RAWA Minutes from RAWA/Club Meeting.

GG makes a perfectly valid point on which against which a pair of posters leap to an erratic and frantic defence which I suspect could mean he's proved his point and hit a nerve or two.

I'm with Hank, I'm 60 years old and followed the club since I was 7 and never heard of BLC. We near 2020 and the world is all now about 'communication' a measure from this thread we could conclude they have failed to achieve beyond their own borders at all successfully.

So while BLC may have served their members niche interests behind the scenes admirably they have not provided this overseas supporter with any voice or insight and therefore they can not be said to have represented the wider range of views of us all, GG is right, room for both but with RAWA at the head table.
 


They could ask questions if they are branch members, which most aren't. They could have joined a branch but shouldn't have needed to just in order to be able to ask a question. And people shouldn't have had to know when minutes were released and Google them to find them (and we've only found one set of minutes that way to be fair, where's the rest?). Anyway, we've both made our point, RAWA definitely communicate well and clearly release the minutes and let anyone ask questions, so I think it's for the best that they keep doing the meetings at the minute. If the BLC take over again hopefully they'll take on some of the good bits RAWA have done and then everyone will be happy. I think you've got your own reasons for not liking RAWA mind; not saying you're wrong (I know you've had a question which doesn't seem to have been addressed which I agree is wrong/ actually a bit of a disgrace) but when I'm being accused of bitterness I don't think it's me with an axe to grind one way or the other
I have no problem with RAWA?? The rep said my question was asked at the meeting. Its the club I have an issue with
 
Definitely agree to disagree on this but out of interest why are you just highlighting the mailing list bit? Are you trying to suggest I'm biased in favour of RAWA because I gave them my email address? I just want updates etc regarding the club. If the BLC were going to start doing the same job and were going to communicate to anyone who was interested I'd join their mailing list as well!

He’s a nugget mate, don’t bother with him. Brains of a rocking horse
The BLC minutes could be found online in two mins. Google BLC Sunderland minutes. Granted they are from 2017 but that could be clubs fault as we've seen with RAWA how the club drag their feet to agree them

Haway mate, nigh on 3 years with no updates.
Not fit for purpose would be my opinion.
 
Last edited:
He’s a nugget mate, don’t bother with him. Brains of a rocking horse


Haway mate, nigh on 3 years with no updates.
Not fit for purpose would be my opinion.
I've no idea, they may well be, that wasn't my point. But if people weren't happy then they could have attended meetings themselves after joining branches etc..

Dont both BLC and RAWA attend the meetings with the club now?
 
I've no idea, they may well be, that wasn't my point. But if people weren't happy then they could have attended meetings themselves after joining branches etc..

Dont both BLC and RAWA attend the meetings with the club now?

The main structured one is just RAWA now as far as I know, but I believe there is a BLC rep in RAWA so they get access to ask questions that way, along with all the other groups of fans who aren't in a branch. They might do non-compulsory meetings separately with the BLC (and I hope they do, the now engagement with the more groups the better). Hope they eventually manage to sort your issue by the way mate, been following your updates/ understandable frustrations on here and it's shocking that they haven't resolved it yet
 
You may think he was ignorant but how many people currently #donaldout were desparate to have their picture taken with him back in the day , he is well skilled at pr , we lapped it up
there is no denying that mate..Some on here were warned...at lot, myself included, saw it has a chance to put something back into our club that we never had the chance to before (The seats being one action). I never had the opportunity to have a picture taken with him ,mainly because I dont like pictures but I 've talked to him a few times now and I came away from every talk we had as wary, just too good to be true. I'd Trust Ellis Short over this fella.
 
Who are BLC?

Just scanned back a bit here but I'm none the wiser.

The Branch Liaison Committee. Basically a group of reps from the various branches who, prior to RAWA doing it, used to attend all the fan engagement meetings with the club. As this thread that shown though, many fans didn't even know they existed, never mind knowing what they did, when they were meeting the club or where the minutes were!
 
What a ridiculous post.

I'm not bitter at all. I only brought up the BLC and why people would rather the meetings were done by RAWA because you f***ing asked! I have no issue with the BLC or with them representing their members, but don't feel they're the best group to have sole contact with the club since so many fans aren't branch members and thus aren't represented by them. There is, iirc, a BLC rep on RAWA, so surely that's the best of both worlds? They have representation along with all other fans. How can you be twisting that, and the fact I think a meeting is only really worthwhile when the group clearly produces and communicates the minutes, into a bad thing?

I've never said I speak for all normal fans. I've said RAWA are nearer to doing so than the BLC since they make it so easy to communicate with them.

I have no interest whatsoever in being elected onto the RAWA board. If I did I'd have put myself up for the vote when they were deciding the SMB rep. I wouldn't have been able to get to a lot of the meetings etc so it wouldn't have been fair. I'd rather let the best person do it which is why I'm pleased that the SMB rep we've got does such a good job. I'm just glad that now any of us can easily message him and ask him to bring something up with wasn't possible before for non branch members.

Not sure why you're trying to make this into some sort of an argument. You asked why people had an issue with BLC doing the meeting. I mentioned it's because people didn't feel represented by them unless they were in a branch, didn't feel they could raise issues easily and minutes were incredibly hard to find and not even published online. A simple question and a simple answer but you are turning it into me being "bitter" simply because you like a couple of people in the BLC. I'm sure they do a great job for their members, I travel away with a couple of branches and think they do a cracking job for fans in their area. I don't think the BLC was the right group for attending meetings, that's it

This is not a particular retort to this post, more of an addendum, since it might clear the air about where myself and @Guinness Guzzler are coming from

The point of the liaison meting is that it's attended by a number of groups - it's not just the BLC, it's not just RAWA. If you look at the minutes, you'll see there are about six groups represented. This is healthy. The risk now is that the club will retrench are revert to meeting only with the BLC again. These meetings need to be able to represent the views of the widest possible cross-section of our fans. They can't and won't do that if the club only meets the BLC. I never intended or wanted to be interpreted as making an ad hominem attack on the BLC representatives. They are decent people who work hard getting people to games and representing their members. However, that is their primary concern, and they can give the impression that it's their only concern (it may not be intended, but it can come across that way). I believe strongly that we need to continue to have a wide range of views represented, even when, or perhaps especially when, those views may be unpalatable to the club or its owners. I've said before, that the role of RAWA is to be a critical friend to the club. A critical friend will let you know when you're being a twat, whether you like it or not.
The main structured one is just RAWA now as far as I know, but I believe there is a BLC rep in RAWA so they get access to ask questions that way, along with all the other groups of fans who aren't in a branch. They might do non-compulsory meetings separately with the BLC (and I hope they do, the now engagement with the more groups the better). Hope they eventually manage to sort your issue by the way mate, been following your updates/ understandable frustrations on here and it's shocking that they haven't resolved it yet

it's not. It's attended by representative of half a dozen or so groups. It's that diversity and breadth of contact that I want to see maintained. I value the work that the BLC does, but I don't feel that when they alone met the club the views and interests of supporters who weren't branch members (or, as is apparent from this thread, didn't even know it existed) were represented. I don't think that's healthy, and I don't think we'd want to go back to that.
 
Last edited:
there is no denying that mate..Some on here were warned...at lot, myself included, saw it has a chance to put something back into our club that we never had the chance to before (The seats being one action). I never had the opportunity to have a picture taken with him ,mainly because I dont like pictures but I 've talked to him a few times now and I came away from every talk we had as wary, just too good to be true. I'd Trust Ellis Short over this fella.
They are good at what they do , pr, they did a good job for the majority of last season and had the fans on board mostly. I think we should have pissed it last season possibly ross was to blame for not being more attacking . Barring a miracle in the next 3 games pp has to go , we cant afford to waste January and can you trust him with transfer funds , be interesting today if we go a goal down
 
This is not a particular retort to this post, more of an addendum, since it might clear the air about where myself and @Guinness Guzzler are coming from

The point of the liaison meting is that it's attended by a number of groups - it's not just the BLC, it's not just RAWA. If you look at the minutes, you'll see there are about six groups represented. This is healthy. The risk now is that the club will retrench are revert to meeting only with the BLC again. These meetings need to be able to represent the views of the widest possible cross-section of our fans. They can't and won't do that if the club only meets the BLC. I never intended or wanted to be interpreted as making an ad hominem attack on the BLC representatives. They are decent people who work hard getting people to games and representing their members. However, that is their primary concern, and they can give the impression that it's their only concern (it may not be intended, but it can come across that way). I believe strongly that we need to continue to have a wide range of views represented, even when, or perhaps especially when, those views may be unpalatable to the club or its owners. I've said before, that the role of RAWA is to be a critical friend to the club. A critical friend will let you know when you're being a twat, whether you like it or not.


it's not. It's attended by representative of half a dozen or so groups. It's that diversity and breadth of contact that I want to see maintained. I value the work that the BLC does, but I don't feel that when they alone met the club the views and interests of supporters who weren't branch members (or, as is apparent from this thread, didn't even know it existed) were represented. I don't think that's healthy, and I don't think we'd want to go back to that.

I stand corrected mate. For some reason I thought it was just RAWA now but that others were represented due to having a presence within RAWA (BLC rep, SMB rep, LGBTQ rep and so on). You're right though, we need as much representation as possible and, as you also say, the BLC are (naturally!) primarily concerned with issues affecting their branches which is why I believe we also need RAWA at the meetings to represent the many non branch members. I also fully echo your comments about the people running branches, they do a thankless task trying to get people to games, trying to run buses with people dropping out last minute, trying to organise social events to raise funds etc. and they do a great job for a lot of fans

Maybe the lack of well communicated minutes was more due to the people involved (generally older, probably less reliant on issuing everything online compared to many in RAWA) rather than any complacency or reluctance to put them out there. I've got no axe to grind with the BLC but the lad asked why some want RAWA doing it as opposed to it just being the BLC and the reasons given are the answer. Naturally if there's a few groups currently attending then that's obviously the best option and we just need to hope the club stick to it even when they're facing criticism. If the club demand to go back to just meeting the BLC then I hope they provide an open forum for members and non members alike to raise issues and clearly communicate the minutes, and fight the corner of the fans. Do that and no one will have any issue
 
NF agreed that recent performances have been disappointing and when appointing the new manager, SAFC probably spoke to everyone who has been mentioned in press but, for whatever reason, did not want to come

Looks like confirmation that Parkinson wasn't first choice. Maybe that story about them f***ing Ainsworth about over money and being told to do one has some merit?

Having just read the minutes, it suggests no one else wanted the job? Therefore we had no choice to appoint PP?
 
Apart from Phillips who publicly stated he wanted the job. Oh and all the other people who applied for the job etc

It is not my opinion that no one wanted the job, but the minutes suggest that they did consider most of the individuals that were linked to the vacancy, no one would come.
 

Back
Top