Minutes

Meeting: CDSA meeting

Date: Tuesday, 11^th August 2009

Present: Diane Broom, Vanessa Nicholson, Graham Smith, Matthew Law,
Cindy Albright, Kevin O’Donoghue, Jamie Polk, Garry Hatt

Apologies:

No.	ITEM	ACTION
1	Minutes of previous meeting. · CD Program - ongoing, we are still awaiting information. Also getting information from other clubs who currently offer this service. · Advertising of CDSA, the only place we did not advertise was on the Season Ticket letter, this was due to the letters being printed before last meeting. Goes out on all rota letters received with their tickets, match members with their membership card and also on the website. Currently have 65 members who have signed onto receiving CDSA emails. · Poll details will be discussed in agenda · Shed Lower disabled away stand. The three on the platform are fine, as they now have their carer in front of them. We also have signs on the back of the seat for fans to be aware that standing impairs the view of the disabled fans behind them. And we are also getting TVs installed. As we’re an old stand we can not do any physical work. It’s only if the club request additional non-ambulant seating that the disabled fans view is impaired. A recommendation of a temporary raised platform, the problem we have it’s a very narrow area.	DB
2	Matters Arising.
3	Point 15 of meeting 07/04/08 – have Chelsea FC received a reply form UEFA about disabled tickets. We have representatives which go out and the information is being received on the allocation of disabled and non-disabled at the same time.
4	Outcome of conversations with Thomas Cook Sport about European away disabled travel. PAs will not receive free travel. However disabled supporters will not have to pay any additional fees for transfers if they are not able to go on the coach. A vehicle which is accessible will be provided where possible as part of the package purchased without additional transport costs involved for the disabled supporter.
5	Email confirmations to be sent with teamcards and ticket purchase. Also can disabled members get an option to collect team cards at box office. Membership cards are done in Bulk and therefore we are not able to send email confirmations of when they are being sent out, disabled members are part of the True Blue scheme, thus they receive there cards as soon as they are printed. We have started to send confirmation emails this season once tickets have been processed, and if people are unsuccessful we reply via email or post depending on how they sent their application form in, informing them they were unsuccessful.
6	Away Allocation Poll results Poll Results · Disabled season ticket holders to have preference (current scheme) – 14 VOTES · 50% Disabled season ticket holders : 50% Disabled members – 12 VOTES · 60% Disabled season ticket holders : 40% Disabled members – 3 VOTES · Match members to have preference – 32 VOTES · Rota members to have preference – 2 VOTES Season tickets still want preference. But the Poll is not secure as people are able to vote more then once. New poll will be done, only giving two options. Changes for the next season’s policy will be discussed in the following meeting.	ML
7	New Disabled Season Tickets Since asking all disabled season ticket holders to provide proof of disability, we had 13 disabled season ticket holders not renew for various reasons, illness, not longer qualifying. Some disabled season ticket holders opted to purchase their seats so that they could pass them on. Thus, we now have 13 new disabled season ticket holders. We had very positive feedback from season ticket holders, who have welcomed the checks on proof of disability. We have decided that we will continue with this practice and be asking members/season ticket holders to provide proof each season.
8	Match Program CD Update Covered in above
9	Segregation at the FA Cup Final Middle Tier at Wembley will always be mixed. The seats are not part of the Chelsea allocation and the boxes belong to Club Wembley they can give to whoever they wish. There is also a soft segregation at Wembley of the FA tickets in the centre lots of which were taken up McDonalds, the sponsors. Any away fans in the Chelsea end have only obtained tickets through seats being sold on by Chelsea members. All seats where this occurred have been looked into, and members suspended.
10	Early email ticket applications As we have many people who send applications in early who have special requests as they are away or have appointment in the morning and want to ensure they receive a ticket, we have to be very strict. We work on a strict first come first serve policy and do not accept any early application. We offer members an opportunity to apply via fax, email or post, we also only start applications at 9am and not 7am as the non-disabled as we appreciate that some of our supporters need to wait for carers and sometimes require more time getting ready in the mornings. If members have prior arrangement in the morning/on the day we do recommend sending in a postal application the day before sale, first class. If none of the above three methods are viable, we will discuss an alternative arrangement in advance with members on an individual basis that coincides with the policy.

11	Non-ambulant members are pushing wheelchairs forward and using the seats for bags which is impairing the view of other supporters. Non-ambulant members are pushing there wheelchairs slightly forward, and instead of pushing there chairs against the seats, they are putting their bags on the seats. This should not be happening, and we will have a word and ensure stewards ask people to move backward to avoid other members’ view being impaired. Also, it was mentioned that in the East Lower, stewards were sitting on the little wall and not on the chairs provided, impairing supporters view. We will have the stewards briefed on this.	DB
12	Other Business New Disabled Membership There was a note put on the website saying that members needed to contact us as of Monday the 3^rd of August in order for us to send them out disabled membership application form. Everybody who requested a form had one sent. We sent 180 disabled membership forms. There was some confusion over the wording on the website as to when disabled memberships became available, the wording will be even more simplified in future to avoid confusion Passing on of Disabled Season Ticket Seats As per the policy, disabled season tickets holders are not able to pass tickets on, even to Chelsea disabled supporters. Disabled season ticket holders need to inform Chelsea if they are not attending a game and the tickets will allocated to members on the rota scheme who opted to be contacted if we had any returns. Disabled season tickets not returned but which are unused on a match day will result in the potential loss of their disable season TeamCard.