The CAST board recently held its first formal meeting of 2026. We welcomed Stuart Court and Jade Hannan to the board. We now have a full complement of ten elected board members: https://www.castrust.org/meet-the-board/
We unanimously reconfirmed the officers, with all willing to continue in post:
- Chair – Heather McKinlay
- Vice Chair – Heather Alderson
- Secretary – Richard Wiseman
- Treasurer – Nigel Kleinfeld
A key focus of the meeting was to discuss our strategy, priorities and approach for the coming year.
CAST Strategy & Priorities:
We agreed to maintain the same financial strategy. This means keeping a level of reserves in the region of £25K. This provides immediately accessible funds should a crisis arise and we need to seek legal and/or financial advice to protect the future of the football club. We will consequently keep our spending across the year more or less in line with our income – an approach we have achieved for the past four or five years and which has not constrained initiatives.
We agreed to provide a summary to members and the fanbase of topics covered at monthly CAST board meetings via an article on the website which we will link to on social media and message boards. This is the first example and a new approach for us undertaken very much in the spirit of openness and information sharing.
We will ask members for their views on CAST and our activities in our annual survey, including whether they would like to see a ‘meet the board’ forum to provide opportunity for members to input and feedback in a discussion space. We are inquisitive regarding why people do or don’t join CAST and what might entice more to sign-up.
We will continue to provide advice and guidance to supporter groups who seek it, whether geographic or defined by characteristic, such as CADSA and Proud Valiants. This includes encouraging the formation of new groups.
We will continue to organise online Q&A events with a range of guests from both the club where available and the wider football world.
We will continue to develop a constructive relationship with the club. We will be prepared to raise difficult issues and advocate on behalf of fans from the standpoint of “critical friend”. We will proactively identify and contribute to opportunities for the club to grow and build success. This includes:
- Encourage the club to consult with fans on heritage items, club strategy, strategic priorities, plans for further fan engagement and operational matters including ticket pricing under the legal obligations of the Football Governance Act.
- Raise awareness among fans of the CAFC Fan Engagement Plan and encourage fans to use appropriate channels to contact the club with CAST as back-up.
- Maintain pressure on the club to improve communication with fans, particularly in terms of responding to complaints / ideas.
- Propose how we might work with the club to make the SLO (Supporter Liaison Officer) role manageable and attractive with the aim of stability and empowerment of post.
- Work with the club to minimise confusion and overlap between departments – we have requested that the club shares its organisational structure and responsibilities.
- Ensure clear publicly understood distinction between the roles of CAST and the stakeholder Advisory Board, in particular that CAST represents fans both as CAST and, in conjunction with directly-elected fans Jon Whitfield and Lewis Catt, as fan representatives on the Advisory Board. Highlight the clear distinction and opportunity in having a stakeholder advisory board rather than simply a fans’ advisory board.
- Participate across all tiers of the Fan Engagement Plan, including proactively contributing to Meet the Directors and the Supporter Forum.
- Continue to work constructively with the club in a One Club manner i.e. across the Women’s Team, Men’s Team, the Academy and Charlton Athletic Community Trust.
- Continue to advise the club on ways in which it can improve fan experience operationally, both on a physical/tangible level and an emotional one.
- Continue to promote awareness of the CAFC name and experience across the local community, supplementing the CAFC Schools initiative as well as reinforcing the umbrella positioning of All Different, All Together, All Charlton.
The other focused topic of discussion at the January meeting was about creating a permanent memorial to Norman Barker. CAST now holds the funds generously raised by fans, including those from the Pompey GoFundMe, from the Charlton GoFundMe and CAST’s Crowdfunder. These are in a ring-fenced account. We have held an initial discussion with the club who are in direct contact with Norm’s family. We will be developing options over the coming weeks and will keep fans updated.
The board also spent time discussing the police approach to Charlton matches which remains a live and ongoing topic. We will provide regular updates on the website.
As ever, we welcome views, ideas, concerns regarding CAST’s approach and activity by email to secretary@castrust.org.
If you are not already one of the 2500 Addicks who are members of CAST you can join here for just £5 per year: