It's funny you should say that.

After the pre season "fans forum" which attracted 400, it was generally felt that was a good representation of the fans, stated so by Rule himself...... (of course we know that to be utter balls)

Which is why I think why my idea of a supporters group, going through the media and not the club, would be a more effective way of doing things at the moment.
I wouldn't want to run such a group though as I don't feel confident enough, although if one was set up (or HISA changed to something like I described) I would put myself forward to help out with it in some way

www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=69933299486

www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=69933299486

The reason HISA was set up was to meet with the club with issues the fans had, and the club did listen. My dad met with Shane Richardson, Trish Goldsmith and Adam Pearson many times, and things did get actioned and questions were answered.

The thing about bodies like HISA is that fans are only interested when something goes wrong - that isnt Karl's or HISA's fault, although keeping some sort of activity going for members may keep the awareness out there. If HISA were to be "re-formed" and requested a meeting with James Rule, or asked him to attend a question and answer forum, then at a guess, i would think he would. Why would he want to incur the wrath of the members by declining??

I agree with that above, but i feel the only answer you would get from the club is that HISA can only approach them via FC Voices.

Is that due to your "reputation" with the hull board, or say, if someone new dealt with approaches to the club they would say the same?

Which was only set up as an after-thought when Kear was given the elbow

But you don't know unless you ask!!! A change of personel and a new committee might do the trick, no disrespect to Hutchie by the way but there is a bit of baggage about, and Karl has a lot on, and a clean start might help. So who is willing to take up the baton from Hutchie?

As I said at lenght earlier in this thread FC Voices is a different animal altogether, and you should not presume that they would act as a conduit between an independant supporters club and the club itself. The club in turn would be foolish to mix the two up as well!

Funny how this only comes up when times are hard aint it?

If I thought the club were receptive and genuinely wanted to engage with the supporters, I'd love to do it. However, realistically it's not an option as I work full time, have 2 kids and live 65 miles from the KC.

TBH I think it's a really difficult job. Right now, for example, people are having a right go about the coaching staff and demanding that the club "do something". What do you do? First meeting with the club, say "we're not happy with the coach. We want you to pay him out and hire a new world class one, please." I think I'm reasonably well balanced and could probably articulate fans concerns OK, but in that scenario the response you'd get from the club would be "We've got a binding contract with Agar. We want some stability after 3 coaches in as many years. To pay him out would mean us increasing our level of debt. etc" There'd be a bit of challenging back on the fact that income would reduce anyway unless results are turned around etc, but ultimately I can't see the club would say "We've listened to the supporters and agree Agar's time is up". The report back to the fans would be the dialogue that went on, and there would then be a general bollocking of the supporters group as "toothless", a waste of time etc. It's a thankless job.

Which is why I think going through the media with concerns is better than trying to build up a relationship with the club. Even at this level, media influence can have a strong effect on a club

How do you see this working? Realistically the media as far as the club goes are Radio Humberside, KCFM and the Hull Daily Mail. Rule already does an hour a fortnight on KCFM and takes calls, some of which are quite blunt, and gives standard responses. I'm not being dismissive in any way, I'm just not sure what form the media relationship would take.

In times like these, where it seems that many fans are upset about one thing or another, I'm sure the media would love to run stories about how sections of support are unhappy. If there was a group who went to the media when the majority of its members where unhappy about something then the media would probably run it and therefore put pressure on the club. A group wouldnt then need a relationship with the club

Thanks - I could see how this would work for something like the Friday night switch, for example. Just not sure what we would go to the HDM with in the current circumstances. "Fans not happy with losing run and blame the coach and/or board". I think the club probably already gets that. Are you thinking of something like a comparison of the current squad with the 2004 one to illustrate the concerns with the board and the general weakening of the playing squad?