Fans Advisory Board Meeting - 16th September

[blunther]

10 hours ago, Milfner said:

Was pissing into an almost overflowing urinal in the Upper Holte today. And then the hot tap didn't work. Dust still everywhere too 

Lower holte bog floors were an inch deep in piss too. They really need to address the facilities, rather than charge more and more and make it shitter. Non-flooding toilets is a pretty simple thing to have surely, we had them in previous years.

And yes, I think we're all getting a bit pickier with the facilities,but that's what happens when you start charging serious money. 

 

Edit, so I guess my question is, do we just need to accept scum-class facilities now, or are the club going to do something about it?

Edited September 17, 2023 by blunther

[OutByEaster?]

Folks, I'm just holding on notes form this one as I'm not quite sure if the club want to release the official minutes first, or whether they have any - it was a strange one.

 

[Tomaszk]

1 hour ago, OutByEaster? said:

Folks, I'm just holding on notes form this one as I'm not quite sure if the club want to release the official minutes first, or whether they have any - it was a strange one.

 

Uh oh.

[spiezels]

2 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

Folks, I'm just holding on notes form this one as I'm not quite sure if the club want to release the official minutes first, or whether they have any - it was a strange one.

 

Time frame we looking at mate?

[Talldarkandransome]

2 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

Folks, I'm just holding on notes form this one as I'm not quite sure if the club want to release the official minutes first, or whether they have any - it was a strange one.

 

Woah that's gonna get the rumour mill going

[OutByEaster?]

2 minutes ago, spiezels said:

Time frame we looking at mate?

Might well be tomorrow, the people we'd want to check with will have today off.

 

[blandy]

Lots of off topic posts moved to

Thread locked until the minutes are available

[OutByEaster?]

As it's being spoken about elsewhere, I can confirm that Mr Heck and Mr Hatton confirmed at the meeting yesterday that the Holte Suite won't be re-opening to season ticket holders.

Instead, it'll be opening as a sort of all inclusive hospitality area, where ticket holders will be able to eat and drink before and after the game - those people won't necessarily be sat in the Holte End - so for example you might eat and drink here, then walk down to the Trinity Road, watch the game from the middle Trinity and return here post match - they'll look to charge around an additional £70.00 for this facility.

More hospitality, wherever they can find space for it (including on the car parks and in the area around Villa Park) is most definitely a priority for them.

 

[OutByEaster?]

This is a really difficult one to write up and I've been trying to figure out how to best describe it.

I guess the first thing to say is that prior to the meeting, as a group, the FAB had collected an enormous amount of specific and individual issues, questions and complaints from supporters, far more than we've ever had at a meeting before, and with the meeting being on a matchday, bringing with it time constraints, we'd submitted a short agenda of themes rather than specifics and then hoped to squeeze as many of those specific questions into that as was possible in the time allowed.

The meeting was (ironically) being held in the Terrace View, which (appropriately) isn't entirely the most suitable venue - we sat on benches, classroom style with club figures to present/answer in front of us - while behind us the room was set up and fans started to dribble in.

Representing the club we had Chris Heck, new man Ben Hatton, the thankfully not replaced Paul Tyrell, Tommy Jordan, Lee Preece and, erm...Ahmed Elmohamady. Ticketing's Lynn O’Reardon appeared at a table half way through.

The club I think wanted to start with introductions, this was the first time we’d seen Heck face to face, Hatton has been here only a few weeks and there has obviously been a lot happen.

So Mr Heck started and all was well, until he dropped in that he was excited to tell us that when the Holte Suite reopened it would be as a sort of all-inclusive hospitality area, and well, things derailed somewhat.

Anyway, sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself, here’s how Mr Heck opened up - he started by letting us know that he knew matchday wasn’t the best time for a meeting and that he wanted to put more meetings in - there will hopefully be another meeting, online, within a couple of weeks. He then explained that his job is “to make more money to put on the pitch in order to help us beat FFP” simple as that.

To do that, he’s strengthened the corporate team, with the addition of Ben Hatton who he’s known for twenty years, and a new head of Strategy and Analysis, a new head of content, and a former tennis pro called Ron Erskine who is heading something to do with the marketing and used to do the same for the NY Red Bulls - as well as the aforementioned Elmo, who is now working in the offices as part of the sponsorship sales team.

He’s done that because he recognises that sponsorship is the key area to target for revenue growth - the place where he believes he can make the most difference in terms of the money he can bring into the club - he went so far as to tell us at one point that he was “flippin’ good at selling sponsorship” and he didn’t say flippin’.

He says he has three focus areas - local, global and culture

In terms of local, he talked about the stadium and confirmed in a way that to me wasn’t entirely convincing that the clubs plans for the North Stand were still on track to start next year, I have a feeling it might be the summer after, but I guess we’ll see - the councils bankruptcy has no bearing on that whatsoever.

He said he knew the Terrace View was controversial and that it was done before he arrived, but he reiterated that the club would be looking at more hospitality areas wherever it could put them - mostly outside of the stadium. He intends to build hospitality areas onto the Holte End car park, potentially other car parks and to use local facilities to increase our hospitality numbers, that’s an absolute focus and something that he and Mr Hatton kept returning to throughout our time with them - I would expect hospitality in the Holte Pub, hospitality marquees on the car parks, potentially hospitality at the wedding banqueting building next to the away car park, the ‘dugout’ hospitality in the Lower Trinity that they’ve been talking about and I would imagine hospitality in the box park type thing that’s going to be in the current academy building. I don’t think your season ticket is going to get you into a lot of places in a couple of years time - someone in another thread joked about us using Aston Hall, I wouldn't be surprised if they look into it.

In terms of concourses, he said the Trinity was fine, and he was prioritising work on the Holte End and Doug Ellis. He acknowledged the issue with basic facilities in the Upper Holte End and said that the toilets and bars should be better by the West Ham game.

And then he told us about the Holte Suite…..and I’m not sure we ever came back to 'global' or 'culture'.

It created a little bit of a furore, from which the meeting never really recovered. Robust and forthright questioning on his understanding of regular supporters and the communication that preceded the Terrace View rumbled along for a little while and Mr Heck got quite fiery whenever a differentiation was made between regular and hospitality fans. He makes no apologies for his desire to bring more hospitality fans into the ground

Mr Hatton was shoehorned in and introduced himself to a group that were by that point perhaps not as friendly as he’d have hoped, squeezed in the new strap-line “the giant is awake” and essentially told us that “we want to win, we will be successful, but we’re going to do things our own way even if it does upset people from time to time”.

By then, it was pretty much time for Mr Heck to go, and with our focus on questioning based around the imbalance of hospitality ambitions against regular supporter concerns and the clubs focus on the way forward, we hadn’t touched the agenda, let alone a lot of the specific questions I know a lot of you are looking for answers on - I can only apologise for that.

We were then gathered up by Ben Hatton, Paul Tyrell and Lynn O’Reardon and with Lee Preece and a slightly bemused looking Elmo in tow, taken down to the Holte Suite where Mr Hatton talked further on how it would be operated - he talked about the refurb, potential pricing points and the allocation of tickets - where it looks like they have at least learned something from Terrace View and won’t be attempting to squeeze 500 new hospitality people into the Lower Holte (guests in the Holte Suite will have tickets from all over the ground).

Things had broken into little pockets with conversations about transport (there were extra trains on for the Palace game, if you noticed, let us know) about ticketing, about the Holte Suite, about away tickets, about the ladies game, about the council, Euro 2028 and the good relations with the Mayor and then before we knew it, it was over and we were released into the daylight of the Holte car park, blinking in the brightness of the early afternoon sunshine glinting off the tarmac of the future hospitality area.

In terms of the things I picked up on in those conversations, there will be improvements to the Upper Holte concourses, and not just a fixed toilet or two, there’s no timescale on it, but they know they need to do something up there and they will. And I now understand the allocation of away tickets a lot better, I’ll put something separate in on that.

So, as a meeting in a lot of ways it was a bit chaotic, we didn’t feel that we really got any of the concerns we had across in a meaningful way and we had some concerns on the things that we were being told. It was rushed, noisy and a bit confusing at times, like two groups of people who’d arrived at the wrong meeting. In fairness, perhaps that's what it was - we haven't had one of these with Mr Heck before and we were expecting to sit around a table and work through a list of raised points, he'd come prepared for a presentation on his hopes and aspirations - and we tried to do both those things in the corner of an open bar.

To adopt the language of the corporate, it doesn’t feel like the fanbase and the club are aligned at the moment - there’s some hope for that though in Mr Heck’s offer of more frequent meetings, some of which will be themed around particular topics to allow us, hopefully, to find more of a way to the heart of the questions and concerns that supporters have raised.We have one of those in a couple of weeks and with a bit of luck it'll feel a bit more like a meeting than this one did.

This one was strange and there was much to be learned from it i think.

[OutByEaster?]

On away ticketing, it works like this - there's a percentage of our season ticket holding that hold their tickets in Hospitality, and I'm told it's around 8%.

So, 8% of the away tickets go to hospitality fans and are then applied for by hospitality fans on the same sort of tiered basis as the rest of us.

So - if we get 2,000 tickets, it would divide up like this:

• 100 tickets (50 pairs) would go into the Pride rewards ballot
• 160 tickets would go into the Hospitality Ballots
• A number of tickets would go to the Lions clubs
• 40 tickets (20 pairs) would go to internal staff at Villa Park/Bodymoor
• The remainder (about 1,650) would go on sale through the normal purchasing hierarchy. 

Hope that makes sense.

 

[blunther]

Thanks for reporting OBE. Sounds increasingly like my sort aren't wanted anymore. God forbid the normal fan should get somewhere to sit and have a drink before or after the game. 

[wishywashy]

Thanks for your work as always OBE. Sounds like it could have gone better, to put it lightly: the benches of the Terrace View is certainly an interesting venue to hold a meeting. At that rate they'll be holding them in the bogs by the end of the season (might at least draw some attention to their standards).

Edited September 18, 2023 by wishywashy

[sidcow]

23 minutes ago, blunther said:

Thanks for reporting OBE. Sounds increasingly like my sort aren't wanted anymore. God forbid the normal fan should get somewhere to sit and have a drink before or after the game. 

Maybe this creates a chance for some of the local pubs to reopen? 

So many have closed, possibly they would become tenable again with many fans shut out of some of the new hospitality areas? 

Mind you, from what they're saying they might look to open some of the local pubs themselves. 

[blunther]

8 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Maybe this creates a chance for some of the local pubs to reopen? 

So many have closed, possibly they would become tenable again with many fans shut out of some of the new hospitality areas? 

Mind you, from what they're saying they might look to open some of the local pubs themselves. 

That'd be nice, just don't think there's the demand round there that makes it viable, they'd only really have custom 20-25 days a year. 

[Davkaus]

Thanks for your effort OBE. Honestly, it's a depressing read. It's become increasingly obvious they'd have 40k hospitality fans if they could. And maybe that's just obvious, it's a business and they want as much cash as possible, but what a **** shame.

Have to laugh at the bold claim that they'll improve the toilets and bars by the West Ham game, that's over a month away, and we have three other home games before then. Don't worry lads, the club are on it, just don't forget your wellies for the next few games.

Maybe they'll run a mop around by the new year

Edited September 18, 2023 by Davkaus

[villaglint]

So where the Trinity concourse is fine. Presumably it’s fine that’s it’s impossible to get a drink or anything else within 15 of half time. If they sorted that out they’d dwarf the money they make from Terrace View for example. 

[S-Platt]

I spent 38 minutes on the phone before giving up today it really takes the piss. 

They want you to do the right thing with allocating a season ticket to a client ref but then the website says that person does not have permission to purchase tickets!! This is a kids season ticket upgrade for Europa League matches.   

It's like we have no idea how to run a football club off the pitch at the moment.

[chappy]

Thanks for the report OBE, made for grim reading though. Taking away the Holte Suite after hiking the season ticket price so much is a real sh*tter. It was a very decent benefit of being a season ticket holder.

[Talldarkandransome]

2 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

This is a really difficult one to write up and I've been trying to figure out how to best describe it.

I guess the first thing to say is that prior to the meeting, as a group, the FAB had collected an enormous amount of specific and individual issues, questions and complaints from supporters, far more than we've ever had at a meeting before, and with the meeting being on a matchday, bringing with it time constraints, we'd submitted a short agenda of themes rather than specifics and then hoped to squeeze as many of those specific questions into that as was possible in the time allowed.

The meeting was (ironically) being held in the Terrace View, which (appropriately) isn't entirely the most suitable venue - we sat on benches, classroom style with club figures to present/answer in front of us - while behind us the room was set up and fans started to dribble in.

Representing the club we had Chris Heck, new man Ben Hatton, the thankfully not replaced Paul Tyrell, Tommy Jordan, Lee Preece and, erm...Ahmed Elmohamady. Ticketing's Lynn O’Reardon appeared at a table half way through.

The club I think wanted to start with introductions, this was the first time we’d seen Heck face to face, Hatton has been here only a few weeks and there has obviously been a lot happen.

So Mr Heck started and all was well, until he dropped in that he was excited to tell us that when the Holte Suite reopened it would be as a sort of all-inclusive hospitality area, and well, things derailed somewhat.

Anyway, sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself, here’s how Mr Heck opened up - he started by letting us know that he knew matchday wasn’t the best time for a meeting and that he wanted to put more meetings in - there will hopefully be another meeting, online, within a couple of weeks. He then explained that his job is “to make more money to put on the pitch in order to help us beat FFP” simple as that.

To do that, he’s strengthened the corporate team, with the addition of Ben Hatton who he’s known for twenty years, and a new head of Strategy and Analysis, a new head of content, and a former tennis pro called Ron Erskine who is heading something to do with the marketing and used to do the same for the NY Red Bulls - as well as the aforementioned Elmo, who is now working in the offices as part of the sponsorship sales team.

He’s done that because he recognises that sponsorship is the key area to target for revenue growth - the place where he believes he can make the most difference in terms of the money he can bring into the club - he went so far as to tell us at one point that he was “flippin’ good at selling sponsorship” and he didn’t say flippin’.

He says he has three focus areas - local, global and culture

In terms of local, he talked about the stadium and confirmed in a way that to me wasn’t entirely convincing that the clubs plans for the North Stand were still on track to start next year, I have a feeling it might be the summer after, but I guess we’ll see - the councils bankruptcy has no bearing on that whatsoever.

He said he knew the Terrace View was controversial and that it was done before he arrived, but he reiterated that the club would be looking at more hospitality areas wherever it could put them - mostly outside of the stadium. He intends to build hospitality areas onto the Holte End car park, potentially other car parks and to use local facilities to increase our hospitality numbers, that’s an absolute focus and something that he and Mr Hatton kept returning to throughout our time with them - I would expect hospitality in the Holte Pub, hospitality marquees on the car parks, potentially hospitality at the wedding banqueting building next to the away car park, the ‘dugout’ hospitality in the Lower Trinity that they’ve been talking about and I would imagine hospitality in the box park type thing that’s going to be in the current academy building. I don’t think your season ticket is going to get you into a lot of places in a couple of years time - someone in another thread joked about us using Aston Hall, I wouldn't be surprised if they look into it.

In terms of concourses, he said the Trinity was fine, and he was prioritising work on the Holte End and Doug Ellis. He acknowledged the issue with basic facilities in the Upper Holte End and said that the toilets and bars should be better by the West Ham game.

And then he told us about the Holte Suite…..and I’m not sure we ever came back to 'global' or 'culture'.

It created a little bit of a furore, from which the meeting never really recovered. Robust and forthright questioning on his understanding of regular supporters and the communication that preceded the Terrace View rumbled along for a little while and Mr Heck got quite fiery whenever a differentiation was made between regular and hospitality fans. He makes no apologies for his desire to bring more hospitality fans into the ground

Mr Hatton was shoehorned in and introduced himself to a group that were by that point perhaps not as friendly as he’d have hoped, squeezed in the new strap-line “the giant is awake” and essentially told us that “we want to win, we will be successful, but we’re going to do things our own way even if it does upset people from time to time”.

By then, it was pretty much time for Mr Heck to go, and with our focus on questioning based around the imbalance of hospitality ambitions against regular supporter concerns and the clubs focus on the way forward, we hadn’t touched the agenda, let alone a lot of the specific questions I know a lot of you are looking for answers on - I can only apologise for that.

We were then gathered up by Ben Hatton, Paul Tyrell and Lynn O’Reardon and with Lee Preece and a slightly bemused looking Elmo in tow, taken down to the Holte Suite where Mr Hatton talked further on how it would be operated - he talked about the refurb, potential pricing points and the allocation of tickets - where it looks like they have at least learned something from Terrace View and won’t be attempting to squeeze 500 new hospitality people into the Lower Holte (guests in the Holte Suite will have tickets from all over the ground).

Things had broken into little pockets with conversations about transport (there were extra trains on for the Palace game, if you noticed, let us know) about ticketing, about the Holte Suite, about away tickets, about the ladies game, about the council, Euro 2028 and the good relations with the Mayor and then before we knew it, it was over and we were released into the daylight of the Holte car park, blinking in the brightness of the early afternoon sunshine glinting off the tarmac of the future hospitality area.

In terms of the things I picked up on in those conversations, there will be improvements to the Upper Holte concourses, and not just a fixed toilet or two, there’s no timescale on it, but they know they need to do something up there and they will. And I now understand the allocation of away tickets a lot better, I’ll put something separate in on that.

So, as a meeting in a lot of ways it was a bit chaotic, we didn’t feel that we really got any of the concerns we had across in a meaningful way and we had some concerns on the things that we were being told. It was rushed, noisy and a bit confusing at times, like two groups of people who’d arrived at the wrong meeting. In fairness, perhaps that's what it was - we haven't had one of these with Mr Heck before and we were expecting to sit around a table and work through a list of raised points, he'd come prepared for a presentation on his hopes and aspirations - and we tried to do both those things in the corner of an open bar.

To adopt the language of the corporate, it doesn’t feel like the fanbase and the club are aligned at the moment - there’s some hope for that though in Mr Heck’s offer of more frequent meetings, some of which will be themed around particular topics to allow us, hopefully, to find more of a way to the heart of the questions and concerns that supporters have raised.We have one of those in a couple of weeks and with a bit of luck it'll feel a bit more like a meeting than this one did.

This one was strange and there was much to be learned from it i think.

Very Lee Child there 

On a serious note, it sounds a lot like you were railroaded onto their agenda and off yours. More and more expensive hospitality for corporate types to watch 70 mins of football in between cocktails and fizz.

If being successful encourages more of this, then I might prefer being back in the championship with no chance of selling hospitality (tongue in cheek but with a serious looking face)... 

[MrBlack]

12 minutes ago, chappy said:

Thanks for the report OBE, made for grim reading though. Taking away the Holte Suite after hiking the season ticket price so much is a real sh*tter. It was a very decent benefit of being a season ticket holder.

Arguably mis-sold the season ticket, but I imagine it was never put in the terms as an actual benefit. 

They do seem to not care about the consequences of their actions, provided they result in more money. They'll be disappointed when they see the majority of the waiting list joined it when we were bottom half of the PL and the season ticket was much cheaper, and won't stomach the price hikes that even the existing ST holders who refused to renew couldn't.

On the topic of the meeting, it sounds like a really poorly organised affair. If they've been provided an agenda beforehand, they seem to have willfully ignored it to deliver the message they clearly wanted to. Very tone deaf.

Hopefully the promised improvements arrive, but the fact that it's going to take 3 weeks to unblock some toilets and clean up a mess that they've had 13 free days out of 14 to tidy up already, doesn't fill me with confidence.