be done from a Dons Trust perspective, and we know the Trust isn’t massively represented yet. But as we have our existing site still running there were more pressing things to get done first, like e-commerce, ticketing, matchday etc.
We are working with the website team on the process of deciding how to surface our content on the new website. We will make sure we tell our story and inform an even bigger audience about what we are doing.
War Child charity shirts
The club will report the results of the War Child special charity black sheep shirt and we will add a link here when this happens.
ProBoards
Dons Trust members’ forum ProBoards is valued by some members for the opportunity to discuss the Club and Trust with each other and ask questions of the DTB.
The DTB doesn’t have a formal policy in place in terms of responses, but new chair Angus Fox has put down the following to outline the current approach.
- We won’t typically answer questions raised in the ‘General Discussion’ section, although board members may choose to contribute.
- We can’t answer some questions for example those about commercially sensitive or confidential information. Commercially sensitive means things like contracts for services that might be being worked on, or potential player interest. Confidential information means things protected by contracts that we are not allowed to disclose or trade secrets that might be useful to a competitor.
- Sometimes we can’t answer or even make a comment about them at all.
- Where we can answer. we try to get a complete picture first so that we give an accurate answer.
- We won’t answer questions which are slight variations of existing questions, or where we’ve answered or made our position clear before.
- We won’t answer operational questions which can be answered by the club or for example where the answers are readily available on our websites. These kinds of questions aren’t appropriate for board members to answer for members and anyway it would be quicker answers to go directly to the club. For example, ticket pricing is something you can easily find out for yourself and is announced by the club in a timely fashion.
Please remember that we are all volunteers and answer at times that work around our own personal and professional commitments and other Trust and Club activity going on at any given time.
Wider Social Media
- We won’t engage at all with online posts which are divisive or have the potential for amplifying misinformation.
Recent member survey
We’ve had some questions about when results of the recent survey of members will be published and have published a summary of the results here: http://https://thedonstrust.org/2024/08/09/end-of-season-members-survey-23-24-summary/