Today we hear from STAR Board Chairman – Paula Martin
You may have seen in the Blackburn programme that Ian Maynard has stepped down as Chair of STAR – I was elected in his place at our September meeting. I have been here before but a lot has changed in the last 7 years and I have ideas of how I want to move STAR forward to be more representative of all the supporter base as the only democratic supporter organisation at Reading. We have to reach out to all supporters to find out what we need to do for them.
Organising the coach travel is the most obvious role and that has been the focus for a group of us since the generous offer of Mr Dai to fund the coaches to the more distant away games. The resultant increase of membership means we have direct contact with more supporters through our regular STAR Bulletin and I hope that some more will see our other activities as a reason to get involved and even suggest other activities we should do. It is always too easy to keep doing what we have in the past and not innovate so it often needs new eyes to see what we are missing.
Apart from travel, our other major role is representing supporters with the football club and local and national organisations and media, but we also try to preserve the history of the club; create events to bring supporters together; encourage football in the local area as well as keep tags on the governance of our club and football in general. All of which are less visible than travel but just as important as getting supporters to away games.
I am always open to suggestions for any of these areas or something we are not yet doing so the email address of chair@star-reading.org will come to me or you can contact Sacha through Facebook or Sam on Twitter and they will pass it on to me.
Can I finish congratulating Board member Johnny Hunt on his campaign for CALM and his walk today from Fulham to Reading? Johnny is active in STAR despite living in Dublin and has ideas of more that can be done to help those with mental health issues, in particular he is working to get coffee mornings set up for those who need to get out and meet people. So if you have the energy and interest to help him please get in touch with me and I will pass your details to Johnny.