Chair's Report 

PENDING

John Howey 

Enrolment Officer’s Report

Whilst our membership continues to stay at a very comfortable level, there was a further drop to 502 from 566 in the season before.  There is no obvious reason for this – unless the initial enthusiasm for us regaining Premier League status is beginning to die away and members are getting blasé about it.  There is of course always a loss of people returning to the North-East, or otherwise moving away from the London area, but the number of new members last season also fell to 35 after 56 in 2008/09.  Both of these figures though are slightly misleading in that they include new family members, often registered virtually at birth, rather than fans who have come to notice of the Branch for the first time.  Whilst personal recommendation, or meeting fellow travellers on the train, remains a solid route to joining, an increasing inflow originates through the Branch website.  Type “Sunderland Supporters in London” into Google and www.weardownsouth.com is there proudly at the top of the list, with the Branch football team’s site in second place.  

We currently send “Wear Down South” to 333 households including our President and Vice-Presidents, to Radio Newcastle, the Sunderland Echo and to the “A Love Supreme” fanzine.  Of the 502 members, there are currently 264 at home and 9 overseas who receive our group email messages, a service we regard as crucial to distribute important information as quickly as possible.  There remain, however, 53 households for whom we have no other means of contact than by Royal Mail.  As internet usage expands we would hope the former figure will expand and the latter reduce.   

We must express thanks to those members, far too numerous to acknowledge individually, who added donations to their membership fees - these represented about 12% of the total membership proceeds and helped us once more to freeze our subscription, despite further increases in postage charges and printing costs.  As mentioned in the renewal letter we also used the majority of the donations last season to buy new software and a computer dedicated to maintenance of the Branch website, so achieving essential independence from the previous third party hosting we enjoyed for many years from the sadly departed Dave Hillam. 

Membership for the new season is chugging along nicely but is still not quite 50% of last season’s total so I’d be delighted to add to that percentage this evening.  On behalf of the Committee to whom they were addressed, I’d like too to put on record our appreciation for the messages of support and thanks which accompanied many renewals and which help to make us feel our efforts are not in vain. 

Ian Todd  

Website Report 

No report was presented at the AGM due to my being out of the country.

Overall I am pleased with the progress on the web site - which includes new "contact us" email addresses for the Committee, more photos and more regular updates from the sports teams.

However, I am very reliant on members for contributions and feedback to help develop it further.

We cannot currently introduce online travel payment (Pay Pal) as Tracey needs to know which

game each booking is for and this is not currently possible.

I have recently learned how to extract statistics from the web hosting company so will provide these in future.

Sue Hunter 

Treasurer’s  Report

As Treasurer of the organisation I have pleasure in producing my report on the accounts for the year ended 31 May 2010. After saying that last year would be my last as Treasurer, I was so tardy in my handover to Aidan that, in the end, I decided to do the accounts myself. This year however I will be handing over to Aidan, assuming he is still willing to be Treasurer.  Once again I would also like to thank McKenzie & Company for auditing these accounts.

As you will see from the accounts, the Branch made a profit for the year of £1,772. We do not aim to make a profit but at least it is better to make a profit than a loss.

Membership income and donations fell slightly compared to the previous year although donations are still a healthy £921. Fund raising, despite the lack of a big raffle, still made a profit of £129. As this income is primarily intended to cover the running costs of the Branch, we were in substantial profit as only three newsletters were produced in the accounting year, a reduction in costs of some £1,900 compared to the previous year. You will however notice that our costs include for the first time website expenses as a result of the launch of our website and also depreciation has reappeared as a result of the purchase of a new Branch laptop.

Socials made a small loss which was principally due to the free food at the AGM. Sales however made a profit of £482 largely due to monies received from sales at the Charlie Hurley which in error did not get accounted for in the previous year.

Sports continue to be largely self financing apart from league entry and affiliation fees which are paid for by the branch. I know it is an area of concern to team members that the costs of competing are increasing so I think we should thank all participants for representing the branch at a cost borne that is largely out of their own pockets.

I haven’t yet mentioned travel which made a loss of £588. I would have liked to look at these numbers in more detail as travel should not be making a loss but due to the need to produce my company’s accounts at the same time, I didn’t have time available to investigate fully. I suspect it may be due to a number of cheques which bounced when presented and for which Tracey and myself are too trusting in assuming that the relevant traveller sends a replacement cheque. I hold my hand up on this one and would suggest it is an area that Aidan and Tracey monitor more closely .

As last year, the bank balance continues to be healthy and whilst the debtors and creditors figures are high at the end of May they both represent monies which have now been paid in to the bank or in respect of credit card bills paid after the year end.

Should anyone have any queries I will be happy to answer any questions.

After 21 years as Treasurer I wish Aidan well in his new role.

Richie Cockton