An informal meeting of Hereford shareholders took place at Edgar Street last night.
Six of the seven directors were present. Chairman Chris Ammonds took the meeting. Ten other shareholders attended.
A few figures were given out. Admittedly these were unaudited but believed pretty accurate.
The loss for the year ended May 31st was £45,000. The losses over the last four years come to £628,000.
Turnover in the year was £1,265,000.
Shareholders funds dropped to just £5,000 at the end of May but have increased since with season ticket sales and other income.
The FA Cup run, including the Portsmouth tie, brought in a net amount of £81,000. The figure was lower than thought because the club had to rearrange several league matches which were played on Tuesday evenings with lower attendances.
It was noted that earlier in the year the club was hopeful of a profit. To turn that profit into a £45,000 loss after the extra £81,000 income from the Portsmouth Cup tie shows that costs were not being controlled at that time.
Turning to the current year the Chairman was hopeful the club would return to profit. The directors were looking at a £50,000 profit.
They seemed fairly confident this could be achieved partly because attendances had very well above those expected so far. But also because the board had been cautious with their projections of attendances for the rest of the season.
Was there a plan to have another share issue to boost funds? Not at present was the reply,
Will the club publish more information about the club's finances in the future? Yes and that will include a profit and loss account.
A cost-cutting exercise by being carried out by recently returned director George Webb had already found the potential to save £30,000 per year.
There were questions about the bars and whether bringing them in house was profitable. Recently the hours of opening of some of the bars has been reduced because takings were not high enough to pay staff.
Mention was made about new floodlights. It appears that the club might be able to secure grant funding to cover the cost.
Also mentioned was the cost of water which is around £15,000 per year. There might be a case for investigating if a bore hole would be feasible. Ideally there needs to be a longer lease on the ground agreed first.
Meetings are taking place with Hereford Council to see if the lease can be extended. No agreement as yet.
Some points from the floor included a view that the three HUST directors should have been more vocal given the financial problems at the club. One of them responded saying that they had been out-voted on several occasions but had to accept decisions even when they didn't agree with them.
One of the added costs this season is the change to evening training. It costs more to hire a training pitch in the evening when there is demand than in the morning when the facilities are quiet.
At long last there may soon be news about the Blackfriars End of the ground which is not in the club's lease. Meetings are taking place to see what can be done.
More players are on contract this season. Goalkeeper Curtis Pond recently agreed a contract after it was thought there might be interest from other clubs. Basically there is an 80/20 spilt between contracted and non-contracted players.
The recent headline that the two strikers were taking up 40% of the playing budget is incorrect. Following that the club confirmed it was looking at how to pay for scans and other medical expenses. The delay when Jason Cowley needed a scan was unacceptable.
Questions were asked about the costs of running the under 18's team and the Women's team. The club admitted they needed to do work to ensure neither team was costing the club finance.
Asked why the Women's team played at Edgar Street, it was said that by starting at 2pm there would be little cost as no floodlights were expected to be needed. Also by playing the day after the first team there would not need to be any pitch work. No stewards were employed for these games.
Finally there will be cut backs on the amount of free tickets for games given out.
In essence it appears that the board feel the club's financial position is improving but they admit more needs to be done to keep costs under control.