Blackpool Supporters' Trust column: Our generous members and building for the future

This month, we consulted our members about our proposal to support the club’s Festive Fundraiser appeal.

They were unanimous in their support and their generosity continues to know no bounds.

BST has, therefore, donated £2512.23 to the Festive Fundraiser: a marvellous gesture by our fans towards the wider community.

In terms of our mascot ballots, we are balloting for games in the second half of the season and conducted a draw for the fourth tranche of games this week.

Thanks to the success of our 1953 Sweepstake, BST is able to sponsor a mascot at every home league game this season.

It is an opportunity for young fans to meet their heroes, sit in the dugout, warm up on the pitch and have a look at what goes on behind the scenes.

The BST youth board and forum is a new initiative: so new we haven’t formally given it a name.

Its genesis lies in a global event, taking place in Brussels next month, under the banner of ‘The Future of Football’.

Fan groups are coming together to discuss how we can get more young people actively involved in how football is run.

Blackpool fan Tom Ghee will be representing us and is already helping us design our approach to greater involvement of younger people in what we do.

Our intention is to create a new body, made up of Blackpool fans in the 16-30 age range, to advise the BST committee on a range of issues.

The ultimate aims are to better represent this group in the way we do our business locally, ensure younger fans feature more prominently in the ways the club makes policies, get younger people into the habit of participating in the work that we do and contributing more widely to how football works more generally

You can find out more by emailing [email protected]

Preparation for our AGM is well underway and we will convene in the Armfield Club at lunchtime on Saturday, December 9.

We hope to see as many of you there as possible and are also looking at more regular – and far more informal – gatherings in 2024.

Activities to build the Blackpool FC fanbase of the future usually cost money and we have to fundraise if we want to thrive.

We are grateful for the generosity of our fans who are already supporting the 1953 Sweepstake.

it costs from just £5 per month to enter, with 40 per cent of what we earn paid out in monthly prizes and the other 60 per cent allocated to the various initiatives we undertake

You can sign up to the Sweepstake by visiting https://www.1953.live/

As for BST memberships, now is a good time to enrol a child in your family so that they can take part in mascot draws.

As long as you are a BST member, all they have to be is aged 11 or under.

Why stop there? Older children and adults are equally welcome in the BST family, so why not donate an annual membership as a birthday or Christmas present? Join online at https://www.blackpoolsupporterstrust.com/join-us