The part of your comment I have highlighted is the problem. As a season card holder I have to wait for my points total to be met before I can buy a ticket yet 40% of tickets that are available bypass this system. How is this right on any level? The answer is that it isn't and this is what needs addressing.Because they're completely different issues. The OSC get an allocation of tickets, distribute them to branches and branches decide how to dish these out. It's completely up to the branch how they do it and most do it fairly. You may not like the fact that they get these tickets but they're not depriving others and there's no requirement to give tickets out according to centrally set criteria. If OSC rules said tickets had to go to those with the most points who hadn't got their own tickets then you'd have a good point. But they don't.
"Points whores" buy tickets with no intention of using them and are depriving those further down the queue who are legitimately entitled to them and who would use them.
By the sound of that City are ignoring the fans and just doing what they want.Looks like the DSA rep and LGBT rep have both stood down:
https://mailchi.mp/2594fd46785f/city-matters-update
That is just so, so disappointing. Can City not see how short sighted this is. @Prestwich_Blue what’s your view?Looks like the DSA rep and LGBT rep have both stood down:
https://mailchi.mp/2594fd46785f/city-matters-update
Mark’s a member on here for whom I have a great deal of respect so I’m not getting into a public spat with him but to put the other side I will say (and he knows this) that the rest of the committee don’t fully agree with him and have some issues with the tone of that statement.By the sound of that City are ignoring the fans and just doing what they want.
Looks like the DSA rep and LGBT rep have both stood down:
https://mailchi.mp/2594fd46785f/city-matters-update
I suppose there is always two sides to a story.Mark’s a member on here for whom I have a great deal of respect so I’m not getting into a public spat with him but to put the other side I will say (and he knows this) that the rest of the committee don’t fully agree with him and have some issues with the tone of that statement.
The LGBT rep standing down is not specifically to do with City Matters as far as I’m aware.
Tone is one thing but factually, if the discussion on disabled access issues was not minuted properly that’s poor. If there was an agreement to hold another discussion at the next meeting and it hasn’t made the agenda then that’s poor.Mark’s a member on here for whom I have a great deal of respect so I’m not getting into a public spat with him but to put the other side I will say (and he knows this) that the rest of the committee don’t fully agree with him and have some issues with the tone of that statement.
The LGBT rep standing down is not specifically to do with City Matters as far as I’m aware.
Agree with you and good on Mark standing down, I don’t blame him if the club won’t engage with him and disabled fans in general. It’s something he said he would do a few weeks ago .It’s pretty piss poor they some of the disabled supporters issues could not be resolved quickly and were whitewashed in the minutes.
Omar attends but he’s not the chair. He listens very carefully to what’s been said and doesn’t seek to dominate the meeting. To give the background, the discussion was on the wider topic of Equality & Diversity, which obviously covers disabled issues but also a whole lot more. Some of the CM reps are very clued up on the subject of E&D best practice and felt that although the club was making a real effort, they hadn't set the bar anywhere near high enough and wanted the club to commit to doing more & stand out from the crowd instead of just being part of it. It was a very feisty & passionate discussion & disabled issues were obviously brought up. The club (not unfairly in my view) wanted to keep the discussion general rather than concentrating on one specific area so we agreed that we'd talk about specific disabled issues separately at a later meeting.Tone is one thing but factually, if the discussion on disabled access issues was not minuted properly that’s poor. If there was an agreement to hold another discussion at the next meeting and it hasn’t made the agenda then that’s poor.
I completed a long questionnaire yesterday from City asking me loads of questions about the club and how I feel about it. In the middle and quite incongruous to the rest of the survey were questions about City matters. Did I think it was a good thing etc. Strange that they are gathering this type of info so early in its life.
It has the potential to be such a force for good but only if the club listens and engages honestly. Does Omar Barrada? The club COO still chair?
Well we haven't, based on what I've said above.Everyone on the city matters forum should have resigned if what is being said is true.
Thanks for taking the time to respond so fully. I do hope the club reaches out to the reps that resigned but from what you say it’s definately worth persevering as the club will be learning through this process too. It says a lot that Omar still is attending. Good luck mate. You need better political skills than those shambles in Westminster!Omar attends but he’s not the chair. He listens very carefully to what’s been said and doesn’t seek to dominate the meeting. To give the background, the discussion was on the wider topic of Equality & Diversity, which obviously covers disabled issues but also a whole lot more. Some of the CM reps are very clued up on the subject of E&D best practice and felt that although the club was making a real effort, they hadn't set the bar anywhere near high enough and wanted the club to commit to doing more & stand out from the crowd instead of just being part of it. It was a very feisty & passionate discussion & disabled issues were obviously brought up. The club (not unfairly in my view) wanted to keep the discussion general rather than concentrating on one specific area so we agreed that we'd talk about specific disabled issues separately.
The first issue was that the minutes of the meeting didn't (in our view as a group) adequately reflect the substance of the discussion in that the dissenting view expressed by our reps on the general & specific issues was completely glossed over. So we naturally refused to sign them off and eventually agreed a compromise that neither side was 100% happy with, particularly us, but that's the nature of these things and we saw it as a lesson learned (among many we're learning as we get into this).
At our subsequent, reps only meeting, where we agreed to sign off the minutes, we also agreed that we wanted to really focus on the issues faced by match-going fans and the subject of problems faced by disabled fans would be one of the three core issues we'd be pursuing going forward. But it wasn't the only one as we also had the subjects of Ticketing and Catering. We have sub-groups for both of these and had also agreed with the club to set up and E&D working group as well, which would cover disabled issues among other things. We also agreed that these working groups would be where most of the detail gets hammered out and that these groups would report back to the full group and discuss any strategic issues in that forum.
Adam, our chair, always asks for agenda items to be submitted 10 days prior to full meetings but nothing was submitted regarding the issues faced by disabled fans. Whether Mark thought that it was automatically going to be on the agenda based on the previous reps' meeting only he can answer for certain but there was nothing on last Thursday's agenda about Ticketing or Catering either, as these are already being discussed in Working Groups.
When he saw it wasn't on the agenda he decided to resign, which I didn't agree with and asked him to reconsider. We had agreed there would be a forum for discussing matters affecting disabled fans but we would have supported Mark if he'd asked for it to be on the agenda for the main meeting. The matchday programme has seen a lot of feedback - I've had quite a few emails, Ian Cheeseman discussed it on his Forever Blue podcast (& two of our reps were part of that although it was entirely coincidental) andI know Dave Wallace has been emailing the club about it. So it's something quite a few people feel strongly about but it wasn't the case that the club had the choice of discussing that or disabled issues and chose the former, while wilfully ignoring the latter. There were two forums available to discuss the important issues affecting disabled fans - the main group and the working group - and by resigning before giving himself the opportunity to use either or even both of these, Mark has been a bit unwise and rather hasty in my view, when we were starting to make a little progress on this vital and rather shameful issue.
Well we haven't, based on what I've said above.
Omar attends but he’s not the chair. He listens very carefully to what’s been said and doesn’t seek to dominate the meeting. To give the background, the discussion was on the wider topic of Equality & Diversity, which obviously covers disabled issues but also a whole lot more. Some of the CM reps are very clued up on the subject of E&D best practice and felt that although the club was making a real effort, they hadn't set the bar anywhere near high enough and wanted the club to commit to doing more & stand out from the crowd instead of just being part of it. It was a very feisty & passionate discussion & disabled issues were obviously brought up. The club (not unfairly in my view) wanted to keep the discussion general rather than concentrating on one specific area so we agreed that we'd talk about specific disabled issues separately.
The first issue was that the minutes of the meeting didn't (in our view as a group) adequately reflect the substance of the discussion in that the dissenting view expressed by our reps on the general & specific issues was completely glossed over. So we naturally refused to sign them off and eventually agreed a compromise that neither side was 100% happy with, particularly us, but that's the nature of these things and we saw it as a lesson learned (among many we're learning as we get into this).
At our subsequent, reps only meeting, where we agreed to sign off the minutes, we also agreed that we wanted to really focus on the issues faced by match-going fans and the subject of problems faced by disabled fans would be one of the three core issues we'd be pursuing going forward. But it wasn't the only one as we also had the subjects of Ticketing and Catering. We have sub-groups for both of these and had also agreed with the club to set up and E&D working group as well, which would cover disabled issues among other things. We also agreed that these working groups would be where most of the detail gets hammered out and that these groups would report back to the full group and discuss any strategic issues in that forum.
Adam, our chair, always asks for agenda items to be submitted 10 days prior to full meetings but nothing was submitted regarding the issues faced by disabled fans. Whether Mark thought that it was automatically going to be on the agenda based on the previous reps' meeting only he can answer for certain but there was nothing on last Thursday's agenda about Ticketing or Catering either, as these are already being discussed in Working Groups.
When he saw it wasn't on the agenda he decided to resign, which I didn't agree with and asked him to reconsider. We had agreed there would be a forum for discussing matters affecting disabled fans but we would have supported Mark if he'd asked for it to be on the agenda for the main meeting. The matchday programme has seen a lot of feedback - I've had quite a few emails, Ian Cheeseman discussed it on his Forever Blue podcast (& two of our reps were part of that although it was entirely coincidental) andI know Dave Wallace has been emailing the club about it. So it's something quite a few people feel strongly about but it wasn't the case that the club had the choice of discussing that or disabled issues and chose the former, while wilfully ignoring the latter. There were two forums available to discuss the important issues affecting disabled fans - the main group and the working group - and by resigning before giving himself the opportunity to use either or even both of these, Mark has been a bit unwise and rather hasty in my view, when we were starting to make a little progress on this vital and rather shameful issue.
Well we haven't, based on what I've said above.