2017 AGM Results

The Manchester Titans American Football Club held it’s annual AGM on Sunday 30th April.  Titans General Manager Jonathan Homer gave a summary of the club’s financial position and highlights from the last 12 month, key items were:

  • Finance:
    • Summary.  The club began the year with £3656 in our bank account and ended with £2956 – a decrease in cash of £700 over the year. This cash position does not take into account our pre-committed spend – payments that will have to be paid as a result of our 2016 activities that simply have not left our bank account yet. This year, this includes an outstanding
      invoice for rent for the end of our contract with AJ Bell Stadium. The final invoice is still being negotiated.
    • Member Subscriptions.  The club has collected £18.9k in member subscriptions this year across all our teams, over £5k less than last year’s  subs collections of c. £24k. This is primarily due to a fall in numbers in our Senior Team – down from 148 players last season to 110 this year. Total subs collections for the Senior team fell from £15.8k to £10.8k – a full £5k loss.
      Our ladies team entered its second year and doubled in numbers, from 22 to 42 players in total, with many players competing in both Opal and Sapphire this year. They contributed £2.8k in subs.  Juniors and Youth teams both held steady in subs at £2.4k and £2.6k respectively, with player numbers around 60 for both teams.
       Kit. The club spent just £2.3k on kit this year, £2.1k of which was the final payment for new team shirts that all teams received last year. This amount is hugely down on the past 2 years – £14.5k in 2014/15 and £8.5k in 2013/14.  In previous years, we have been fortunate enough to receive funding in the form of sponsorship and grants to pay for new kit. Without these, we rely on surplus of player subs after essential payments have been made to fund new equipment. With subs down this year and no sponsorship secured, we have been unable to invest in new
      equipment.
    •  Key Costs.  The main reason we are here remains as being to support our teams in being able to play football! Each Game Day costs a significant amount of money, either to hire the pitch at home and pay referees and a physiotherapist, or to fund a coach to travel to away games. In 2016, Game Day costs amounted to £10.9k, with a further £1.4k going towards our league registrations, including the teams and their coaches. This is in line with the prior year.
  • New Teams:
    • The Titans have successfully launched two new teams during the past 12 months, a mixed U12 flag team is training each week out of William Hulme Grammar School, they recently played their first fixture
    • The Titans academy expanded with the creation of a second U17 team based at Our Ladys Sports Centre.  We now have over 60 registered players at U17 level with both Titans North and Titans South competing in the BAFA U17 leagues.  We recognise that have 60 players across to 5v5 teams is till too many and are working on the creation of a Titans East team based in Oldham to begin competing in 2018.
  • New Venue
    • The Titans main training base has moved from AJ Bell Stadium to Belle Vue Leisure Centre and the National Speedway Stadium.  While this represents an increase in costs it provides the club with access to better facilities in teams of training pitches, the amount of training time available, better indoor facilities and a stadium to host Adult Contact game day.  Our aim is to turn our largest expense into an opportunity to make money.  The move also gives us fantastic links with Manchester City Council and Manchester Active as well as sharing facilities with the National Basketball Association.

During the AGM, a new constitution was voted in, the new constitution will be available via the downloads section of the website, the key changes are:

  • Streamlining of the team manager positions into ‘Heads Of’ roles.  The existing 9 team manager positions have been replaced on the committee by: Head of Adult Football, Head of non-Adult Football, Head of Women’s Football and Head of Flag Football.  The team manager roles drop to sub-committee roles.

The committee roles for 2017/18 have been voted on, the club are happy to announce two new committee members in Chris Miller and Liam Twigg.  The full committee is:

General Manager: Jonathan Homer

Treasurer: Chris Miller

Secretary: Liam Twigg

Funding and Development: Liam Twigg

Head of Adult Football: James Dean

Head of non-Adult Football: Verity Brawn

Head of Women’s Football: Charlie Novak

Head of Flag Football: Rick McEwan