“City Matters” fan committee

Prestwich_Blue said:
Just had an email to say I'm on the shortlist for the Seasoncard category. Exciting.

Voting will be next week and I'm sure I can rely on all my friends on here and their extended network. All 2 of them.
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You’ve got my vote Colin. Just rember that part of your manifesto where you championed more tickets for Supporters Clubs lol!
 
Prestwich_Blue said:
Just had an email to say I'm on the shortlist for the Seasoncard category. Exciting.

Voting will be next week and I'm sure I can rely on all my friends on here and their extended network. All 2 of them.
Click to expand...

Loony-2.jpg
 
What about subsidising travel and accommodation for fans travelling from overseas? I'm not being greedy, mind; if they stump up 70%, I'm willing to shell out the remaining 30%. I'm a nice fella, see?
 
I rarely post on any type of social media but am doing this time. I as well have been shortlisted for the season ticket category.
Voting is via the Citizens platform. The club want a good cross section of people who have not been involved before from what I can see.
I am not in any supporters club but from my time supporting City have met many blues who are. We need to give this idea a chance as the support needs a voice.
I have experience in sitting on boards/ committees that have no executive power but try to influence strategy. It is never easy but if done correctly real good can come out of this type of organisation. You must not be afraid to ask searching questions but in the correct way.
Whoever is chosen will need to ask questions but also be able to listen to what people feel is important. I am looking forward to the voting next week
 
jrb said:
It's one thing creating this and listening to the fans.

It's another thing actually doing what the fans want.(to a point)

This could be like the old Points of Blue meetings and turn into another meat grinder where officials from the club turn up, sit through fans (constantly) complaining about the same issues and complaints, and becoming numb to them, whilst doing little or nothing about them. Repeat the same process at the next meeting. And again.

If this is going to work the fans have to be realistic about what can and can't be done. And the club have to change things that can be changed. If fans see no changes with the issues that have been raised, then it will be seen as another 'talking shop' and nothing more.

For this to have any teeth the likes of Soriano, and dare I say it, Khaldoon, need to be involved at least once a season/a year, along with other influential Board Members/Directors like Vicky Kloss, Danny Wilson, Etc. City can send in as many Middle Managers as they have got to these meetings, but what they discuss, write down, etc, goes up the food chain at City, where the final decisions are made.

This maybe impossible to do, but I would like to see a set amount of sensible ideas that are put forward by the fans implemended by the club throughout the season/year. At least 1, if not more. And shown to be implemented. Only then will 'City Matters' be seen to be working by the fans. On the flip side, fans have to be realistic and sensible and not ask for things and changes that clearly can't be done. One reoccurring example. 'Moving the away fans'. (Arrrgh!)

No doubt the following and same issues will be raised again. Season ticket and matchday tickets prices and rises, Cityzens cards/prices, Platinum cards, reward points, Buying tickets, being held on the ticket office phone line for long periods of time, queues when getting into the ground, service times at the bars, lack of staff, food and drink prices, merchandise prices, stewarding, away ticket allocations, away tickets ending up on legal ticket(touting) websites, away ticket distribution and where they go, parking around the Etihad, public transport on matchday's, empty seats, away fans in the home ends during CL games, dealing with the anti-City Media and Journalists, Etihad Stadium expansion plans, Etihad Campus redevelopment plans, bans from the Etihad and the appeals process, players and staff meeting the fans at OS branches, Improving the atmosphere, engagement between the club and the fans(City Matters is a start), etc.

Congratulations to those of you who are picked. Credit to the club for doing this. And I sincerely hope City Matters works.

PS. I didn't include the OS website. That has apparently been revamped. :-) Not been on it yet.
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This is a top post.
My issue with the whole "City Matters" initiative - and all the other supposed supporter involvement social media platforms, are that the Club still only do/change those things they were probably going to do anyway. The Cityzens Voice discussion platform is the most obvious case in point. When it started it was all about giving us a voice, tell us what's wrong, tell us how to improve things, and most of the items above were brought up - and swiftly either ignored or we were told they were "taken to the Club", nothing was done and they were swiftly forgotten, until someone brought them up again the following season and received the same response.
I went on there for the first time in ages yesterday to see what's going on, and it's predictably died a death. It's very sad to see something that started off well and with no doubt good intentions so drab and lifeless, like an 80's signing. A few overseas fans asking what people think about "Mahres", where people buy their shirts and for how much, and why the DVD isn't HD.
Of course it's died a death - people will wonder what the point is if nothing changes.
City are very, very good at saying the right thing, putting out the emails, the surveys, the atmosphere texts etc etc, but very, very poor, to the point of frustration, at sorting out the things off the pitch that matter to the regular match-going fan.

I hope this will change things, I really do, but the evidence of the past ten years is against them.
 
I fully support this and hope it is the start of the club really listening to all our supporters not just the newbies and social media generation. I think City is a brilliantly-run club, probably the best in the world in the way it operates, but there are areas which need to be improved. Like most on here I think we could get even better commercially if we made it easier for fans to buy tickets and provided a better catering service.
We need to lobby strongly for bigger away allocations so that the ongoing row about ticket points becomes less of an issue. We could even work alongside our rivals like United and Liverpool and other clubs with large fanbases to try and achieve this. It happens in Germany and can happen here.
Best of luck to all on this forum who are taking part in City Matters.
 
Interstate 5 said:
This is a top post.
My issue with the whole "City Matters" initiative - and all the other supposed supporter involvement social media platforms, are that the Club still only do/change those things they were probably going to do anyway. The Cityzens Voice discussion platform is the most obvious case in point. When it started it was all about giving us a voice, tell us what's wrong, tell us how to improve things, and most of the items above were brought up - and swiftly either ignored or we were told they were "taken to the Club", nothing was done and they were swiftly forgotten, until someone brought them up again the following season and received the same response.
I went on there for the first time in ages yesterday to see what's going on, and it's predictably died a death. It's very sad to see something that started off well and with no doubt good intentions so drab and lifeless, like an 80's signing. A few overseas fans asking what people think about "Mahres", where people buy their shirts and for how much, and why the DVD isn't HD.
Of course it's died a death - people will wonder what the point is if nothing changes.
City are very, very good at saying the right thing, putting out the emails, the surveys, the atmosphere texts etc etc, but very, very poor, to the point of frustration, at sorting out the things off the pitch that matter to the regular match-going fan.

I hope this will change things, I really do, but the evidence of the past ten years is against them.
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Completely agree, City Voice felt more like a marketing exercise for the club to work out exactly how they could get more money out of us rather than listen to genuine ideas and issues fans had. Will be interesting how City Matters works, wide variety of groups will be involved and will be good to see if anything meaningful comes from it.
 
Can't believe I missed seeing this - would love to have thrown my hat in the ring. Could have been relevant to about six categories in one hit. Oh well good luck to those who are shortlisted - no doubt a link will be posted to the page in good time
 
Interstate 5 said:
This is a top post.
My issue with the whole "City Matters" initiative - and all the other supposed supporter involvement social media platforms, are that the Club still only do/change those things they were probably going to do anyway. The Cityzens Voice discussion platform is the most obvious case in point. When it started it was all about giving us a voice, tell us what's wrong, tell us how to improve things, and most of the items above were brought up - and swiftly either ignored or we were told they were "taken to the Club", nothing was done and they were swiftly forgotten, until someone brought them up again the following season and received the same response.
I went on there for the first time in ages yesterday to see what's going on, and it's predictably died a death. It's very sad to see something that started off well and with no doubt good intentions so drab and lifeless, like an 80's signing. A few overseas fans asking what people think about "Mahres", where people buy their shirts and for how much, and why the DVD isn't HD.
Of course it's died a death - people will wonder what the point is if nothing changes.
City are very, very good at saying the right thing, putting out the emails, the surveys, the atmosphere texts etc etc, but very, very poor, to the point of frustration, at sorting out the things off the pitch that matter to the regular match-going fan.

I hope this will change things, I really do, but the evidence of the past ten years is against them.
Click to expand...
Good post. The club dropped Points of Blue around 2012 on the grounds that they felt it wasn’t the best way of managing fan relationships. They kept telling us they were working on something else but all we got was surveys, focus groups and Cityzens Voice.

The PL have a rule that clubs must have “structured engagement” with their fans but that’s obviously open to interpretation. The Parliamentary Football Expert Working Group was a little more specific and many clubs introduced some sort of face-to-face mechanism. Some had fan forums, some did it through their Supporters Trust and some had proper representative committees. Liverpool, Chelsea and the rags all have a fan committee and they send heavyweights from the club to these. Richard Arnold & Ed Woodward for the rags, Bruce Buck & Marina Granovskaia at Chelsea and the CEO (used to be Ian Ayre) at Liverpool. The Parliamentary group publish an annual report on progress in the PL and, to be honest, City’s efforts looked pathetic in comparison to most of the other 19 clubs, consisting of Cityzens Voice and sending a few people to Supporters Club Branch meetings. In the meantime, we started meeting as PoB but it was a struggle to get the club to interact in a meaningful way. The fact that City voted against capping away tickets tells you a lot about the hierarchy’s attitude to the match-going fan versus a few extra quid.

So I’m not so näive to think there’s been a fundamental change of heart about fan engagement. More likely than not the club have been leant on by the PL & PFEWG to do this as they’re one of the very few out of line. But at least they’ve done it so that’s a step forward. The test is who turns up from the club. Is there going to be a genuine dialogue between fans and decision makers or will it be a case of Lisa Eaton making notes and then never hearing anything about it again?

I’m happy to give the club the benefit of the doubt and go into this with an open mind, which is why I’ve put myself forward. I hope they’ll realise we aren’t just people who want something for nothing but that there is a sense of frustration among many match-going fans.
 
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They could do with sorting out service from 115 to 121 (South Stand Lower.) Bottle bars and mobile beer vendors would make it more attractive pre-match than one of the few pubs walking distance from the ground. It’d be great to get huge numbers in an hour before kick off but it’s just undrinkable piss beer served by someone plucked from the benefits queue. Imagine the atmosphere if it was alright!
 
Don’t know what the selection process will be but hopefully the club will be sensible enough to choose a broad demographic of fans that will represent all different types and cover a wide range of observations. We certainly need the young represented; they are the future of the club and probably main demographic that can help improve the stadium atmosphere.

And before people ask I’m probably classed as being on the fringes of ‘young’.
 
Suppose to go live today but nothing so far. Anyone else taking part heard anything?
 
1. Stop giving so many away tickets to corporates (United finally got their way with this at their club)
2. Less club provided plastic flags/fireworks for club lead displays on CL nights, just let us do our own, it’s less forced, less shit
3. Stop putting seasoncard prices up!

That’s all I want from the club

Oh and 4. Knock down the East Stand and build a giant one tier’d super stand at the side of the pitch for Safe Standing like the old Kippax was (yes, I know, never going to happen!)
 
It's gone very quiet. Even by City's current standards, a level of disconnect on an "initiative" that's supposed to improve connection with supporters is pretty special.
 
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