FCG Meeting - 7th December

[nick76]

5 minutes ago, Unused Sub said:

Communications – the club put a statement out at a few months ago about supporters should bring evidence of their covid jabs with them to the game. No one at the ground has ever asked me about this. Can the club confirm if they are doing this on matchdays?

I’ve been asked a couple of times by these people.  They seem to be the people outside the ground wearing pink Hi-Vis vests.  

They don’t ask for evidence, they just ask what evidence I would provide if I was requested to do so, which from memory was what the club said is all they would do.

 I haven’t seen many of these people but did notice supporters just walk past them without acknowledging them mostly.  I think most must assume they are raising money for charity or something.

Edited November 24, 2021 by nick76

[The Fun Factory]

15 hours ago, MNVillan said:

The website is an absolute cluster. My first experience trying to get into my account, link my claret membership, and then find my tickets was much harder than it should be.

Not the end of the world, but with how seamless everything is becoming these days, that was remarkably the opposite experience with the website.

Yep it is a mess. Things have obviously just been bolted on.

[The Fun Factory]

11 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

I have a number of major concerns:

• Granting that the idea of fan rewards like signed shirts, trips with the team, or watching games with a club legend - all examples from Socios' website - are a good idea (I think they are), why do they need to be bought via a third party crypto company, rather than sold or auctioned by the club itself?
• The website for 'Socios' makes clear that their 'fan tokens' can be traded, and their prices move in value - this is illustrated with graphs of rising and falling prices - but there are no warnings on the site about how investments can both rise and fall in value etc that you might expect from an investment product, or any 'when the fun stops stop' messaging that you might expect from a gambling product. The website says 'virtual currency wallet services' are 'registered and regulated in Estonia' - what protection, if any, is offered to British citizens from this Estonian regulation, particularly in light of leaving the EU?
• Does anything stop children from joining or from purchasing or trading tokens (I can't see anything on the website?)
• Given the collapse of Football Index this year, leading to many people losing huge amounts of money, did the club have any second thoughts before embarking on a commercial partnership with a risky, apparently unregulated financial product? What was the decision-making process, has it been risk assessed? Has the Socios product changed in any way from what it was in 2019 when West Ham supporters pressured the club into dropping their token because of many of these concerns?
• The website promises that purchasers of fan tokens - who do not have to be fans of the team - get to vote on minor decisions to do with the team. What is the most important decision we would be prepared to put to a vote, consisting of an electorate with an unknown proportion of actual Villa fans? Under 'Fan Decisions', the website states 'In the past, Fan Token holders of other clubs have voted on a host of things, including kit designs, bus designs, official team motto, and even starting XI' - even writing the last one off as absurd, would we be prepared for random assortments of token owners to decide our kit design or motto?
• The website also states (under 'Fan Rewards') that 'Fan Token holders will have VIP access to all home league, cup and European matches' - given that Villa Park now sells out most games, does this mean limited ticket availability for real fans in order to leave aside a number of seats for possible attendance from token owners? Will supporters be asked to purchase fan tokens *in addition* to season tickets in order to guarantee a seat at games?

The general impression I have of this partnership/commercial relationship is that we have entered a relationship with a risky, misleadingly-advertised, poorly- or non-regulated financial product with a number of potential downsides and little obvious upside, certainly nothing that couldn't be provided by the club themselves with some nous and organisation. I doubt I'm going to be persuaded otherwise, but I'd still like them to be grilled about this, and I'm interested in the answers.

I expect most Villa fans have no idea we are doing this. A lot still haven't cottoned onto the Villa Pride reward system which we have done for about 5 years. The rewards seem to be getting less. I think if I attend every game this season I might be able to get a beanie hat or a car sticker. We are having a right old whinge this time aren't we!

[MrBlack]

16 hours ago, MNVillan said:

The website is an absolute cluster. My first experience trying to get into my account, link my claret membership, and then find my tickets was much harder than it should be.

Not the end of the world, but with how seamless everything is becoming these days, that was remarkably the opposite experience with the website.

Same, trying to create a profile for my child to link to my account to so i can buy tickets for them cannot be done online. Had to be via a support email. Quite poor really.

[HanoiVillan]

29 minutes ago, The Fun Factory said:

I expect most Villa fans have no idea we are doing this. A lot still haven't cottoned onto the Villa Pride reward system which we have done for about 5 years. The rewards seem to be getting less. I think if I attend every game this season I might be able to get a beanie hat or a car sticker. We are having a right old whinge this time aren't we!

Absolutely, and this in turn points to another issue with Socios fan tokens, which is that for all their talk of trading them, the market is probably going to be highly illiquid - how many people are *really* a] into crypto-adjacent investing and b] such die-hard Villa fans that they will be desperate for tokens for rewards; seems to me like a maximum of a few thousand people, who won't be buying or selling all the time - which then leads to dissatisfaction or even crisis when people want or need to monetise their token for financial reasons (I seem to recall that the illiquidity of the market was one of the many problems with Football Index).

[The Fun Factory]

I kind of gave up on the pride rewards when about 3 years ago they wiped out most of my points and started again and I wasn't aware that they were going to do this.

[alreadyexists]

21 hours ago, Robbie09 said:

Would be grateful if the O2 phone network was sorted whilst at VP, no signal there whatsoever.

I’ve changed to ee because it’s so bad at VP and at home  

[chappy]

Can only echo the signal issues on O2, the slow service at the kiosks and the train issues that have already been mentioned.

[hansardtony]

1. I’m disabled and unable to use the bar/coffee stands in the trinity concourse.

2. Sky/BT matches no longer available in the concourse whereas they are in the Holte Suite.

3. Since reopening the Holte Suites food offer is appalling - Pie and Mash (no chips?) £8.50? Where’s the roast dinners gone?

4.The lounge used for the pre match quizzes is not accessible to wheelchair users. Go up in a lift and then have to walk down the steps!

5. We regularly attend away fixtures and facilities offered to the disabled - own bars/restaurants etc are so much better than our own. Our disability contact would be able to confirm this.

[OutByEaster?]

On 24/11/2021 at 12:41, hansardtony said:

2. Sky/BT matches no longer available in the concourse whereas they are in the Holte Suite.

Just on the this one, the club aren't currently showing matches in the concourses as part of their reaction to Covid restrictions. Clubs are currently still being discouraged from encouraging fans to gather in enclosed spaces like the concourses. 

 

[PussEKatt]

As far as AVTV goes can someone,anyone please tell them we do not want to know the score before kickoff.

[nick76]

16 minutes ago, PussEKatt said:

As far as AVTV goes can someone,anyone please tell them we do not want to know the score before kickoff.

I’d love that, we’d all make millions from the bookies
 

 

p.s. I know what you mean really!

[Risso]

On 24/11/2021 at 09:48, nick76 said:

I’ve been asked a couple of times by these people.  They seem to be the people outside the ground wearing pink Hi-Vis vests.  

They don’t ask for evidence, they just ask what evidence I would provide if I was requested to do so, which from memory was what the club said is all they would do.

 I haven’t seen many of these people but did notice supporters just walk past them without acknowledging them mostly.  I think most must assume they are raising money for charity or something.

We got stopped by one of these people on Sunday. We all showed our NHS apps with vaccination status. It wasn't made clear what would happen if we couldn't. I'm assuming nothing.

[The Fun Factory]

Scotland have been doing this for months. I went to a Celtic game in October and you had to have a covid pass to get in. Its inevitable they will do the same doon south.

[sidcow]

4 hours ago, The Fun Factory said:

Scotland have been doing this for months. I went to a Celtic game in October and you had to have a covid pass to get in. Its inevitable they will do the same doon south.

If we do you can guarantee that Scotland will then stop doing it

[Nigel]

On 23/11/2021 at 14:20, villarule123 said:

The food this year is attrocious. The quality of the food has always been really good, but this year it's become as bad as the supply and the service given.

 

That would be impressive in the North lower!

[5-1]

No phone signal either with Three in the stadium. 

Also echo websites are a mess

And PLEASE can we get control of our shop again. Fanatics are useless 

[OutByEaster?]

Here are the notes from yesterday's meeting.

 

Quote

 

FCG Responses – 7^th December 2021

The Consultancy group

We don’t feel that the club is making best use of the consultancy group, or engaging in effective consultancy. There have been a large number of ‘customer’ issues this season, many of which could have been avoided with better communication or use of consultancy.

Can the club clarify their objectives in using the group and how we can help improve interaction between the club and supporters?

Answer:

We believe FCG provides an important forum for regular dialogue and engagement between the club and a group of our supporters. In recent years (since the takeover of the club by NSWE / V Sports) the club has sought to extend the opportunity for the widest possible representation on FCG, having both suggested and welcomed the addition of groups such as Punjabi Villans, Villans Together and Villa & Proud.

An example of where we believe the relationship between FCG and the club serves a mutually beneficial purpose is that in the New Year, Christian Purslow would like to bring to FCG the re-development plans we have been working on for Villa Park. This would be done ahead of the beginning of any planning process and before we go out to consultation with the entire fanbase.

Next year we would like to discuss the further extension of the representation in FCG , so we can continue to engage with the widest possible cross section of our support. For example, currently FCG has only one female member and nobody under the age of 21.

However, the club has listened to the concerns of the FCG and are committed to ensuring more regular dialogue with FCG reps in between our formal meetings.

The FCG reps have also agreed to ensure that they meet as FAN reps prior to any meeting with the club to agree on the most important items that need to be raised with the club.

Socios

At a previous meeting, the club agreed with the groups concerns on Socios and informed us that you would not be looking to engage with them. What caused the change in the clubs position?

There are concerns around exclusive Socios content and activities like the renaming of the road at Bodymoor Heath, which give the Socios member a say in supporter activities that isn’t offered to season ticket holders. That causes us an obvious concern. Socios website states that their members will get VIP access to games, votes on club decisions like shirt designs and rewards like signed shirts and player access. Can you confirm your plans in terms of the offers you are likely to make available to Socios members?

On an ongoing basis, given the concerns around the collapse of Football Index which lead to fans of many clubs losing money and given that Socios are a risky, apparently unregulated financial product, registered in Estonia rather than the UK or EU, are you intending to maintain the clubs relationship with them in spite of fan concerns? 

Answer:

At the FCG meeting with Christian on 10^th December 2019, we were asked – in a wider question – if we had any plans to associate ourselves with Socios. At that time 2 years ago, we didn’t have any.

Every Season Ticket Holder was given the opportunity to claim a free Socios token when the partnership was launched in September. This would give STHs the same opportunity to interact with the club on that platform for no cost.

Socios provides our supporters with another, different, way of communicating an opinion on matters pertaining to the football club. Those subjects will tend to be substantially different to those in which we are in regular dialogue with FCG on. This new method of interaction via Socios is complementary to – and not detrimental to - any other form of dialogue the clubs has with supporters. This includes the established relationship with FCG.

Socios is a platform which has partnerships with football clubs across Europe including Barcelona, Juventus, AC Milan, PSG, Everton, Arsenal, Manchester City and AS Roma. We constantly review our arrangements with all partners.

Digital output, AVTV and communications

Using the club website remains a difficult experience, largely due to the way in which Fan IDs and emails are used to facilitate log in across the various aspects of the website group.

Users are often confused that they are logging into areas they think they are already logged into or having to log into multiple areas to get to the part of the site they need.

The processes to recover log in ID’s or to correct or change any detail can be tortuous and often involve having to make calls to the support teams. Many fans are unhappy about having to create email addresses for small children and then having to have separate log ins and details in order to manage those accounts.

What steps are being made to improve the websites and the confusing and complicated log in and fan ID processes?

Within AVTV there are a number of concerns around content. 

At a previous meeting we were told that Season ticket holders would be considered as members by default - but we now have content within AVTV that is exclusive to members and cannot be accessed by season ticket holders.

At the beginning of the season, an advertised product was U23 games, it became quickly apparent that this meant home U23 games only and it’s since transpired that due to broadcasting limitations it’s not possible for all of these games to be made available - does this devalue the product?

Most recently, there was the shocking decision to charge anyone without an AVTV subscription, including season ticket holders, £2.00 to watch the introductory press conference with the manager. This can’t have produced a huge amount of revenue for the club and was received particularly badly by the fanbase - one season ticket holder described it as feeling less like being part of the pride and more like being part of the prey.

What will the club be doing to clarify the content available to different levels of supporter and at different subscription levels going forward?


Highlights and full match replays are a welcome opportunity for fans to see games they’ve missed and provide the value in AVTV, however, despite repeated requests from supporters the club still insists on including the result in the description of every match package, taking away the value of watching a game you’ve missed.

The club still have Jack Grealish as one of the icons to click in order to buy tickets, despite fans on a number of digital channels asking for this to be changed. 

The club wished Gareth Southgate a happy birthday across its social media channels despite his unpopularity among the fanbase. 

There’s a very definite feeling that there is no one on the digital channels listening to fans. 

How can the club improve this going forwards?

Answer

We do not believe this criticism to be justified.

From a standing start, we have established Villa TV as a professional and reliable product which receives positive feedback from the wider fanbase. We have upgraded our commentary team and stream as many games as we are able to this season, based on broadcast restrictions in place. Coverage of our U18’s Youth Cup journey was a highlight last season.

We believe Villa TV to be priced competitively and the premier product on the service – Villa TV+ -to be good value at £1.99 per month [cheaper than a matchday programme].

We will look at continuing to clarify the levels of content available to each tier of subscriber.

The three tiers are as follows:

1. VillaTV+  - subscribers pay £1.99 a month and receive the following:

• U23 Home Matches Live (when PL broadcast restrictions allow)
  • The club has only not been able to broadcast one match live; as we have worked hard to make sure fixtures are played outside of the PL restrictions.
• FA Youth Cup Matches, home and away (when FA broadcast restrictions allow)
  • The latter stages of the competition (semi and final) cannot be shown live on club channels.
• Full match re-runs of 
  • All Men's 1st team matches (home and away)
  • All Women's 1st team matches (home and away)
  • All U23 Home matches
  • All FA Youth Cup Matches
• Exclusivity windows to watch content first.
  • Weekly 1st team press conference (2 hour exclusivity window).
  • This is on an ad hoc basis, such as the Steve Gerrard unveil press conference.

2. VillaTV free registered content (by signing into your account):

• Extended Match highlights (10 minutes+)
  • All Mens 1st team matches
• Ad hoc content

3. VillaTV Free to view

• All other content
  • Short Highlights (2mins)
    • Mens 1st Team
    • Womens 1st Team
    • U23 
  • Pre match interviews
  • Post match interviews
  • Player features
  • Archive matches
  • Historic features

We decided to create a window of exclusivity for live coverage of Steven Gerrard’s first press conference to those supporters who bought a monthly subscription. They received a live feed of the press conference as well as the above package of monthly content. The first 15 minutes of the press conference was also carried live on Sky Sports News globally and we then made the entire press conference free for all on the basic Villa TV platform at 12 noon.

With regards to posting the result of games when we play highlights / full match replays, in a modern digital age, there must be very few supporters who do not know the result of a game when we are able to broadcast footage – sometimes this is the following day due to holdback restrictions.

With regards to Gareth Southgate, are we really being asked why we wished happy birthday to a man who played 191 times for the club and is now the national team manager?

Ticketing

Season ticket delivery - whilst we appreciate that the shortened summer period made this difficult, it was still disappointing that season ticket cards hadn’t been delivered by the start of the season.

Surely it shouldn’t be the case that people should queue for a paper ticket on the first matchday having purchased the season ticket six weeks earlier.

How will the club be addressing this in future?

Matchday ticket resale - fans have questioned the three week period between returning the ticket to the club and payment. 

Why does the club hold on to this money?

The online process for returning tickets can be confusing and difficult. How is the club looking to improve on this?

Ticket exchanges and communication - the clubs communication on fans exchanging tickets was very poor, the tone was threatening and adversarial and the message was confusing.

The communication was difficult to understand, initially giving fans the impression that they would be punished if they attempted to give their ticket to their brother and that this was now not permitted under any circumstance.

The club had to take to Twitter to clarify a number of things around the new regulations and there is now a better understanding of the way that the exchange system works.  However there are a lot of fans who won’t have seen those clarifications and will have taken the original communication at face value. The result is that those people are now simply ignoring the options because they feel they’ve been threatened for something they consider to be a right.

What triggered the initial communication and why was it presented in such aggressive language?

What is the club’s intention in the new rules? The rules seem to be set up more for the benefit of collecting Fan ID information than for the prevention of touting.

Answer

Regarding Season Ticket Delivery – We are not aware that there were any significant issues – there are always the inevitable ‘lost in post’ replacements and late seat move requests that need to be fulfilled. The only difference this year was processing the opportunity for fans on the waiting list to purchase. This was done in small tranches with a time window to give those fans at the front of the waiting list ample opportunity to purchase a Season Ticket first. This meant processes didn’t close off until nearer the start of the season than anticipated.

Regarding Matchday ticket resale - The process does advertise that it can take 21 days but not in every case. The process is manual as it involves a  BACS transfer that has to be keyed in with correct bank details. On average it has taken 16 days (including non-working days) rather than the advertised 21 days.

Game	Match	Date refunded	Days taken
Newcastle	21/08/2021	06/09/2021	16
Brentford	28/08/2021	15/09/2021	19
Everton	18/09/2021	28/09/2021	10
Wolves	16/10/2021	03/11/2021	18
West Ham	31/10/2021	16/11/2021	16
Brighton	20/11/2021	not yet raised

 

Regarding Ticket Exchange - The process is straight forward once you have logged into your own on-line account – it’s just a single-click process and can be easily reversed – bank details are securely stored once you have entered on the first occasion.

The overriding principle is to have consequence to fans looking to buy tickets and sell for monetary gain so we have only, and will only, issue penalties when evidence that is regularly supplied by fans from social media platforms is verified – it is not intended to be used in any way to remove the ability for a STH passing his/her ticket to his/her family/friend for one off usage. There is a process for doing this and by contacting the ticket office season ticket holders seats can be reassigned to friend/family. This facility is currently being tested so that it can be completed on-line.

In addition, this helps us combat the regular complaints we receive about away attendees being a closed shop – fans purchase away tickets to maintain booking history and go on to sell the ticket.

The language used to present the new measures was not intended to be aggressive but it was intended to be hard-hitting.

It was shared with all members of the FCG by Lee Preece on 21^st September in advance of being published and received minimal feedback. We suggest that in future, the Club gives FCG more time to consider issues and initiatives such as this and suggest a 72 hour timeframe for FCG to respond back in matters such as these.


Communication channels and Twitter

Someone on @AVFCsupport on twitter does a really good job of clarifying and confirming club communications. Unfortunately, the audience for that is only a small proportion of those that get the original communications. 

The twitter service is good, but that it has to operate in the current way should tell you something about the quality of your initial communications. 

Why aren’t the club using groups like this one as a testing ground for communications prior to issuing confusing information?

Answer

We are grateful for positive feedback across our fanbase to the @AVFCsupport account.

We have been discussing internally improvements such as establishing a live chat service to broaden the availability of our Twitter support account. Sometimes fans will not read all the information in our announcements clearly or there could be additional questions. A large amount of the work @AVFCsupport does is clarifying information that is readily available elsewhere.

An example of the club using the FCG as a testing ground for communications prior to issuing was in sharing the Waiting List Terms & Conditions. Changes were made to this document following feedback from FCG.

Season ticket holder value

There’s been a noticeable change this season in the way in which season ticket holders are valued now that demand hugely exceeds supply on season tickets.

The season ticket holder has always been the premium supporter, part of the club, but there are now an increasing number of areas where content is not available to season ticket holders or where offers are only aimed at members at various levels.

At a previous meeting you had told us that the season ticket holder was a member by default, but there seems to be an increasing drive to get season ticket holder to consider buying memberships.

Can you confirm that this isn’t the case and clarify the membership status of season ticket holders?

Answer

Season Ticket Holders will always be at the heart of the club and there is absolutely no intention for that to change. The majority of Season Ticket Holder benefits have remained as is, including juniors receiving a free gift etc. We have removed the benefit of free access to Women’s games, as we feel that devalues the growing popularity and sporting success of the Women’s team.

We are trying to grow our fan base to help support the club’s ambitions for on-pitch growth and part of that is offering a variety of services to a wide range of fans – including membership. These are complementary, and not of detriment, to Season Ticket Holders benefits.

We have introduced a ‘claret lite’ membership, which never previously existed, that contains membership benefits but removes ticketing benefits (as they aren’t applicable to Season Ticket Holders) at a cheaper price. Previously if a Season Ticket Holder wanted items that a member received they would have to pay for a full price membership that included ticketing benefits which were of no use to them – so we wanted to introduce this to gauge interest.

Season Ticket Holders still receive access to Pride Rewards where things like signed shirts, exclusive events etc are available and the club are looking at creating tiers within Pride Rewards whereby Season Ticket Holders would have top tier access with other fans at various levels below.

Season Ticket Holders will also continue to receive exclusive access; for example an upcoming in-store event will be invite-only for them.

We believe our Season Tickets offer extremely good value, with our benchmarking showing us as having the 5^th cheapest average adult season ticket price in 19/20 (being the last easily benchmarked season).

Transport 

It was reassuring to hear Mr Purslow’s comments on addressing the situation around transport issues at Villa Park. Fans are obviously concerned around transport at games.

Whilst we understand that solutions to this aren’t directly under the clubs control, what steps are you taking to work with the various authorities to address the problems with trains, roads, parking and public transport around the ground on matchdays?

Answer

Senior club personnel including Mr Purslow have met with Andy Street (Metro Mayor) and executives of West Midland Trains in the last two weeks. We also have approached Birmingham City Council’s Senior Management Team for a meeting. The current train service into and out of Witton and Aston is limited and too often disrupted. The Club wants to work with all stakeholders to find short, medium and long term improvements. It is clear that an integrated transport policy is required to service Villa Park and we are doing everything we can to bring all stakeholders together to work on achieving this.

Kit supply issues

In the summer, there were issues at the club shop where fans were unable to buy personalised shirts due to a lack of availability of I’s and E’s for over a week during the peak purchasing time. Given that we signed players called Ings, Bailey and Buendia, that’s particularly disappointing.

Kit supply is a recurring issue and repeatedly answered as being a result of unexpectedly high levels of demand, how many times can we be surprised by levels of demand?

What is the club doing to prevent this happening again?

Answer

Regarding ‘I’ and ‘e’ shortages, there was a delay in letters arriving from a supplier in the Far East. This was due to a COVID outbreak that caused the factory to shut down the whole production process. This impacted supply to all Premier League clubs. Production was subsequently switched to Norway and stocks were received. Neither the club, nor Fanatics, had any control over this, and it had minimal impact.

The only kit supply issues relate to how fast the Away shirt sold out. The initial drop of stock sold out before the second had chance to land. This equates to half of our total season stock selling through in just four weeks after launching at the end of July (the equivalent took 3 months last year). The subsequent drops were air freighted in to speed the process and arrived in the first/second week of September – meaning only a very minor period of stock disruption.

No other shortages of replica have been reported, there has also been a significant top up order placed on all three kits and also a large increase in full quantities for next season.

Update on phone signal

Phone signal on the EE network is reported as being improved, can the club update us on any work ongoing with other networks?

Answer:

EE have been collecting performance data from the cell sites inside the stadium. The performance data has been supplied to O2 as requested. The plan is for O2 to join the system to improve coverage for all O2 customers. The EE project team have reached out to O2 for an update.

EE are also boosting the external 5G coverage in the coming weeks, in order to provide increased reception across North Stand car park and Trinity forecourt areas.

Concourse & Kiosk queuing issues

It has been reported to us that there seem to be issues around the queuing for food and drink kiosks in the Upper Doug Ellis stand. 

Is the club aware of any particular issue in this area and is this being addressed?

It has also been noted that in a number of areas in the ground coverage of other matches is no longer being shown prior to kick off. 

Is this a conscious decision on behalf of the club and will it be possible to get coverage returned in those areas?

Answer

The Upper Doug Ellis has limitations on space and supply. We will always look to maximise both space and opportunities for food & drink there, but are mindful of the restrictions the structure places on us.

As stated in our pre-match guides published on our website, the TV coverage inside concourses is currently restricted due to covid protocols, as the authorities discourage congregation in indoor areas. When circumstances permit we will return to previous status.

 

[a m ole]

Some cop out answers there on Socios, Southgategate and the score on highlights with an oddly defensive tone - particularly the last one, if everyone apparently knows the score why do they need to put it on at all in the first place?

Who answers these?

Edited December 8, 2021 by a m ole

[OutByEaster?]

I think in order to put that into proper context.

Firstly, it's been a little while since the last meeting in June and there had been very little contact between the FCG and the club in that time (in either direction). That's allowed a little bit of frustration to develop, which I think is clear in the questions that were put to the club. We've been more critical than we have been in the past and possibly more critical than the club deserved on this occasion - the frustration in the questions is partly reflected in the clubs answers and I think it's probably important to say that the meeting itself was really constructive and positive.

The notes were written in advance of the meeting, after the questions were submitted, and I think if they were being written today, both the questions and notes would probably reflect that positivity a little more.

For example, there a couple of areas where following the meeting, the group and club are a little closer together than the notes suggest; for example on including results in highlights, where it is really difficult to avoid finding out the result if you live in England, but much simpler if you're in Minnesota or Perth and they've taken that on board, whether they can make a change I don't know, but there's better understanding.

On the detail, many of the answers reflect a little gap in the messages and communications that the club put out and the way in which those messages are understood by the fanbase - for several of the questions, the interpretation of the comms the club has produced have caused frustration for fans - and the key thing that the club have agreed is that where possible they'll let the group have a look at some of the messages aimed at fans to see if we can iron out the way in which they are likely to be read, received and understood.

As an example of that, for the Steven Gerrard press conference, the first fifteen minutes were available live on Sky, with the whole press conference available to AVTV subscribers live and then the whole thing repeated a couple of hours later on AVTV for anyone to watch for free.

The club offered people the chance to take the opportunity to subscribe to AVTV for £2.00 and get access to what in that month would have been two full U23 games live, full replays of two first team games and a lot of other content, and with that to also get the opportunity to see the press conference live. 

Unfortunately the way that message hit the fanbase was - "if you don't subscribe to AVTV, it'll cost you £2,00 to watch the press conference".

Now both of those things are sort of true - but actually what was on offer for £2.00 is a lot of content - that message didn't reach a chunk of the fanbase in that way, it's an area  where we need to try to figure out how the message that left the club mutated as it hit the fanbase - that's one of the things we think the FCG can help with.

Just to reiterate the bold bit above, we have a major premier league football club that are actively looking to use a supporter group to help with clearer communication lines with their fanbase - that's not something I think happens at many other clubs in the league in this way and I'm sure it's never happened under any previous ownership or management groups at Aston Villa. There a lot of things going right at this club at the moment, and this is one of them, where things aren't right and you pass on your issues and frustrations, we'll continue to pass those issues on to the club and we do that without reservation - but there are good lines of communication open and the club are keen and more than willing  to expand on those.