Recap: Senior Blues November Meeting
A recap of the latest Senior Blues meeting, which took place at the start of November.
Chairman Chris opened yet another well attended meeting with the AGM (which closed in record time) reporting on another successful year.
Martin produced an immaculate set of accounts and highlighted our contributions of £5K to the Academy over each of the last two years and expressed his ideal for the Academy to have its own minibus rather than continually incur significant transport costs.
Geoff continues to organise trips and the Christmas lunch, and Les still looks after the speakers programme. For info, Margaret Bithell (Secretary) keeps the Committee running smoothly and the other members are John Martin (membership), Colin Mansley and Paul Gorman (without portfolio). Members were thanked for their continued support.
The first speaker was CFU Finance Director, Neil Berry, who outlined his background as a supporter (starting Sealand Road, August 1979 v Sheffield Utd) and an accountant culminating as Financial Controller for M&S Bank for 12 years, before retiring in 2022.
Neil described his treasurer’s role which involves setting the budget by assessing potential income streams and being realistic over expenditure. The word realistic applies principally to the playing budget as there are only a small number of paid employees.
Quite simply, as a fan owned club, the playing budget is realistic of what we can afford. We aim to break even and succeed on the pitch. This is done by continual financial control, monthly management reports and adjustments to the forecasts to keep us on the right track.
Neil is also responsible for regulatory management to fulfil the requirements of National League and the Financial Conduct Authority (although the £1.6M turnover of the Club is a far cry from that of M&S Bank). Neil spoke of the positive environment and the good working arrangement within the Board. He also mentioned the occasional conflict of being a fan and a financial controller, and in the Q&A he touched on the financial difficulties facing a fan owned club in the Football League.
The main speaker was Andy Scargill, Chairman of the Friends of the Countess of Chester Country Park, who gave an illustrated talk of the history of the park, from the original idea in 2011 to convert what was the old City tip (behind the Deva Hospital) to a 19 hectare (47 acre) green space.
With the help of local people, schools and other organisations and a huge grant from Waste Recovery and Environmental Services (WREN) things really got underway in 2014 with paths, hedge laying, signposts etc, culminating in Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, officially opening the Countess of Chester Country Park in Sept 2014.
Since then, the Park has gone from strength to strength in terms of growth, accessibility and biodiversity.
A Rangers cabin opened in 2017, a Fallen for the Fallen memorial for Armistice Day in 2018, an award winning carved poppy trail from Upton, a Milk Bank garden, a woodland nature reserve, and a Friendly Bench are just some of the introductions. Among the many public events, long term collaborators, Dee Point school have carols in the Park every December. Some other examples are Welly Wednesday, a Friday ramblers group and the well attended Park runs every Saturday morning.
This progress couldn’t happen without the many volunteers, collaborators (e.g. Chester Zoo) and acquisition of funding. Biodiversity has increased tremendously in terms of plants and wildlife, and wild flower meadows have been created.
A total of 8 Green Flags for conservation have been awarded whilst funding of £650K has recently been obtained for the creation of a wetland meadow as part of the Networks for Nature programme.
For anyone unaware, the best access point (by car) is opposite the Little Owl pub on the Countess of Chester Way, where there is a Pay and Display car park (£1 for 2hrs currently) though there are several other access points such as from the canal or Liverpool Road. Well worth a stroll and be sure to install a Bird app on your smartphone.