#NotMyTrust

To whoever it may concern,

An email from NotMyTrust, addressed to me, went into my spam filter.

Would you be so kind as to let me know from where you got my personal email address?

Would you also be so kind as to re-address the email, and any future correspondence, to the Trust address - [email protected] - and have the courtesy to sign it personally?

On that basis there will be no more unfortunate delays and I would be more than happy to answer any appropriate questions you may have in the interests of transparency.

While I have your attention, can you also please ensure that any communications you put out on behalf of NotMyTrust are accurate factually and contextually.

We have had to raise a number of concerns with the Football Supporters' Association and I understand they have asked you to meaningfully correct any information that you have misrepresented.

Many thanks,

Andy

Andy Roberts

Chair

Northampton Town Supporters Trust

Hello, nearly there!

Thanks for forwarding the email, can you give me surnames for the undersigned and please confirm whether or not they are Trust members?

As per Andy's email, can you also please state from where you obtained his personal email address?

Look forward to your responses.

Best,

NTFC Trust

Many thanks, members who have recently joined the Trust should have received their welcome letters or these are in process - however there are a couple of applications where we require a little more information and these applicants have been notified.

Also some new members have not not 'opted in' to receive communications so, if that is their preference, could you please request that they do so.

We will address your questions shortly.

Best,

NTFC Trust

Dear Thom, Rob, Heidi, Tom, Barry, Derry Ryan, Ben and Joe,

Please see below our responses in blue.

We have a scheduled board meeting on the evening of Thursday 8 December.

Two or three representatives would be very welcome to attend should you want to discuss any matters further. Please let us know and we will send out a link.

Best wishes,

NTFC Trust

Dear Andy,

I hope you are well & hope the progress with your book is going well - I'm sure it will be an interesting read with your experiences supporting The Cobblers!

Some of us are members, some are in the process of becoming members but we have a few questions if you'd be so kind as to answer them.

Firstly we'd appreciate if you could provide us with the following:

• The Trust's current election policy & details of when this was last updated.
• The Trust's equality & inclusion policy.
• The Trust's board meeting attendance policies.
• Clarification of the process required for co-opting board members.

We'd also appreciate your communication policy for board members and advisors, especially around social media activity.

The Supporters Trust is a Supporters Community mutual and we have adopted model rules (2016) which can be viewed on our website.

All information relating to the governance of Northampton Town Supporters Trust can be found there.

The Supporters Trust holds monthly board meetings which are minuted and members wanting to find out more about the Trust and how it is run are welcome to attend these meetings as a visitor (maximum six per meeting).

At our last meeting, directors had a constructive discussion with five visitors who attended with questions and concerns.

Do you currently have a date for the next AGM?

A date has not yet been fixed but it has to be held before 28 February 2023.

When will the minutes for the last board meeting be made available online? if they will not be published then can you please provide us with a copy of those minutes.

The minutes of the last board meeting will be published on the website shortly.

We're curious to the structure of the current board as it appears there is some confusion there, according to the minutes and the trust website it shows:

• Andy Roberts - Chairman
• Robert Souster
• Bob Clarke
• Stefan Krywawych
• Ian Atkins - Co-opted
• Derek Krajewski - we could not find anything in the minutes regarding him being co-opted, can you confirm if/when he was?
• John Morgan - Not currently on the board, Acting Secretary & Legal advisor

Does this accurately represent the current board?

The current board is as follows:- Andy Roberts (Chair), Bob Souster (Vice Chair), Bob Clarke (Treasurer), Keith Buckby, Stefan Krywawych, Ian Atkins

Co-opted: Derek Krajewski

Acting Secretary: John Morgan (also the Trust’s legal adviser and not a board member)

Can you please also confirm how many meetings Ian Atkins and Stefan Krywawych have attended since they joined the board? It seems from the available minutes that their attendance has been very limited.

The meetings attended by Ian and Stefan will be recorded in the minutes.

It is fair to say that their respective attendance has been limited in recent months but both have notified us of extraordinary commitments which make it difficult for them to attend. But they are both fully across any board decisions that need to be taken.

As a long-standing former board member, Barry Collins will appreciate the time constraints placed on a group of people who are all volunteers working in their spare time to ensure the football club is in a good place.

Barry also struggled to make a lot of meetings while he was on the board.

He will be able to vouch for the fact that the Trust’s approach has always been aligned to the diverse nature of the football club – the provision of first-class disabled facilities on the opening of Sixfields Stadium in 1994, the introduction of the football club’s equal opportunities policy in 1997, the commemoration of Walter Tull (the memorial and its upkeep), the financial support given to the club’s award-winning Loneliness Project in 2020 and the two-year sponsorship of Northampton Women’s training tops and away travel. To name but a few initiatives.

And he will appreciate the tough decisions that sometimes have to be made – Barry of course was a member of the board that unanimously voted to invoke the ACV in April as he had serious concerns about the land deal in process.

It was with great sadness that the Trust board had to require Barry to stand down as a board member during the summer.

He was in clear breach of his legal duties as a director of the Trust in being actively involved in setting up a rival travel group to the financial detriment of a body he represented.

There was a special meeting on 11th april 2022, we were unable to find any minutes for this published online. It is our understanding that all of the meetings and subcommittee meetings should have minutes available to members. We appreciate there may be commercially confidential information in the minutes and expect those to have redacted elements but can you please provide a copy of those minutes? and also confirm when they will be made available to members?

The special meeting on 11 April 2022 was a discussion on whether or not the Supporters Trust should invoke the Asset of Community Value we held on the old athletics track land. It was a discussion which led to a unanimous vote of all board members in favour and this was formally recorded in the minutes of the board meeting held on 14 April 2022.

In regards to the member vote for the ACV:

How many members were contacted?

How were the votes validated?

We have reported before that 275 members of 710 members were contacted by email - that is those members for whom at the time we had GDPR permission to contact.

We received 182 responses, of which 96 said they were in favour of a decision to invoke the ACV while 86 said they were not.

This was not a matter which required membership approval – invoking the ACV was simply the natural extension of a process which began back in 2017 and no view from the membership was sought at that time.

As it transpired the outcome of the poll aligned with the view the board reached some days later. The votes were collated and independently validated.

We understand the Trust's 3 million pound offer to WNC contains commercially confidential details but there has been a lot of concerns raised about this bid and the process, we'd appreciate if you could answer the following questions:

• Can you please confirm that Cilldara or any persons connected to Cilldara are not involved in the bid - commercial confidentiality would not apply to confirming a party is not involved in a deal.
• Can you confirm whether the Trust has instructed lawyers on this matter, and if so was this discussed and agreed at a board meeting or any other special meeting. If yes, please can you provide the minutes to those meetings (again happy for a redacted copy for confidentiality purposes).
• Can you please confirm that nobody involved in this offer has been involved in an insolvency event, or declared bankrupt.

As we have already publicly stated, the bid that we have placed before West Northamptonshire Council is subject to commercial confidentiality pending approval from the council.

This is not something we are entirely comfortable with but, in light of our backer’s wishes and the fact that a previous transparent partnership with Goodwill Solutions was met with distasteful interventions from certain parties, we feel this is the appropriate way forward given all the prevailing circumstances.

What we can say is that our backer fully appreciates the Trust’s mission to protect Northampton Town Football Club.

A successful bid from the Trust would guarantee the protection of the old athletics track land as an asset for the football club, providing the platform for investment benefit which will help the club move forward on a partnership basis.

The present framework deal County Developments Northampton Ltd (CDNL) has reached with West Northamptonshire Council does not guarantee the protection of this land as it could go back to the council after five years if the East Stand is not completed.

An option in favour of the council presently allows the council to buy back the freehold title of the old athletics track land for £1 if the stand remains unfinished after five years.

It means the old athletics track land - in the name of NTFC - will be fettered while the remaining land, in the name of CDNL, will be unrestricted.

Accordingly, the obligation to finish the stand will pass to NTFC. Not CDNL.

It is important for supporters to understand that when the club chairman talks about ‘we’ and ‘the club’ this is a reference to NTFC.

CDNL may be wholly owned by NTFC but they are not one and the same and the two separate entities could easily be uncoupled, with obvious consequences.

So it will be NTFC, or whoever owns the club at any point during the next five years, that will be required to find the money to finish the stand, likely increasing the debt on the football club.

Our abiding concern is that the stand will not be finished as part of the present deal and that CDNL will get the freehold to 17 acres of land at Sixfields, sell the land to a developer, have their debt repaid by NTFC and be gone.

It is a legitimate concern. True, it might not happen. But then again it might happen, presently there is scope for this to happen and protecting the club’s assets has to be integral to the purpose of the Trust.

A firm final contract commitment requiring CDNL (not NTFC) to complete the stand from any land profits in the club’s name - including legally-binding personal guarantees from David Bower and Kelvin Thomas - has to be a red line.

Apologies for the late reply, it has been a busy time. I hope you all had a good Christmas and that you enjoyed the warmer weather.

We have nothing to add to our original reply as we think the best way forward is for representatives of your group to join a meeting with the board to discuss further any questions you may have.

As I understand it, they will be seeking election to the board of the Supporters Trust at the AGM so this would be an ideal opportunity to get to know each other and for your group to find out a little more about what the Trust does and why it does it.

At our November meeting, when guests attended, we were happy to answer questions and address concerns.

And as I am sure you will recall, a meeting alternative was deemed a fair and reasonable way forward by the club's owners around this time last year when they chose not to provide detailed responses to questions we asked of them.

For reasons already explained, we will be saying nothing further about the detail of our bid for the Sixfields land at present.

If the bid is accepted by West Northamptonshire Council, we will of course bring forward a full plan and map the way forward.

We can say that all Cobblers fans should rest assured that our backer has the future of the football club very much at heart and that a successful bid will protect and guarantee a valuable land asset.

Trust members have not been put at any risk - we would never commit to any bid that did so and that failed to bring tangible benefit to the club.

Our bid builds the club asset base and will bring forward infrastructure improvements to enable greater commercial returns for the football club.

In terms of the next AGM, it has to be held before 28 February and details will of course be sent out to those members for whom we have a verified email and postal address.

Best wishes,

Andy Roberts
Chair
Northampton Town Supporters Trust