Welcome to Summer '24

On behalf of Nathan and the rest of the team, we thought we should bring you up to date with things that have been going on at the OSC since last summer, and confirm some thoughts as we head into our first Premier League season for 22 years.

I hope you enjoy the refresh but please do help us out too by voting to approve the new constitution, which should be available from Tuesday August 20th. (PLEASE CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THAT PAGE)

Baz

Barry Morgan-Smith, Secretary.

Much progress, but limitless potential.........

We had had a fantastic year as a supporters club, but we have only scratched the surface of our potential.

Sadly, we suffered some tragedy too. In January this year, a matter of weeks before her 90th birthday, our Patron Irene Davey passed away. We retired the position of Patron in her honour, and continue to work with her family to present the Irene Davey award annually, and to treasure her memory.

Along the way this year we have seen a number of people retire and move on to other positions. It is the nature of the type of work we do that this will happen, and we continue to try to recruit aggressively to find the right people to support the ever changing nature of the Group.

Our Chair Retires....

The summer of 2024 also marked the end of another era, with Mandy Garner announcing her retirement after a number of years on the team. Mandy succeeded Martin Swallow after his sad passing and was instrumental in supporting the regeneration and growth of the group. We wish Mandy and Peter every happiness in retirement.

A Few Highlights

One of the biggest things we did at the start of the year was to establish 5 pillars to give the team a framework of role alignment. These are, Events, Branches, Communications, IT & Branding and Developing the relationship with ITFC. All very different but this gave us some much needed shape.

Once we'd done that we rebranded, with our new logo launched in January to welcome 6 new members of the team. For the first time we had a dedicated events team, and an International and UK Branch structure with a head for each. This meant increased Branch focus and we went from 36 to 109 branches worldwide within 9 months.

With a greater focus abroad we also launched our interactive world map, It looks like is accessible from the Branches page.

In the live version you simply click on our logo on the map and another click takes you to the Facebook page or email address for the group. We love this, it puts fans together across the globe in a matter of two or three clicks

The Fanzone

Since February we had a pre game presence at all home fixtures in the Fan Zone, an opportunity to see a few friendly faces from visiting groups from the UK and Overseas. It's something we intend to keep going with so fans always know there is something they can do if they have a problem.

Events

First up this season, other than the FanZone work, is the 19m Charity walk to Portman Road on August 31st. If you want to join t.hat please email contact@itfcsupporters.co.uk

The TWTD article and details are here, and the JUST GIVING ADDRESS is below

Richard Chandler is fundraising for The Darby Rimmer MND Foundation (justgiving.com)

There will be addition pieces coming out so watch the Social Media pages carefully

VITALLY IMPORTANT

And Finally. We need some help!

One of the biggest challenges we have is actually talking directly and exclusively to our members. Our AGM tends to be attended by 15-20 locals, whilst our membership, season ticket holders and branch members, tens of thousands of you, are spread across the globe.

We are changing the way we operate, so as well as Manningtree and Felixstowe we now want, and need, the input from Massachusetts and Phuket. Do do this, our members need to back our new constitution and allow us to operate far more digitally, with an AGM thats accessible to all and a communications strategy that belongs in the present and recognises our Global presence. Like it or not, the ITFC OSC is now a Global organisation.

Please click on the link below to read and approve our new constitution. This is really important as there have been so many changes to our team and methods this year we need to get back inside a set of rule approved by you!

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THAT PAGE