Introduction

The owners are able to report that since the last meeting the Club has again remained in League One and relegation was avoided.

Last season we qualified for the 4^th round of the FA Cup and that additional income really helped the club finances and to reduce the deficit. However, this season we failed to make it past the 1^st round of the FA Cup and JPT competition. This is of great financial concern. As a whole the Club has continued to make progress along the lines we expect after bringing in so many new players this season.We believe we are in a position to remain in League One based on the players we have in place and are ready for a play-off place if given the opportunity and make full use of all our resources.

As we have said before gradual progress throughout the Club is, we believe, the key to long term success, however the current economic climate will greatly restrict spending on players, the football department in general and club facilities.

The Club again continues to take an active part in the community and supporting "good causes", details of which will be presented later in the meeting, and we believe this continues to benefit the Club and the town.

Despite still failing to progress the ground purchase issue the owners again decided not to put planned projects on hold and have continued to make improvements to all areas of the Club at substantial financial cost. However, this cannot continue and the Council need to realise the owners do not have unlimited patience or can have their hands tied to certain commitments in any agreed way forward to resolve the impasse.

Financial (2008)

Turnover increased to £3.3 million in 2008 (an increase of 35%) which was primarily due to increased sponsorship.Gate receipts fell but Football League distributionsincreased.

The Players' wage costs remained relatively static, increasing slightly from £2.2 million to £2.3 million.

Overall the Club made an operating loss before Depreciation of Fixed Assets and Amortisation of Players' Contracts of £1.1 million compared to an operating loss in 2007 of £1.8 million.

The Club remains reliant on the support of its Parent Company, Increased Oil Recovery Ltd, who provided a further £1.1million in 2008 taking its total investment to in excess of £10 million of funding since becoming involved with the Club.

Football Management and Playing Squad

The end of season 2008 - 2009 was another interesting (but concerning at times …) end of season finish with the object of staying in the league obtained.

Chris Turner, Colin West and the players' commitment helped steer the Club away from possible relegation.

During the summer there were considerable changes to the playing squad with the long term plan being to re-build the squad particularly using "younger" players. However we expect existing players to play their part to the full and we continue to try and develop our youth players to their maximum potential.

The amount by which HUFC exceed the recommended Salary Capping percentage is currently 29%.(19% over the recommendation of 10% which is used in League Two).

The Youth Team is progressing under the guidance of Micky Barron but with mixed results last season. However, this season they have had some good results and also reached the 4^th round of the FA Youth Cup.

A Youth Team was sent to Sweden this year and once again did the Club proud and the young players gained valuable experience. We are reviewing a possible return to Northern Ireland in 2010 but the Youth Department will need dedicated sponsorship.

We have now identified what we need when recruiting young players in order to benefit the future first team and Chris and Colin will continue to focus and request this from the Youth Development Department.

Player Acquisition from January 2009

New Signings

Neil Austin (July)
Denis Behan (July)
Armann Bjornsson (September)
Adam Boyd (July)
Scott Flinders (July)
Jon Andre Fredriksen (July)
Billy Greulich (August)
Peter Hartley (July)
Steve Haslam (August)
Colin Larkin (August)
Leon McSweeney (June)

New Contracts

Gary Liddle
Michael Mackay
Andy Monkhouse

Contract Options Exercised by the Club

Ritchie Jones
Matty Tymon

Player Disposals from January 2009

Willie Boland - Free Transfer
Jan Budtz - Free Transfer
Arran Lee-Barratt - Free Transfer
Jamie McCunnie - Free Transfer
Michael Nelson - Refused offer (signed for Norwich City)
Joel Porter - Refused offer (returned to Australia)
Matty Robson - Refused offer (signed for Carlisle United)
Joe Tait - Free Transfer
Martin Young - Free Transfer

Loan Players (in) from January 2009

Keigan Parker Two month loan from Huddersfield Town (Season 08/09)

Lewis Guy One month loan from Doncaster (Season 08/09)

Liam Henderson Three month loan from Watford (Season 08/09)

Daniel Nardiello Three month loan from Blackpool (Season 08/09)

Joe Skarz One month loan from Huddersfield Town (Season 08/09)

Loan Players (out)

Jan Budtz On loan (1 month) to Oldham (Season 08/09)

David Foley On loan (1 month) to Barrow AFC (Season 09/10)

Matty Tymon On loan (2 month) to Newcastle Blue Star (Season 08/09)

Matty Tymon On loan (1 month) to Whitby Town (Season 09/10)

Michael Mackay On loan (5 months) to Gateshead (Season 09/10)

For the benefit of their further development a number of scholars have attended work experience placements at various local non-league football clubs.

Sources of Income

As noted at previous AGMs, the Club depends heavily on major contributions from the owners IOR. We also have major income from corporate/hospitality entertaining and other events held at the Club. Sponsorship is down this season (2009 - 2010) and gate attendances are not as promising as we would like despite freezing all ticket prices and making some special offers on season tickets. Less than 3,500 home supporters at the recent home games is disappointing. (Less than 3,000 HUFC fans at Saturday's game against Millwall). This is of concern and does not bode well for the future. However, we thank everyone for their support and efforts. The Club's Youth Department is always under-funded by the authorities and the Club has to inject substantial funds. As previously mentioned involvement of other oil and related companies who give excellent sponsorship is very important and we must never forget that side of HUFC's business income stream.

Commercial

Off the field last season has once again been a very busy one despite the recessionary times in which we find ourselves. A big plus for us at the Club is that the majority of the hospitality and sponsorship packages had been sold in the close season, and this would take us up to May before the recession hit us. The hospitality has once again been very popular, although many companies here this year have cut back on attendance. We managed to source alternative companies to take up on our executive matchday hospitality and for season 2009-2010 we are sold out in the executive boxes until the end of March.

We were aware of the difficult times that we had to face this season but we have endeavoured to maintain the high standard of service and value within our matchday hospitality and hopefully we will end the season having sold all of our packages. We now have an extensive range of executive hospitality on offer and can now cater for almost 400 guests on matchdays and we are now looking to utilise the new Centenary Suite for other related functions on matchdays.

One aspect of the Commercial Department which suffered this year was the advertising side but we realise that companies have cut back on their budgets, so we have once again been innovative and offered new forms of sponsorship/advertising which has been received positively by our sponsors old and new. One of the innovative ways in selling our advertising has been to introduce pro-active marketing in which the sponsor hopefully sees a return for his investment. The feedback from many of our new partners has been very encouraging to say the least.We have introduced many new companies to the Club this year and also offered fans incentives to use the companies involved, this benefits all parties, the Club, the Sponsor and the Fans.

One important aspect for the Club last season was the tremendous FA Cup run which culminated in a dream tie at home to Premiership West Ham. The bonus of this tie was the income from the TV monies, not only the actual TV money but also the ancillary advertising spin offs. If only we could guarantee just one of these games per season, things would look much better financially. One thing that came across very loud and clear during the visit of TV for this game was the very complimentary comments from everyone at ITV about the professionalism of the Club and the excellent facilities we have on offer at Victoria Park. Hopefully they will have been so impressed they may want to return.

Community Club

A large chunk of commercial income over the past year has come from non-matchday revenue streams. We identified this some time ago as the way forward for our Club. IOR have invested heavily in our excellent Conference & Meeting Facilities. The Club is now being used daily by such a diverse group of visitors and corporate clients who are holding regular conferences and seminars at the Club. We have introduced many new groups and parties to the Club and are working closely with our local PCT (Primary Care Trust), Council, Police and Recruitment Agencies in utilising every aspect of the ground.Many groups from the Lung Foundation, Driver Awareness, Safety Group, Walking Club, Council Departments and Children's Clubs can be seen around the stadium on a daily basis. These are further steps of developing this Club into a full Community Club and we will work towards attracting even more groups into using the facility in the months to come.

We are working closely with the recently formed HUCSF, our charitable Community Sports Foundation and not only are we sourcing grant funding through this scheme, we are also attracting many new groups and national authorities to our Club. We need to make this Football Club a 24/7 operation if we are to survive and the signs are very encouraging that we are heading in the right direction.

Weddings

This year we have had our first wedding at Victoria Park having obtained a wedding license for the Club during the summer and again, this is another source of non-matchday income generation. The Club is being used for other functions including birthdays, christenings and after funeral events. The next wedding is scheduled for April 2010.

All the above community work at the Club is now becoming a major frontline at Victoria Park and we are very proud of our player involvement within all these projects. Our players work on a rota basis and each one of them contributes greatly to all aspects of community work. Some of these initiatives have been taken on board by the Football League and they are now implementing the ideas within other Football Clubs.

During the summer break we continued to enhance the facilities here at Victoria Park. The new kitchen and Radio Station were projects which were taken on board even during the recession. The Victoria Lounge also underwent a major facelift, all proving that our owners are fully committed to the progress of our Club.

Club Shop / Ticket Office

The Club shop continues to do well and is run on behalf of the Club by Just Sport / Nike. This enables the commercial department to be free to focus on other income sources. The Club receives a percentage of the shop profits.The ticket office still offers for sale programmes, books, (there is a very good one on sale at present!), calendars, team posters and other HUFC non-clothing items.

Scoreboard

The take up for advertising on the board has been very encouraging and it enables the club to offer even more advertising opportunities to both local and national companies.

Pools Study Support Centre (PSSC) / Playing for Success (PfS)

During its fifth full year of being at Victoria Park, the Pools Study Support Centre has built on its past successes and the relationships created over that time. Once again the Centre has achieved its aims of enhancing pupils' education in Hartlepool through the provision of exciting courses based at the football club. The Centre has this year been recognised for its outstanding performance and has been awarded the next level of the 'Quality in Study Support' kite-mark.

The Playing for Success scheme remains the flagship of the Centre and has again engaged with over 300 pupils from 21 different schools in the town. Each Hartlepool school has now taken part in PfS at least three times, bringing children from right across the town to Victoria Park. Existing courses have been complimented by new projects and the Centre is busier than ever.Collaborations with Hartlepool United Community Sports Foundation have been a big plus for the Centre this year with the 'Communicating for Success' scheme delivered as a joint venture. CfS gave 12 children and their parents/grandparents the chance to take part in family learning and fitness sessions at Victoria Park over six weeks in the summer. The Centre has also been the host for a group of GCSE Business Studies students who have investigated how HUFC runs as an organisation.This was done with the full support of Club staff. Once again the playing staff have been on hand to make regular visits to the classroom and attend Presentation events.This greatly enhances the experience of the children accessing the Centre.

The centre has developed its facilities this year with the creation of a high-tech studio for recording and editing audio work. The kitchen in the Victoria Lounge was also refurbished to create the opportunity to run food technology courses with pupils and deliver the all important healthy food and lifestyles message to young people. Both these areas have already been put to good use in the Pools Summer School and will host a range of projects in the coming months.

The Centre remains an integral part of the football club even on match days with the hiring of a hospitality box and the use of complimentary match tickets to give every Playing for Success pupil the chance to attend a home game. The Centre has also joined forces with the FE College to run the Pools Café on match days, preparing and selling healthy food to fans.

Hartlepool United embraces the Playing for Success scheme and fully supports the running and ideals of the Study Support Centre. HUFC remain a key partner in the education of the Town's young people and have outlined that commitment in the past year's activity.

MEDIA

Website

The Club's successful and popular Official Website continues to deliver up-to-the-minute news direct from Victoria Park. Fans have now been educated to the fact that unless they see a news story posted on the Official Website then they should not fully believe it.

As well as being first with all the major stories from The Vic, we have also attempted once again to up the quality on offer on the site and have incorporated several new features.

Perhaps the most popular of the new introductions has been Behan's Blog which sees our summer signing Denis Behan give his views to us in a diary-style feature every fortnight. The feature has already attracted good interest from supporters and Denis also answers any questions they send in for him which adds a good interactivity to our site.

Also re-introduced was the Ask Chris section, which allows supporters to send in their questions to the Director of Sport. We get his answers and publish them on the site, which obviously has proved very popular with readers.

This season has also seen us make a more concentrated effort to highlight the work which Hartlepool United's players and staff do in the local community. It is estimated that during the course of the season, the Club will have collectively made around 200 community visits and it is our aim to ensure as many as possible are given coverage.

Football League Interactive continue to drive the network of Official Club Websites forward and are confident of sustained growth throughout 2010. New developments and testing are always ongoing at Perform (the network's service provider) and Hartlepool United is more often than not used to help with this testing given our good reputation across network.

Pools Player (formerly Pools World)

Having been in existence since 2002, the Club's official premium content service has undergone a rebrand during the summer and is now known as Pools Player.

We believe the re-brand to have been a big success in keeping hold of existing subscribers and in the efforts to attract new ones, especially in the face of such stiff competition with BBC securing rights to broadcast match highlights online.

In an effort to compete against the "regular" highlights package that the BBC upload which usually shows only goals, we have begun putting in extra hours to produce Extended Highlights - often up to fifteen or twenty minutes in duration.

As well as that we have increased the amount of video features we place on the site and also begun providing highlights from our Reserve games and some Youth Team fixtures.

We also continue to provide our own live commentary on every game, home and away, and often use 'spare' players as special guest analysts and take emails from listeners during the broadcasts.

We are confident that the extra work and quality provided on the Pools Player platform (which is now available in near DVD-quality widescreen) will attract an increasing number of subscribers as the season develops to its conclusion.

It is a big income-driver for the Club and, as such, we continue to advertise it both online and offline, whilst ensuring that the content on offer is fresh and unique.

The Pools Player package can cost as little as £34.99 for an annual subscription, though you can pay monthly by Direct Debit for the price of £3.99.It can work out as little as 10p a day to subscribe to the service.

Perform and FLi are also constantly working together to come up with special offers to help drive subscriptions - in October they offered a week-long trial for 99p which saw sign-ups climb steadily.

Hartlepool United Community Sports Foundation

The new Charity offers a wide and varied programme throughout the year engaging people in sport, social inclusion, education and health while establishing good links with local organisations in the community.

HUCSF has been successful in applying to the FLT Pilot Scheme Fit for Football which will run in ten local schools offering five weeks coaching and incorporating, healthy living and no smoking campaign. Staff enrolled on a course with Lincolnshire Council in November as part of the training and will deliver in schools after the Christmas holiday period.

PFS and HUCSF have been successful in applying to BT Communications to run a pilot project called Communicating for Success. The project offered six weeks coaching and six weeks computer skills working with 12 parents and 12 children from Clavering and West View Primary Schools. HUCSF delivered SAQ and invasion games promoting communication and encouraging a healthy living lifestyle utilising heart rate monitors to assess fitness levels. PFS delivered computer skills and cooking sessions with participants designing a website for their recipes.

In a promotion with Nicotinell and SBC Stop Smoking Service HUCSF promoted a number of stop smoking sessions. In conjunction with the Stop Smoking campaign the scheme has been successful in using match funding from Nicotinell Prize Fund for community activities and the FLT Discretionary Fund to secure a three year post for an Education Officer to be based at the Club. The new post will develop the Centenary Walk promoting 100 years history of Hartlepool and implement a history programme and museum based at HUFC. The post will also allow the scheme to apply for Silver status as it will now provide a themed officer which complies with the FLT guidelines.

A 40 week Exercise and Walking programme for 50 years plus is currently based in the Victoria Lounge and we are seeking referrals from Age Concern, Weight Management and HBC to increase participation.

An Every Player Count application has been successful which will create a 20 hour Disability post for three years. The joint application with Darlington FC and Durham County FA will help to expand and offer more activities for disabled people, providing regular coaching and developing more teams.

The Duke of Edinburgh's Award and the Football League Trust have launched a ground breaking national partnership to inspire, enthuse and motivate young people to achieve through the power of football across England and Wales. Hartlepool and sixteen other successful clubs will work with the D of E this year to implement the project. It will challenge the negative stereotypes of young people in the media, society, and support young people in their self-development so they can achieve their potential. Participants of the D of E have recently delivered a 20 minute SAQ session at St Hilds School as part of a Royal visit from Prince Edward, (which Russ Green attended on behalf of HUFC). This proved successful in highlighting the D of E programme at HUCSF and 17 young people who have recently completed their Qualifying Expedition in the Peak District.

Customer Charter

Hartlepool United continues to strive to improve our Customer Service and our latest Customer Charter has been updated and copies are available from the Club and on the website and, as always, we welcome any feedback.

The Future

A review of the Club's latest publication covering the last 100 years no doubt predicts the future. The Club has had its highs and lows (too many) and no doubt that trend will continue for the next 100 years. However, we are always keen to focus on the highs or at least the potential to achieve them. To do that we need everyone's support both by way of attending games and helping in other financial ways. We need the support of the community and the Council and, of course, we need the consistency of decision making by the FA, FL and referees!

Enjoy the future - whatever it holds.

Ken Hodcroft
Chairman
Hartlepool United Football Club

9 December 2009

[Club departments, Commercial, HUCSF, PSSC, Poolsplayer, Club News, Shop, Ticket Office, Bet on-line and full commentary (The Match Live) are to be found here on hartlepoolunited.co.uk