LOFT held its Annual General Meeting on Thursday 6 December 2018, with special guests from the club Danny Macklin (CEO) and Martin Ling (Director of Football).

As well as those who attended in person, there were just over 500 views on the live stream on our Facebook account.

The meeting was chaired by LOFT's secretary Jonathan Kaye, in the absence of both the chair and vice chair through illness. The formal AGM business started off with the Chair's Report (PDF 103KB) and the Treasurer's Report on the accounts to 31 May 2018 (PDF 144KB).

The discussion moved on to the outcome of the Regeneration Fund process, as agreed at the March SGM:

• The total Regeneration Fund balance when it closed was £179,610
• The final balance of the Fund after the refund process ended is now £117,567
• Of the amounts refunded, £14,942 was given back to LOFT's general funds to spend on football community projects

The board set out its initial thinking on what football community projects to support, which members present were in favour of:

• A donation of £5,000 to the women's team, which we had hoped to be able to support last season but were unable to while the Regeneration Fund outcome was in question
• A commitment to donate around a further £3,000 next season to the women's team, subject to their funding needs
• A donation of approximately £2,000 to the Walking Football Team, to help them achieve charter standard mark status with the FA (paying for upgraded kit and to help train coaches)
• A reserve of £2,000 to help support other Trusts in crisis, the same way LOFT was supported in its time of crisis
• £2,000 to spend on a matched-funding basis towards the costs of kits for local teams (around 10 mens/boys teams and 10 womens/girls teams)
• Possible continued sponsorship of Theo's Gang, which LOFT has supported since 2005, subject to the club's future plans to relaunch this

We welcome further suggestions from members around football community projects we can support.

The meeting voted unanimously in favour of a motion re-asserting that the Regeneration Fund remains as an emergency fund, solely for the crisis scenarios as set out in the original fund mandate. The board will bring this motion back to every AGM, so that members will have a regular chance to consider if the fund should be kept for these sole purposes or whether it should be re-purposed.

The meeting then moved on to board elections. Geoff Moody had put himself forward to be elected, and was voted on unanimously. Tom Davies (vice chair), Jonathan Kaye (secretary/webmaster) and Paul Arnup (membership) had all stood down at the end of their terms as per LOFT's rules; all three were standing for re-election and were elected unanimously.

The meeting adjourned after one piece of Any Other Business, as board member Dave Knight noted in his personal capacity the clash between the sponsorship of the club by Dream Team (part of the Sun newspaper) and the fact that the Football Supporters' Federation (of which both LOFT and the Supporters Club are affiliate members) had previously passed a motion calling for a boycott of the Sun.

After a break, the meeting resumed with a Q&A session with our guests Danny Macklin and Martin Ling. Danny was returning after being our guest last year, when he had been in the job for just a few weeks, while Martin was returning after having guested on various occasions between 2004 and 2007 as manager.

The AGM and the Q&A session were live tweeted, which can be read on our Twitter account.

We'd like to thank the Supporters Club for hosting us, Danny and Martin for being our guests and engaging honestly with the questions asked, those members who came along and the hundreds who 'tuned in' to the live stream.