Playing Our Part in Troubled Times
Jurgen Klopp was right when he said football was ‘unimportant’ during a crisis where we should and will be concentrating on supporting our families, communities and each other. Our own Ian Evatt said in much the same thing, rightly urging us to think of players and families and reminding us we have to ‘stick together as a football community.’
As Barrow fans and part owners of the club, sticking together partly means ensuring we have a healthy and stable club ready to kick on when the next few months have passed. We had already, before this weekend’s postponements, agreed to pay early, a proportion of the supporters’ share stake for this season, £43,000 of the £65,000 target. A brilliant achievement from our near 600 members and the wider Barrow support.
This is a combination of the Play Your Part Contributions and our own match day income. It shows what an effort we have all made so far but also the commitment of the rest of the board- their contribution to the shortfall needed through the season is the other 90%. So we have £22,000 currently left to make up. It was wonderful to see nearly £2500 of it coming in this weekend so far- that will be going in the direction of the club as soon as we can, not least if we have more postponements, which cuts income. The club will need our help but with our director we sit on the board with some good people; who have the right skills to steer us through.
Amazing Support and Ideas
So challenging times lie ahead but Barrow fans thrive in adversity and along with the club we are coming up with some great ideas to make sure we can support the club we all love, when they really need it most. We have been inundated with ideas as to what we can do to fund raise, especially with no games and there are some brilliant solutions. We have some very creative fans. More of those ideas in the days and weeks ahead but here are things that we can do now.
Contribute part of your ‘matchday costs’ and anything else you can afford to the Play Your Part initiative at https://bluebirdstrust.co.uk/play-your-part/
We will also be setting up a way to pay in monthly instalments, so keep an eye out for this in the week too.
Russ Rawley is moving online! Last night (Sunday 15th) we launched our new Russ’ Virtual Half Time Draw. We may not be in The Progression Solicitors Stadium but Russ still wants your £1 coin!
We are going to be running a half time draw for every game we have postponed until the 25th April 2020, home & away.
Tickets cost £1 each and they are valid for the next draw only. The prize is 50% of the takings! Don’t make us send our Life President around!
https://bluebirdstrust.co.uk/produc … time-draw/
Andrew Leitch’s football card empire is going Furness-wide. Anyone who wants a card to sell, or to ‘have a go on one’ please call in to the Ambrose Hotel to collect at reception, or message us on our Bluebirds Facebook page or the unofficial forum or email info@bluebirdstrust.co.uk
New merchandise is coming. With the club’s support, we will be creating an online shop of Trust and Bluebirds products that can be collected from the ground or delivered by Trust members. This should be up and running in the next 7-10 days.
Finally for now, we have the Bluebirds Lottery with a chance to win £25,000 which has some fantastic prizes! More details can be found on https://bluebirdstrust.co.uk/lottery/
Two Incredible Bluebirds
Playing your part in running a supporters trust can be a very humbling experience and none more so when you come into contact with many of the supporters of Barrow AFC and what they will do to support the Trust and the club we love. There are many examples of this- it truly is a special club.
I wanted to highlight two people in particular, from the last month or so. One them is Popular Side stalwart Mrs Joan Barnes, who with her daughter Pauline rarely misses a home game and has been watching Barrow for many years. For what I believe was a significant birthday, rather than presents, she asked guests at the celebration to contribute to Play Your Part.
The collection raised an incredible £700. Thank you so much for this, it is appreciated by all.
The second person, is Tony Lewis, who most of you know passed away recently. Tony helped a great deal with both the Trust and travel in particular. A collection was held at Tony’s funeral, where a number of Barrow fans attended. This raised an incredible £700 for Pay Your Part.
Huge thanks must go to the Lewis family but as his son Carl agreed, Tony would have been really pleased with the total as he was a great fundraiser for a number of causes. We will be putting a small plaque of thanks and remembrance for Tony, hopefully near where he stood with his friends on the West Terrace.
Weight Loss Challenge
Stu and I have lost over three stones between us as we move into the home straight- just under a fortnight to go. If you want to sponsor or donate to us losing some more of our ‘fuller figures’ please do so by clicking on the link at the bottom of this page: https://www.barrowafc.com/play-your-par … challenge/
Marmalade, Badges and PYP Rewards Update
Nigel Bamford has raised around £400 for Play Your Part by doing this! He appears to have sorted out an emergency distribution system should games not be played too. An absolutely astounding effort- thank you so much to Nige.
The exclusive Play Your Part badges are on order from a local company and will hopefully be ready around the end of the month. You can be sure when we get them, they will be out to you as soon as possible.
While we aim to get Contribution Certificates out as quickly as possible, please bear with us as your generosity over the weekend has created a bit of a backlog for Rich to work though.
Many thanks for all your continued support in helping The Bluebirds Trust help support Barrow AFC.
Look after yourselves and eachother.
All Bluebirds are Blue.
Steve Herbert
Chairman