Shrimps Trust column: We'll do all we can to gain information on ownership saga

Over the past year, the Trust has undergone a pretty big change in personnel.

We hope that you’ve been able to see the continued hard work and progress we’ve been able to make over the past months, since the summer when we welcomed a number of new trustees.

We write shortly after the fans’ forum hosted by the club earlier this week.

We are grateful to the club for arranging this during a period of uncertainty over our ownership – and it represents progress on the fan engagement plan we have been working on with the club for some time now.

Obviously, the news we are all wanting to hear is that the sale process has been completed.

While that saga unfortunately rumbles on, we hope that the extra detail and clarity that the board provided at the forum was helpful and appreciated.

On the ownership saga, we will continue to do what we can to get information from all parties involved including Jason Whittingham, the EFL and the club.

We will then share as much information as possible with fans and members to keep them abreast of the situation, as we have done over recent months.

Onto happier things and we have a very exciting FA Cup tie coming up against Chelsea.

It’s great to be able to make up for our missed visit to Stamford Bridge during the Covid season and the Trust will be offering coach travel to the game.

We have already managed to offer a great number of seats for fans travelling down and have just a few remaining on sale until January 5.

If there’s still time and availability while you’re reading this, feel free to visit our coach booking website to grab a spot.

Organising coaches is a big task and our trustees, Jack Steer and Pat Stoyles, deserve immense credit for their ongoing efforts in sorting this – particularly for the Chelsea coaches over the Christmas period.

If you’re wondering, we have indeed contacted Jason Whittingham to ask him if he will be attending Stamford Bridge – to which he has responded, confirming he will not be.

On coach travel, going forward for the rest of the season, we will be endeavouring to provide coaches to as many away games as possible but this will now be reliant on getting enough numbers.

If we do not have enough people signed up two weeks ahead of time, we will not be providing travel. We will publish our full away travel policy in the coming weeks.

A couple of final points. A question was raised at the fans’ forum about what the Trust would be doing with the funds from the ‘Save Our Shrimps’ campaign.

At present, these funds have been ringfenced and will be protected while uncertainty over the club’s ownership remains.

We will update fans and members should circumstances change and remain open to suggestions on how best to use the money when the situation at the club stabilises.

In terms of suggestions from members, please remember to contact us via email on [email protected] should you wish to get in contact with the Trust.

As for projects already funded by the Trust, we are happy to share that progress on the memorial garden is continuing.

Bad weather over the winter period has resulted in some slight delay, but we expect the project to be completed in February.

Last, but not least, we are very pleased to be able to bring about the return of Goal Cam! A big thanks to Gwion Edwards, Yann Songo’o and Jamie Stott for their contributions to it over the past few matches.

We hope you’ve all had a great festive break and look forward to seeing what Derek and the team can do this coming month, potentially with a few new additions. Up the Shrimps!