Newcastle United Supporters Trust

We were set up under the guidance of Supporters Direct to seek to ensure that the fans of NUFC will have an increasing influence on the football club, including the possibility getting a place on the Board through share purchase. We believe that the ownership of the Club matters, and therefore we will continue to explore the possibility of fan ownership.

The answer is basically because we now have a Constitution, which brings us in line with most of the other Supporters Trusts throughout the country, affiliated to Supporters Direct. This ensures we are part of the national pressure to bring change to Football Governance. It also gives us the chance of asking our members to invest in the Trust and through that try to get a stake in NUFC.

See here for a full description of our Constitution - we are basically registered as a Society run for the benefit of its members. Membership is open to all who support the aims of the Trust on a one-person one-vote basis.

Please read our statement here

No, the legal advice we have is that current legislation would make this very difficult to achieve, particularly given the lack of security we could offer. Instead we are asking fans to invest through share purchase through the Trust. If this is successful then this should encourage other investors including Corporate Investors Banks to come forward.

We fully understand why fans felt the need to protest, but we feel that this must be developed into a long term plan to try to put the club in Community Ownership or at least under the greater influence of its fans through ownership. Protests can easily be ignored. Organised fan ownership as in Germany and Spain cannot be easily ignored.

No - we will be reverting to a new design of newsletter which will be every 2 months - the first one which will be released in September.

Following the NUST inaugural elections the following 10 people were elected to the first NUST Board:

Paul Brown-King

Lisa Bullivant

Bill Corcoran

Steve Hastie

Mark Jensen

Neil Mitchell

Tony Stephenson

Chris Tuck

Norman Watson

Colin Whittle

At the first meeting of the NUST Board the following positions were appointed; Mark Jensen as Chair, Lisa Bullivant as Vice-Chair, Paul Brown-King as Treasurer and Andrew Harrison as the NUST Secretary. Since then the NUST have been delighted to announce that Newcastle Central's MP, Chi Onwurah, agreed to be the NUST Board's first co-opted member.

Yes, the Trust intends to continue with its roadshow program. Since the inception of the Trust we have successfully held 21 roadshows all over the region. You can read about them here

If you would like to host a NUST roadshow get in touch with us by sending an email to roadshow@nust.org.uk

We will be sending out emails as soon as dates of upcoming roadshows are confirmed and the website will have all the appropriate  details as usual.

Nothing. All Board members are volunteers elected by the members, and this will always be the case. We would encourage all members to think about standing for the Board in the future, or at least contact us to offer help in any area.

Yes, the NUST is continuing to provide the Local Achievers initiative that it set up and ran so successfully last season. During the 2009/10 season NUST provided match day tickets for several individuals and organisations that the Trust felt had achieved significantly within the community in their various areas of work.

Local achievers

Click on the above link for more information about our local achievers initiative and read about the successful nominees from last season as well as and how you can nominate any “local achievers” you consider deserving of match tickets.

We do this because of our fundamental belief that NUFC is part of the local community and we should at all time seek to strengthen the links with all those who support it. There is also the danger for all clubs that young people are being priced out of support for their team, and so anything that helps to maintain their interest in the Club and football in general should be supported. It is an area that has been ignored by the Club in the past.

The reasons we charge for membership are as follows :

1. The rules of an Industrial & Provident Society means that to be a full member you have to own a fully paid up share of the Trust - these are £1 shares and each member is assigned one after they sign up.

2. Each member receives a membership pack when they sign up - this includes a certificate and membership card - this plus the postage to send them out obviously cost money.

3. We need running costs eg postage for letters / website hosting fees / Domain name fees / PO Box fees / Bulk email package fees / campaign funds etc.

All work carried out by the committee is free and no committee member is paid anything for their voluntary work

 

No, you can send a cheque with a completed application form which can be downloaded here

Alternatively the NUST is looking to provide matchday joining facilities so you can sign up on the day with cash or cheque and have your membership card and share certificate posted to you within the week. We will be publicising the matchday sign up facilities as soon as they are confirmed both on the website and via email.