Welcome to the 1st "Chairman's chat" letter. I am aiming to do this chat once a month to keep you all updated on what is happening within Crofton Juniors AFC.

I understand some of you may feel aggrieved that we have raised the subs from August, but we have not increased the subs in the last 8 years. As you can well imagine, the price of the rent on the pitches, fuel for the tractor to cut the grass, the price of the paint to line mark, and the price of the clubhouse rent have all increased in some eye-watering leaps. We have previously done our best to absorb those increases within existing subscription prices; however, this year's increases make that unsustainable.

We still feel that the increase offers your children/grandchildren value for money in what Crofton has to offer and also within other clubs in the area's subscription charges. This was tabled at the Club's AGM and was voted by the majority of the members present to increase the subs to keep the club on a sound financial footing for the seasons ahead. If anyone would like to speak directly about this, please contact myself, and we can have a chat.

In better news, August brings the Football Gala, an amazing weekend of football that kids from all over the north of Yorkshire come along to enjoy. It is great to see so many teams come along. We do raise a lot of money at this event for the club, and we need as many helpers as possible to facilitate the running of the event. We do need people on Friday 25th August to help set up the event. Jobs like putting up the Samba nets for the 25 pitches we will be using, helping in the clubhouse putting out the drinks, chocolate, etc., and moving the tables about, setting up the barriers for the no parking areas and parking entrance gates.

The biggest difference this year is Crofton Juniors are running their own food stall and ice cream stall. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Pete from Crofton Garage Services in Crofton for the last 4 years. He and his team have run the burger and pizza stall and handed all profits over to the club. He has now stepped away due to other commitments, and the club will manage this going forward. As you can appreciate, there has been a tremendous amount of work going into the organizing of the gala, and again I would like to thank Scott Carter and his team for all the hard work they have put into the gala since Christmas last year.

On the evenings of Saturday and Sunday of the gala, we will still be down at the sidings and would be thrilled for anyone to come back down to us and bring some chairs and a little tipple of your own choosing and join us in unwinding after a hard day's work. We will still be selling food for a period of time. So please feel free to come and join us and enjoy 1 or 2 evenings with Crofton Juniors AFC. I hope everyone enjoys the rest of this weather we call summer and hope to see everyone at the gala.

Regards,

Chris White
Chairman
Crofton Juniors AFC