WESTON-SUPER-MARE AFC CLUB STATEMENT

Weston-s-Mare AFC are very disappointed to see one of our staff publicly and personally criticised and we would ask that in future if there are any concerns relating to our staff, that they are addressed appropriately to the Clubs postal address, social media is not the place for this sort of personal challenge.

To clarify the situation, our media team have worked very hard over the last few years, most of the team work on a voluntary basis as the whole media budget per year is £1000. It was made clear from the outset that anyone involved in producing match reports could claim any money from the newspapers themselves and this money would not be due to the Club.

The Managing Director Oliver Bliss addressed this issue with all of the media team 4 weeks ago and spoke to each individual in person. Every member of the media team has received recognition for their work that they have given to the Club this year and whilst it is very hard to establish how much time each volunteer has put in to the media productions over the year, the media manager has the difficult task of deciding how this budget is best used.

The media team have done a great job over the last few years getting us to the professional level that we are at, during these years many of our volunteers have benefited from the work they do with us by obtaining jobs in similar fields and it is a great reference for them. But over the last few months, the Club has made the decision that we need to move on again and the plan will be to change the team, from a media to a marketing team. All of the media team have been invited back next year but there will also be new additions that will have the relevant skills and qualifications to market the Club as we continue to push all areas forward in the aim for promotion in the coming years.

As part of this restructuring, there will obviously be a larger budget and this budget will, therefore, be managed by the Club and there will be written confirmation for each person involved as to what they will receive and how they receive it. Each paper that we are supplying reports to, will send their payments via the Club and this will be added to the total budget.

We would like to give our full support and backing to Alan Cooper who along with the rest of the media team have worked tirelessly over the last season and deserve support and not criticism.