A lesson to us

This is the situation at Chester.

https://www.chesterchronicle.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/live-chester-fc-updates-key-14201832

This is a club with a much bigger fan base than ours. They have consistently struggled in the conference and are now in trouble.

There are a few issues about this.

They appear to have set a budget which is unsustainable.

They have kept the members (fan owners) in the dark.

They cannot make a go of it in that league despite being a bigger club than us.

I think it is important that we maintain transparency.

Chester are also talking about forming working groups as a solution to their problems. It is good that our club is following that route.

It's a good point, Ben. Community ownership isn't, in itself, a silver bullet. It is merely a start, a means to an end only. Supporters have to use all the avenues available to hold the club board and the Supporters' Society board accountable. Aside from the volunteering opportunities, there are working groups that could do with members, an AGM coming up and plenty of opportunities to get elected onto the Supporters' Society and club board coming up. Use them and keep using them. I say this as a Supporters' Society committee member and a member of a working group.

Well said.

This is why I've been so keen on quarterly meetings involving members and the Society/club boards (i.e. AGM, informal Q&A, IGM, informal Q&A) - so these things don't just come out of nowhere. It looks like Chester members have been told in January that their club may go bust in February.

There's a bit of buzz in the cooperative world around "narrative accounting" - essentially, explaining a company's accounts in a way that's more accessible to members. The key assumptions, risks, targets etc. I don't want to put more work on the shoulders of those currently doing the accounts, but it would be great to draw in additional help from somewhere ahead of the AGM - MBA student maybe...

The nice thing about the IGM was the clarification - after a question - of the loan of £300, 000. It has been mentioned before quite a lot but I liked that it was explained again because a supporters wasn't quite sure.

BenE wrote:They appear to have set a budget which is unsustainable.

What amazes me is how clubs do not learn. The original Chester folded in 2010, we aren't talking centuries ago. Yet they're in a mess all over again which should have been avoided.

Others like Farnborough and Weymouth spring to mind.

Agreed - I had a quick look at the Chester forum and it looks like they are about to cut their playing budget from £450K to £250K. They were budgeting for £10K income a match and getting £7K, something had to give. But nothing was communicated to members until the last minute.

Also those sorts of figures do make you think whether the Conf National is now just a completely different game to the one we're playing!!

Bloody right.

The original Chester City went bust because of shady owners who asset stripped the club. Fans were fortunate that the council owned the Deva stadium.