Newsletter - July/August 2024
Our latest members Newsletter covers the period of our We Are The Rovers (WATR) AGM held on the 26th June and our WATR Board meeting held on the 16th July 2024.
July 19, 2024
This was held at the Senior Training Centre, Brockhall. For the first time the meeting was live streamed with up to 165 viewing at any one time; approximately 40 members and non-members were present at the venue.
Our keynote guests were John Eustace and Rudy Gestede who both took questions in a session chaired by Steve Williams. Our Chair, Mike Graham, then took the mic and took us through the business part of the meeting with his Annual Report, the audited accounts, and the election of 6 additional Board members taking us to our maximum allowed number of 14 elected Board members. The new members are:
The meeting then followed with presentations from Duncan Miller on fan engagement and season ticket pricing and ended with a presentation from Steve Williams on the importance of recognising the rich and unique of Blackburn Rovers.
The meeting stream may still be viewed on YouTube via this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oVR8K81oBU
The meeting (held in person and on Zoom) started by welcoming our new Board members. As per our Rules elections for Chair and Vice - Chair took place and these were respectively confirmed as Mike Graham and Duncan Miller.
Board member responsibilities were agreed as follows. Please note no one person is responsible for WATR membership recruitment as this is regarded as the responsibility of each Board member.
[please note the list below is not ranked in any order of importance]
Mike Graham - Chair: to Chair meetings and arrange Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) meetings
Duncan Miller - Fan Engagement: to lead with the Club on engagement and fan communication, to be the ‘media face’ of WATR
Peter Ridehalgh - Trust Secretary (ex officio Board member): to arrange Board and AGM meetings and produce minutes
Peter Dickinson - Treasurer: to ensure our accounts are in order, advise the Board at every meeting of account balances and any issues of concern. Prepare accounts for Annual Audit
Gary Smith - Fundraising Lead
Peter Bolton - WATR Budgeting and advising on financial concerns. Also WATR representative on the Fans Forum.
Graham Byrnes - to lead our liaison with Blackburn Rovers Community Trust (BRCT)
Adam Desmukh - to lead our liaison with Rovers South Asian Supporters and assist and advise on how WATR can work on supporter initiatives with the Asian community
Andy Young - FSA National Liaison Lead and Football Governance Bill advisor and lead
Katie Hull - Social media lead for WATR
Steve Williams - Heritage expert: promoting our rich heritage, liaison with the club and other relevant bodies
Roger Langford - High level marketing strategy for WATR
Marc O’Neill - Website lead and mass membership emails
Linda Chelton - Governance and compliance lead: ensuring we keep to our rules and to advise the Board on rule and statutory compliance
Tony Webster - Membership Systems: ensuring our membership system is fit for purpose, up to date and we have processes to chase up membership dues
Due to a full agenda your Board were very much focussed on the following:
The following statement was issued and gained local press and social media coverage:
Today’s King’s Speech confirmed that the Football Governance Bill, which was set aside at the dissolution of the last Parliament, is still firmly on the agenda for the incoming Government. An integral part of the bill is the establishment of an independent football regulator and Blackburn Rovers and the supporters’ trust, We Are the Rovers (WATR), both welcomed the original bill.
On today’s news, WATR board member for national issues Andy Young said:
“We Are the Rovers very much welcome the commitment outlined in today’s King’s Speech that will see the new Parliament re-introduce the Football Governance Bill."
"We provided evidence to the Fan-Led Enquiry which laid the groundwork for this and have already been in touch with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport to seek ways in which we can work with the Government on any outstanding matters from the original Bill to move it forward into legislation as quickly as possible.”
For information WATR have also written to the new Blackburn MP, Adnan Hussain asking for his support for the Football Governance Bill. A copy of our letter is available on request.
Your next members newsletter will be issued soon after our next MoU meeting with Blackburn Rovers Football Club.
Mike Graham
Chair
