Hatters Heritage (Charity No. 1183061)
50 Half Moon Lane, Dunstable, Beds LU5 4AB
- Trustees Report AGM January 2023
Trustees
Roger Wash - Chairman
David Cain
David Cockfield
Philippe Hucklesby - Secretary
Andy King
John Kingham - Treasurer
Michael McMahon Brian Webb
Background and History
Hatters Heritage arose as a result of the life-long passion, inspiration and endeavour of the founder and chairman of this Charity – Roger Wash, who over more than fifty years accumulated a vast array of memorabilia, data and stories appertaining to Luton Town FC and covering the whole period since the Club’s inception in 1885.
The inaugural annual general meeting of Hatters Heritage as an Unincorporated Association was held on 18[th] April 2018. On 23[rd] April 2019 registration as a CIO Foundation Charity was approved by the Charity Commission and on 10[th] October 2019 Hatters Heritage adopted that status.
Membership is open to anyone interested in the preservation and appreciation of the heritage and history of Luton Town Football Club. The trustees oversee the day to day running of the Charity and are recruited from the ranks of participating members of the Charity. The trustees seek the views of members, in deciding the activities to be run.
Progress to date
With the help of funding from NHLF, we developed and launched in November 2020 what will become the most detailed and comprehensive football related heritage website in the UK.
Progress towards the achievement of this goal, carried out by a trained team of a dozen volunteers is already impressive: almost ninety
completed ‘seasons’ of match programmes (home and away); game action photographs, and newspaper reports have already been uploaded together with photos and profiles of every player since 1885. In addition, many videos of match action have been uploaded to the site plus items of memorabilia together with numerous features.
The website is now achieving 30000 ‘hits’ each month..
The project has also been successful in reaching out to different audiences, enabling hundreds of people to engage with the heritage of Luton Town Football Club during the time of the Covid-19 pandemic. Membership of Hatters’ Heritage is rising, 5,000 people follow the charity on social media and altogether forty volunteers are active in various roles on its behalf. The ‘Family Roadshows’ and the online ‘Hatters’ Tales’ project, have demonstrated a commitment to develop participatory activity for the club’s supporters in general and the society’s members in particular. The trustees are fully committed to engaging with its supporters and audiences into the future when it will be possible to make greater use of the dozen touring exhibition panels, designed as part of the project.
Communication with audiences, volunteers and other stakeholders has been maintained and established through newsletters, e-mail distribution and the local press and media. An excellent working relationship has been established with a number of partners, most notably Luton Town FC. The club has been willing to promote the work of Hatters’ Heritage throughout, issuing marketing materials via an e-mail distribution list to almost 30,000 supporters worldwide.
To enable the project to digitise the complete collection of 100,000 items in the next two years, the working practices of the board of trustees and the management of volunteers will be crucial. To this end, during the project, individual board members have taken on discrete roles, subcommittees have been formed and the Chairman has taken on an executive role, the better to oversee and manage the multiplicity of tasks now associated with the future wellbeing of the project. Trustee roles now include – web oversight, social media, safeguarding, financial development, marketing and volunteer support.
RW/JK January 2023
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