We have received the following press release from the Walsall Supporters’ Trust. As some have already said on the relevant threads, the letter from Nigel Bond and other events seem to suggest that the club is willing to start to build bridges with the fans. The Trust has been thinking in similar terms and this is the evidence of that.

The Walsall Supporters’ Trust has announced that their Annual General Meeting will be on the 24th May in the Saddlers Club.

There has been, in the last week or so, a most welcome initiative from Director Nigel Bond, who asked, in a letter to supporters who travelled to Gillingham, for bridges to be built between the club and the fans. The Trust wishes to reciprocate, by looking for ways to improve the relationship between the Supporter’s Trust and Walsall FC. Because of that, we will be holding a public meeting following the AGM, at 7.30, to ask (and, hopefully, find) the answers to some questions.

The Agenda?

We are here to move forward, not to dwell on what’s gone on in the past. The confrontational stance taken by some in the past has just been counter-productive, but now we should be moving forward. We should be looking at ways of working with the club, not organising demonstrations against the current regime.

To that end, the meeting will be based around finding answers to these questions:-

1. What should the Trust aim to achieve with the Club and for the fans? This needs to bear-in-mind that it is constituted to strengthen the bonds between Walsall Football Club and the local community in Walsall [the community which it serves] and to represent the interests of the community in the running of Walsall Football Club

2. How can the Trust’s relationship with the club, the Chief Executive and the owner be improved?

3. What are the ways that fans can be made aware of the Trust and become more involved?

4. Should there be separate fund raising efforts to get money for campaigns to raise awareness of issues, as well as working on getting representation on the Board? What forms of fundraising can we use?

5. Should we try to do more with the Trust website and are there enough people who would want to be involved in that?

There has been a lot of disruption and destruction during the pain of the last two seasons. Now is the time to get constructive. We are asking for as many people as possible to get to the meeting and do their bit for Walsall FC.

I can do no more than urge fans to attend.