Q&A forum with Faulkner 24th October

[Woody]

Thanks to all that have joined the Trust post AGM. Sorry that I have not been on here to post since. Work and family life get in the way!

First of all, the AGM went well. We now have a new Board of 6 directors who are eager to relaunch the Trust to represent supporters at a club and national level.  The Board is now Peter Warrilow (Chair), Anne-Marie Fern (Acting Club Liaison until next AGM to be fully elected), David Michael (National Liaison), Chris Knight(Communications), Mike Jeffries (Community) and myself Tony Barnes (Finance).  Joe Al-Khayat was elected as Company Secretary.

The Q&A session with Paul and Robin lasted for about 75 minutes.  Questions ranged from strategy, the past spend/managers, spending power, financial sustainability, kits and sponsors, and safe standing amongst others which I can't recall. As has been said earlier in the thread, Paul was open and a frank exchange of views was shared with the members present, most of which he has probably shared at other supporter forums and web chats. We are not unique as he regularly talks to various groups. However, on a particular subject early on in the evening, he asked that no notes/recording were taken - so we respect that wish and won't disclose the topic and comments. We have a very good relationship with the Club and to show the benefit of supporter involvement, we need to be professional and maintain that trust.

I have not taken any notes from the evening's Q&A, only the minutes of the formal AGM will be issued.

The aim of the Trust is to bring together a collective voice, and to represent democratically the views of supporters with the Club and nationally. The larger we are, the stronger our voice will be.

As we are relaunching, any feedback on how we can serve supporters would be welcome as we brainstorm what our action plan is for the next year.  Please email us at enquiries@villatrust.org.uk.

Cheers Tony

Sub note:
Re shares question: when we were a plc, we had 1200 shares. However like all shareholders we all had to sell to RAL in the end. The profit from those shares went into the McGregor statue. Our aim is still to get  shareholding in the future if shares became available.

[edgysatsuma89]

Okay then, I'll give you a little info from the night...

Doesn't look like the zorbing at halft time will be returning.

Aww and that was my favourite part of the villa experience! 😜

[bertlambshank]

Thanks for the answer Woody.

[paul_e]

And that stops you from joining?

No but it stops me from being there, which is what you originally asked of course.

And now I'm asking why you are suddenly so bothered about a group that you have never shown the slightest interest in before.

How the hell do you know what I'm interested in and not interested in? You don't know me from Adam so stop pretending otherwise. The only thing any of us on here know for sure about each other is that we're all Villa fans, and when there's a meeting between fans and the club then it's pretty obvious Villa supporters might be interested. Is that so difficult for you to understand?

I know you're interested in every single negative story that comes out of the club, I know this because you are determined to post on every one of them about how terrible everything is.  Your rant on this thread is much like everything else, you've decided that the club are in the wrong not to have provided a full list of question and answers and are now picking at it for no need.  This response is late and probably will be taken as me picking an argument, for which i'm sorry, but it gets pretty annoying to see the same names constantly looking for something to bitch about regarding the club.

More importantly for anyone asking for more info please consider that, as with any meeting with any organisation, if you want to get another one you respect their wishes in how much information is shared and how it's shared.  Lets say the bit they want to keep quiet was about changing a supplier, they have a contract with the current one and a leak that they've started work with a replacement might cause problems, so it's sensible to ask it to be kept out quiet, but if the question was specifically about the area affected the only real answer they could give might have been "we agree and we'll announce a replacement in a few months".

Too many people, on this forum at least, seem t owant to bitch about not getting enough info from the club, etc but actually we seem to have one of the best clubs around for sharing information and fan involvement.  We see a constant stream of stories about community initiatives and fan consultations but some people always moan about that not being the right kind of fan involvement and not being important, I'm fairly convinced that PF could hand some supporters a list of players we've signed pre-contracts with and they'd moan about the type of paper it was written on.

[saunders_heroes]

Nice rant.

[Dave Clark Five]

Nice rant.

The Club opened up communication channels on Facebook and a large percentage of responses were purely vitriolic and put there by morons. I sometimes wonder why people associate themselves with Villa if all they can do is slag it off and seemingly love it when we go through bad times.

[saunders_heroes]

Nice rant.

The Club opened up communication channels on Facebook and a large percentage of responses were purely vitriolic and put there by morons. I sometimes wonder why people associate themselves with Villa if all they can do is slag it off and seemingly love it when we go through bad times.

No one loves it when we go through bad times. It's just pathetic to suggest some do.

[Dave Clark Five]

Nice rant.

The Club opened up communication channels on Facebook and a large percentage of responses were purely vitriolic and put there by morons. I sometimes wonder why people associate themselves with Villa if all they can do is slag it off and seemingly love it when we go through bad times.

No one loves it when we go through bad times. It's just pathetic to suggest some do.

Then why do they thrive on it? Don't tell me it's pathetic. It's true and you know it.

[saunders_heroes]

Nice rant.

The Club opened up communication channels on Facebook and a large percentage of responses were purely vitriolic and put there by morons. I sometimes wonder why people associate themselves with Villa if all they can do is slag it off and seemingly love it when we go through bad times.

No one loves it when we go through bad times. It's just pathetic to suggest some do.

Then why do they thrive on it? Don't tell me it's pathetic. It's true and you know it.

No one thrives on it either. What Villa fan would spend hundreds of pounds on season tickets so he could thrive on the misery of watching lose so many games? It's absolute nonsense. What a daft argument.

[Dave Clark Five]

Nice rant.

The Club opened up communication channels on Facebook and a large percentage of responses were purely vitriolic and put there by morons. I sometimes wonder why people associate themselves with Villa if all they can do is slag it off and seemingly love it when we go through bad times.

No one loves it when we go through bad times. It's just pathetic to suggest some do.

Then why do they thrive on it? Don't tell me it's pathetic. It's true and you know it.

No one thrives on it either. What Villa fan would spend hundreds of pounds on season tickets so he could thrive on the misery of watching lose so many games? It's absolute nonsense. What a daft argument.

I said nothing about people who buy season tickets, just about morons who associate themselves with the club and continually slag it off.
Why they torment themselves, I don't know.

[saunders_heroes]

Nice rant.

The Club opened up communication channels on Facebook and a large percentage of responses were purely vitriolic and put there by morons. I sometimes wonder why people associate themselves with Villa if all they can do is slag it off and seemingly love it when we go through bad times.

No one loves it when we go through bad times. It's just pathetic to suggest some do.

Then why do they thrive on it? Don't tell me it's pathetic. It's true and you know it.

No one thrives on it either. What Villa fan would spend hundreds of pounds on season tickets so he could thrive on the misery of watching lose so many games? It's absolute nonsense. What a daft argument.

I said nothing about people who buy season tickets, just about morons who associate themselves with the club and continually slag it off.
Why they torment themselves, I don't know.

No one likes to continually criticise, but I don't know if you've noticed but we're into our 4th consecutive season of struggle. Perhaps us "morons" should all be like you and accept every bit of shit Lerner and co throw at us?
Oh to be a nodding dog!

[paul_e]

Nice rant.

The Club opened up communication channels on Facebook and a large percentage of responses were purely vitriolic and put there by morons. I sometimes wonder why people associate themselves with Villa if all they can do is slag it off and seemingly love it when we go through bad times.

No one loves it when we go through bad times. It's just pathetic to suggest some do.

Then why do they thrive on it? Don't tell me it's pathetic. It's true and you know it.

No one thrives on it either. What Villa fan would spend hundreds of pounds on season tickets so he could thrive on the misery of watching lose so many games? It's absolute nonsense. What a daft argument.

I said nothing about people who buy season tickets, just about morons who associate themselves with the club and continually slag it off.
Why they torment themselves, I don't know.

No one likes to continually criticise, but I don't know if you've noticed but we're into our 4th consecutive season of struggle. Perhaps us "morons" should all be like you and accept every bit of shit Lerner and co throw at us?
Oh to be a nodding dog!

what does this topic have to do with the team on the pitch though?  This is the point, you've decided we're going to be shit again and want to make sure everyone knows you're pissed off at the club by bitching on as many threads as possible, creating issues that don't exist.

There's a hell of a big gap between thinking the team should be doing better and what you regularly do on this forum.  That you always try to accuse people like DC5 or DW of being nodding dogs or other such nonsense really does show that you don't seem to be able to grasp that thinking the club is great is a large number of ways, but the team is struggling is a perfectly normal point of view.

It's tiring having to read the negative slant you have to apply to every topic you post on, try to be positive about something, once.

[saunders_heroes]

If you're gonna make it personal about me, forget it. If you want to stick to the subject, fine.

[paul_e]

If you're gonna make it personal about me, forget it. If you want to stick to the subject, fine.

Ah nice retort, but please do explain how

"No one likes to continually criticise, but I don't know if you've noticed but we're into our 4th consecutive season of struggle. Perhaps us "morons" should all be like you and accept every bit of shit Lerner and co throw at us?
Oh to be a nodding dog!"

Isn't both personal (towards DC5) and completely off the subject of a metting between PF and the trust.

If you don't want people to take things off topic or start to point out your attitude you'd be best to heed your own advice first.

[saunders_heroes]

If you're gonna make it personal about me, forget it. If you want to stick to the subject, fine.

Ah nice retort, but please do explain how

"No one likes to continually criticise, but I don't know if you've noticed but we're into our 4th consecutive season of struggle. Perhaps us "morons" should all be like you and accept every bit of shit Lerner and co throw at us?
Oh to be a nodding dog!"

Isn't both personal (towards DC5) and completely off the subject of a metting between PF and the trust.

If you don't want people to take things off topic or start to point out your attitude you'd be best to heed your own advice first.

Well when your called a moron by someone which was completely unprovoked I think it only fair I get to respond. Then you turn up and try and make it personal as well. If you want to have a discussion with me, that's fine, no problem. Less of the personal stuff though.