OxVox. Remember them?

[Hog]

Are they on their last legs?*

http://yellowsforum.co.uk/thread/20013/ ... ittee-open

*Mischief alert!

[GodalmingYellow]

OxVox need to go back to being a supporters representative group rather than the club financiers and stadium decorators they have been in recent years.

[Kairdiff Exile]

OxVox need to go back to being a supporters representative group rather than the club financiers and stadium decorators they have been in recent years.

Agreed. I think it's a good thing that the management have said they don't want OxVox to be fundraising for the club - that should leave OxVox free to fundraise and build contacts for the much more important long-term goal of having a supporter-owned club (or, at the very least, having the financial clout to have supporters' reps on the board).

I am proud to be an OxVox member, and I think they do a fantastic job on the whole - but the current board don't seem particularly interested in working with them, so OxVox should use that freedom to be more outspoken and to push for answers to the long-term questions on the club's future. Things like:
- Is Grenoble Road a viable and desirable long-term option as the club's home?
- What happens when the current board's money runs out?
- How can supporters get more involved in the long-term running of our football club?
- How can the club and local authority work together for the benefit of the community?

I hope they continue to attract a good calibre of people onto the OxVox committee - and we should all be grateful to those individuals who give up their time to offer their energies, experience and efforts to do what they can. One day, when work and geography aren't against me, I hope to get more involved myself.

[Snake]

FWIW I think they have run out of things to do, or had the things they were doing taken away from them.

On the flip side every football club needs a strong fans group ready, organised, and in place if things go tits up off the field, so I hope they carry on, if only in the background for now.

[tomoufc]

Agreed. I think it's a good thing that the management have said they don't want OxVox to be fundraising for the club - that should leave OxVox free to fundraise and build contacts for the much more important long-term goal of having a supporter-owned club (or, at the very least, having the financial clout to have supporters' reps on the board).

I am proud to be an OxVox member, and I think they do a fantastic job on the whole - but the current board don't seem particularly interested in working with them, so OxVox should use that freedom to be more outspoken and to push for answers to the long-term questions on the club's future. Things like:
- Is Grenoble Road a viable and desirable long-term option as the club's home?
- What happens when the current board's money runs out?
- How can supporters get more involved in the long-term running of our football club?
- How can the club and local authority work together for the benefit of the community?

I hope they continue to attract a good calibre of people onto the OxVox committee - and we should all be grateful to those individuals who give up their time to offer their energies, experience and efforts to do what they can. One day, when work and geography aren't against me, I hope to get more involved myself.

I don't think I've agreed with a post on this forum more. I may as well have written it myself.

It feels like the club's drifting at the moment, with things not quite bad enough yet to have attracted sufficient angst from the fan base to make OxVox actually do anything to get the club to address major weaknesses or give complete answers to serious questions.

I think we'll go one of two directions eventually. Either someone with some serious, serious money will buy us and bankroll us, or we'll go bust and have to start again in the Oxford City pub league.

I still suspect Eales is here for some kind of property deal...

[Brahma Bull]

Are they on their last legs?*

http://yellowsforum.co.uk/thread/20013/ ... ittee-open

*Mischief alert!

You forgot to lift this forum post too Hog.

http://yellowsforum.co.uk/thread/20015/ ... eales-oufc

[Brahma Bull]

Of course not everyone will have seen our most recent committee meeting notes. I shamelesslly have copied the following, having been in attendance at the 'informal' November meeting.

Review of previous meeting’s minutes: Most actions had been carried out. The communication survey was to be postponed pending discussion around OxVox (below). The issues of an advisory panel on policing and stewarding and fixture boards had been included on the briefing note for the Club but not covered at the last meeting with them. This should be carried forward to the next discussion with the Club (ACTION: MTD to note this). The FSF section of the website had been drafted by MTD. All agreed this was appropriate and useful. ACTION: MTD to make live on the website.

OxVox/OUFC meeting review: SB and JF gave the Committee an overview of their recent meeting (along with MS) with Darryl Eales, Mark Ashton, and Michael Appleton. This seemed to have clarified a how OxVox could work with the Club’s new management in the future, and following the meeting the Committee noted that we were clearly thinking along the same lines now on a number of issues (the Bury ticket offer to schools and Darryl Eales’ programme notes for that Bury game on working with supporters).

JF led a discussion about this role for OxVox and how we wanted to work with the Club. A number of factors had changed in the last couple of years or would be changing shortly:
• Other supporters’ groups had been formed (with OxVox involvement) that were doing the kinds of things OxVox had done in the past (fundraising, fan initiatives, etc..
• The Club has new owners and managers and had demonstrated a desire to engage with the community around the Club in some of the ways OxVox has in the past pushed,
• The work of OxVox had for a number of reasons been carried out by a few on the Committee, the workload had caused problems, and was clearly not sustainable,
• A concern that this had led to OxVox becoming anonymous/disengaged,
• Long-standing Committee members would be/potentially would be stepping down at the next AGM, meaning OxVox would be undergoing change, whether it wanted to or not.

JF suggested we need to reconsider the role of the Trust in the light of all this, identify what OxVox should be doing and focus on this, with a view to being very clear about these objectives and communicating this more clearly outside the Committee and members, dropping any work and activities that were supplemental or incidental to that focus (and perhaps was now being done by others anyway), and reconsidering how OxVox’s work would be managed.

The Committee all welcomed the opportunity to consider this as a general issue, and felt we had struggled with individual aspects in isolation, not necessarily dealing with them satisfactorily. It was helpful to take a step back in this way. Discussion led to the identification of the following key functions of OxVox:
• Acting as a link between the Club and Supporters, and representing supporter views to the Club,
• Working with the Club to promote it in the Oxfordshire community,
• Being aware of the way the Club is run so that fans can be confident it is being run properly.

From these aims it followed that the main functions of OxVox should be communication with members and communication with the Club. JF suggested we should look to establish a reasonably formal and regular schedule of meetings with the Club that would be semi-formal in format. A rota of Committee members would attend these to a) keep these manageable b) ensure that the Club hears a variety of perspectives. Producing and circulating notes would then be the principal update members received from OxVox. The Committee agreed with this plan.

[Brahma Bull]

Agreed. I think it's a good thing that the management have said they don't want OxVox to be fundraising for the club - that should leave OxVox free to fundraise and build contacts for the much more important long-term goal of having a supporter-owned club (or, at the very least, having the financial clout to have supporters' reps on the board).

Mr Eales and Co had been very grateful of the Trust's past financial fund-raising efforts for the club but it was clear that the new board of Directors aren't dependent on this anymore and/or don't wish to portray a dependence on such efforts. That's not to say we can't fund-raise but it'll be for worthwhile causes like David Langan and perhaps, helping under-privileged and dis-advantaged members of society to get up to Minchery to watch some good football - as an example and helping OxVox's aim of engagement in the local community.

[Jimski]

Kairdiff Exile's post speaks for me too. Great post.

[Kernow Yellow]

Agreed. I think it's a good thing that the management have said they don't want OxVox to be fundraising for the club - that should leave OxVox free to fundraise and build contacts for the much more important long-term goal of having a supporter-owned club (or, at the very least, having the financial clout to have supporters' reps on the board).

Mr Eales and Co had been very grateful of the Trust's past financial fund-raising efforts for the club but it was clear that the new board of Directors aren't dependent on this anymore and/or don't wish to portray a dependence on such efforts.

Quite right too. If ENSCO want to splash their hedge-funded cash in a bid to turn our club into a saleable commodity or as a personal hobby indulgence/vanity project then it would be quite wrong to accept fans' fund-raised cash to help sign another Championship youngster to warm our bench for a few weeks. Much better that any OxVox funds get put aside for the day when OUFC's owners (these, or the next ones, of the ones after that... leave us up shit creek after running out of money/patience.

I also strongly agree with the rest of Kairdiff Exile's excellent post.

[ty cobb]

As with others agree with KE post but would add that we (as a club) need to address the thing that is causing us to bumble around in the bottom division and that is not being able to take advantage of our better crowds because of not owning our own stadium and having to pay a high amount of rent every year.

This also has a knock on into other areas such as the match day experience. The person who owns the stadium does not care about how many people come along or the experience they get and as such it is just simply awful. Getting a supporters bar has been a huge effort and who really wants to spend their money at the stadium when the club doesn't benefit.

We moved to the ground in 2001, we have been here for 13 years now and are no closer to owning the stadium. Try and find mention of OUFC on here http://www.thekassamstadium.com/index.php the stadium was built as our home, however, it has never felt like that and trying to engage with the community is all very well and good but it is fiddling around the edges somewhat when we don't have a home.

In my opinion Kassam has had an easy ride since selling up. I would like to know how much he wants for the stadium and then OxVox to take a view on whether this is justified. If not I would organise a campaign highlighting the amount of money he has made from his association with OUFC and start putting some pressure on him to do the decent thing and let us have the stadium at a price that reflects all the benefits he has made out of OUFC including the £6m he made on the Manor sale. We've paid over £4m in rent already let alone the revenues we've missed out on from not owning the stadium which was the whole bloody point of moving there in the first place. I would consider what can be done in terms of fans owning the stadium. 5000 people paying a tenner a month will raise 600k in a year. Had we started this when we moved in we'd have nearly £8m by now. There would be worse investments than owning a piece of land in Oxfordshire and that would create a real community feeling.

We are slowly dying as a club. The season before we went down from the this division we had the second highest average attendance in the league of 7.5k, we now average 5.5k (which is still the 5th highest in the division). I've had enough of clubs who can't get 3000 fans through the gates beating us. I would like OxVox to concentrate on the big issue and have a plan of action that the whole supporter base can get behind and be engaged with.

[tomoufc]

As with others agree with KE post but would add that we (as a club) need to address the thing that is causing us to bumble around in the bottom division and that is not being able to take advantage of our better crowds because of not owning our own stadium and having to pay a high amount of rent every year.

This also has a knock on into other areas such as the match day experience. The person who owns the stadium does not care about how many people come along or the experience they get and as such it is just simply awful. Getting a supporters bar has been a huge effort and who really wants to spend their money at the stadium when the club doesn't benefit.

We moved to the ground in 2001, we have been here for 13 years now and are no closer to owning the stadium. Try and find mention of OUFC on here http://www.thekassamstadium.com/index.php the stadium was built as our home, however, it has never felt like that and trying to engage with the community is all very well and good but it is fiddling around the edges somewhat when we don't have a home.

In my opinion Kassam has had an easy ride since selling up. I would like to know how much he wants for the stadium and then OxVox to take a view on whether this is justified. If not I would organise a campaign highlighting the amount of money he has made from his association with OUFC and start putting some pressure on him to do the decent thing and let us have the stadium at a price that reflects all the benefits he has made out of OUFC including the £6m he made on the Manor sale. We've paid over £4m in rent already let alone the revenues we've missed out on from not owning the stadium which was the whole bloody point of moving there in the first place. I would consider what can be done in terms of fans owning the stadium. 5000 people paying a tenner a month will raise 600k in a year. Had we started this when we moved in we'd have nearly £8m by now. There would be worse investments than owning a piece of land in Oxfordshire and that would create a real community feeling.

We are slowly dying as a club. The season before we went down from the this division we had the second highest average attendance in the league of 7.5k, we now average 5.5k (which is still the 5th highest in the division). I've had enough of clubs who can't get 3000 fans through the gates beating us. I would like OxVox to concentrate on the big issue and have a plan of action that the whole supporter base can get behind and be engaged with.

Ditto this well-written post too.

There must be someone who takes this kind of view that is prepared to stand for the board of OxVox. I wish I could, but living in Manchester doesn't really help...

[slappy]

Agreed. I think it's a good thing that the management have said they don't want OxVox to be fundraising for the club - that should leave OxVox free to fundraise and build contacts for the much more important long-term goal of having a supporter-owned club (or, at the very least, having the financial clout to have supporters' reps on the board).

Mr Eales and Co had been very grateful of the Trust's past financial fund-raising efforts for the club but it was clear that the new board of Directors aren't dependent on this anymore and/or don't wish to portray a dependence on such efforts.

Quite right too. If ENSCO want to splash their hedge-funded cash in a bid to turn our club into a saleable commodity or as a personal hobby indulgence/vanity project then it would be quite wrong to accept fans' fund-raised cash to help sign another Championship youngster to warm our bench for a few weeks. Much better that any OxVox funds get put aside for the day when OUFC's owners (these, or the next ones, of the ones after that... leave us up shit creek after running out of money/patience.

I also strongly agree with the rest of Kairdiff Exile's excellent post.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that ENSCO's cash comes from a hedge-fund? So far as we are told it is directly from Eales.

[Kernow Yellow]

Quite right too. If ENSCO want to splash their hedge-funded cash in a bid to turn our club into a saleable commodity or as a personal hobby indulgence/vanity project then it would be quite wrong to accept fans' fund-raised cash to help sign another Championship youngster to warm our bench for a few weeks. Much better that any OxVox funds get put aside for the day when OUFC's owners (these, or the next ones, of the ones after that... leave us up shit creek after running out of money/patience.

I also strongly agree with the rest of Kairdiff Exile's excellent post.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that ENSCO's cash comes from a hedge-fund? So far as we are told it is directly from Eales.

I thought Eales made his money from heading up the investment arm of Lloyds Banking Group? According to Business Week he has "a successful track record of 20 years of building private equity businesses on a local, regional, and national level and a 25 year deal-doing track record." I just assumed there was some fund-hedging involved in that, but I'm no business expert and am happy to be corrected if that's not the case. Not that it's important to the debate mind...

[Matt D]

There must be someone who takes this kind of view that is prepared to stand for the board of OxVox. I wish I could, but living in Manchester doesn't really help...

I agree, but I think it's been the view of most if not all of the current committee, and the last couple of years its work has principally focused on the issue of the stadium. The Right To Bid has facilitated dialogue with all key parties. However, progress has not been easy, and new Club ownership doubtless brings new strategies.