The morning of the Bradford City home game, on Saturday 20 November 2004, saw the fourth Annual General Meeting of Bees United, the Brentford Supporters' Trust.

The meeting was attended by around 50 members in Stripes Bar who heard at first hand the progress Bees United have made in securing the long-term future of Brentford FC and the increasing influence that supporters have in the management of the Football Club.

The meeting was chaired by the Society's Chairman Brian Burgess who kicked off with his Annual Report. He outlined how Bees United are blazing a trail in how football club's are run. He emphasised the need to move away from the traditional "boom and bust" cycles of the past and to put the management of clubs such as Brentford on a more secure financial footing, overseen by those with the best interests of the Club's long term future at heart.

The Annnual Report was followed by the Finance Report to the year end 31 May 2004, which was given by Stephen Callen the Society's Finance Director, who holds a similar position on the Football Club Board. Highlights from the Accounts reported that income was similar to the year before income of £144,200 (v £144,807 in 2003). However, with expenditure for year reduced to £12,795 (2003: £16,545) there was an increased surplus for the Society £131,409 (2003: £128,262).

Download a copy of full Report & Account and text from Brian Burgess' report. Acrobat PDF download; Excel download. If you do not have access to Excel you can download a version here. This will download a "read only" version of the software. (I will link a version of Acrobat Reader when I can find one!)

The report also recorded that loans to Brentford Football Club have now increased to £350,000, £80,000 of which has come from the Loan Note Holders Scheme. Stephen Callen closed his report by stating that whilst the finances at the Football Club are still fragile to say the least, he was personally more confident than at any time in the last four years for the Club's long-term survival and future.

The next item on the Agenda were the results of Elections to the Bees United Board. For the background to this board elections click here. As Bruce Powell, the Bees United Secretary, was one of those seeking re-election it was left to Graham Hall – the recently elected Bees United nominated director –  to act as returning officer on behalf of the Board.

From the 1,076 papers issued, there were returns from 515 members.
The votes were as follows:

Stephen Callen 402 votes
Bruce Powell 424 votes
Jon Gosling 412 votes
Ron Cooper 212 votes

There were no spoilt papers.

With three places available on the Society Board it follows that Stephen Callen; Bruce Powell and Jon Gosling are elected to serve on the Bees United Board for a period of three years. Thanks were expressed to all those who had put their names forward for election and it was emphasised that such exercises in democracy are the lifeblood of the Supporters' Trust movement.

Moving to the Election of Auditors, thanks were given Alvis & Company (Accountants) Ltd., of Milton Road, Hampton who gave their services free of charge for the year 2003/2004. Alvis and Co were unaminously adopted for the next year.

There then followed a number of Revisions to the Rules of the Society – all of which were adopted unaminously. We hope to have a downloadable version of this document and a revised version of the constitution available soon.

There being no other business, the formal part of the meeting closed at 11.40am and the meeting was then opened out to the floor who were invited to put questions to the Bees United Board.

Not surprisingly most interest surrounded the issues of whether Bees United would be in a position to exercise the option to take control of the Football Club from Ron Noades' company, Altonwood, next May. It was pointed out that whilst there was no news to report yet, this should not be mistaken for inactivity; in fact it had been the need to concentrate on such fundamental issues that had necessitated the change of backroom management during the Summer. There is a realistic hope that Bees United would be in a position to negotiate an extension to the option agreement with Altonwood. If nothing else in the last 18 months, Bees United have demonstrated that Brentford FC can be managed within the agreed limits and have demonstrated prudent management of the Football Club.

The issue of whether Altonwood could be persuaded to accept a lower settlement figure in exchange for an early release of their guarantees on the Club's overdraft was also raised. Brian Burgess, the Chair of the Trust, replied that the Bees United board was currently considering its position with respect to exercising the option. In his personal opinion, it was necessary to formulate a specific proposal when Bees United was clear what it could put on the table. There was no point in having hypothetical negotiations.

The timescale for delivering a new stadium was raised. Brian Burgess emphasised that progress slow, painfully slow, but it is moving forward and there were still genuine grounds for optimism. At its most optimistic a new stadium would take at least four years – if we included all the usual planning processes, and this assumes there would be no subsequent planning enquiries. Construction time was reckoned to be somewhere between 18 months and two years.

The AGM closed at 12.10pm

There then followed a smaller AGM for members of the Loan Note Holders' Scheme. Click here for details of the Loan Note Scheme.

There was one item on the Agenda, to elect one of its representatives to serve on the Bees United Board. The Loan Note Holders' Scheme are entitled to three members on the Society Board and, in accordance with the rules, one member will retire each year and is entitled to see re-election in accordance with the usual rules determining eligibility to the Trust Board.

This year it was the turn of Joe Bourke to stand down; Joe was seeking re-election as a Loan Note Rep, and there being no other candidates was returned unopposed.