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Monarchs Fans Trust Committee members will be available at the Video Night tonight so please come and say hello. We will be at the back of the room and available before and after the video as well as during the interval to answer and queries or help with anything you want to know about the Trust. Whether you are a member or not we are always keen to hear from you and get feedback to continually looking at ways to improve what we do.

Tonight there will also be some artwork donated by George and Marie Keay and framed copies of the first ever Monarchs speedway meetings available to buy with all proceeds going to the Trust. Thanks to George and Marie for their generosity and to Jim Smith for producing the replica programmes.

The action tonight starts at 7.30pm in the Thomas Morton Hall at the end of Ferry Road.

Mike Hunter always puts on a great show and I am sure it will be a great night as we build towards the start of the 2016 season especially now we have Craig Cook, Max Fricke, Stevie Worrall and the Belle Vue Aces visiting on opening night. April can’t come soon enough!

We are delighted to announce that the Monarchs Fans Trust has recently been invited by the Edinburgh Monarchs’ Board to attend their regular meetings.  We regard this as a great opportunity to work even closer with the Club in the weeks, months and years to come.

The 2015 season proved extremely challenging for us as a Trust.  We came a long way in a short period of time ending the season with 130+ members who had pledged monies during the year.  This allowed us to donate £12,000 to the Club throughout the season.  A sum that was gratefully received by the directors. The board of directors have regularly asked the Trust Committee to thank our members for their generosity.

The Trust and its members certainly played a large part in ensuring firstly the initial survival and ultimately the success of the Club during the 2015 season. The 2016 season will prove no less challenging perhaps even more so.

The Trust committee meets once a month and at our January meeting we welcomed April and Craig Beveridge to the group. They have already made a positive input with April teaming up with Scott Somerville to take on the treasurer role. John Scholan will now focus on other ventures like the Kids Go Free promotion he was heavily involved in last year. The other posts on the committee remain the same as last year, see the COMMITTEE page for details.

2016 Committee

We also discussed our plans for this year and are currently investigating a number of potential initiatives to raise money and the profile of the Trust and Edinburgh Speedway. We will use the opportunity we have attending board meetings to work closer with the Club and it should allow us to bring ideas to fruition quicker. Keep an eye on the website, our Facebook page and Twitter feed @MonarchsTrust for news.

Thank you to all our members that pledged monies or donated their time in helping the Trust and ultimately the Edinburgh Monarchs in 2015, now on to 2016…

Edinburgh City Council honoured the achievements of the 2015 Edinburgh Border Roofing Monarchs with a Civic Reception at the City Chambers on Wednesday night. This was a special occasion and the Bailie Norman Work expressed his thanks to the impressive way the club represents the city of Edinburgh. Alex Harkess used the opportunity to thank everyone who contributes to the success of the Monarchs and was very keen to emphasize how much of a team effort it is. That community spirit is one of the reasons why the Monarchs is so special to many of us and why the Trust has been able to make a significant contribution in such a short period of time. We thank the club for inviting a few members of the Trust committee to attend and it was great to see so many members of the Trust also in attendance.

Len Jones and Jim Smith with the silverware at the Civic Reception

It was a nice opportunity to catch up with speedway friends as we all patiently await the start of the season and the announcement of our 7th rider. We’ll be able to do that again at the Video Night next week.

It was with sadness we learned of the passing of Monarchs Fans Trust member Mitch Balsillie just before Christmas. He was a very well-known and popular supporter and will be sadly missed. We thank his family for including the Monarchs Fans Trust in the retiring collection at his funeral on Wednesday. This was unexpected and very generous and we will make sure that all monies received will be put towards ensuring the sport he loved and the club he supported continues for many years to come. Thank you to everyone who contributed.

It has been a hard few months with a number of members of the Monarchs family passing away including former rider Jimmy Tannock, we hope 2016 will be a better year.

Monarchs fans were given a couple of early Christmas presents at the Video night on Friday, the first was the announcement that Ryan Fisher will be the 5th rider of the 2016 team. Ryan won the title twice in his previous stint at Armadale and was huge entertainment throughout the 3 years with the team. The night was a successful evening as Mike Hunter again produced a fantastic video in front of a full house. The Trust was represented on the night and made a short presentation during the interval as we continue to push our message about how much difference an effective Trust has made in its first year and how important it is to keep up the good work going forward.

John Campbell and Alex Harkess also spoke to the supporters on the evening and again thanked the Fans Trust for what we have done so far. The second early Christmas present was when they revealed that there would be no price increases to the entrance fee next season including the cost of advanced tickets. This was in recognition of the amount of work and financial support the fans have given the club through the various fundraising activities like the Grand Draw, the 50/50 Draw, the Trust and the many other ways that we help the club.

Everyone on the committee would like to wish all our members and their friends and family a very Merry Christmas and hope you have a great festive period. If you have any Christmas presents still to buy online remember to do it through Easyfundraising and assist the Monarchs Fans Trust at the same time. Just to emphasise this does not cost you anything and you don’t have to be a member of the Trust to support our cause on Easyfundraising.

Friday night saw the inaugural AGM of the Monarchs Fans Trust.

We had a fantastic turnout with many of our members braving the miserable weather to listen to our presentation held in the Armadale Stadium bar. We reflected on the work and thought process that we went through to create the Trust and on ultimately how it had been an initial success as our membership list grew pretty quickly and as at last night was 131 strong.

It was great to announce that our total donation of £12,000 during the season made a huge difference in allowing the Club to have a neutral year in financial terms.

That said everything possible went the Club’s way in 2015 and we as a Trust are under no illusion in thinking 2016 will be easy, it will most definitely be a hard battle off track to keep the Club alive.

We were very encouraged by the positive  response from our membership in attendance to our contribution policy of donating on a regular basis towards a specific expense as well as being proactive in our help during difficult and expensive moments that the Club encounters during the season.

Our plans for 2016 were also aired.  With retaining and increasing our membership key objectives of the committee.  Moreover, we hope to run a number of fund raising events and Club promotional activities.  Some additional ideas came from the membership on Friday night and we’ll endeavour to bring them to fruition too.

We made a plea for help in any capacity in assisting any of our initiatives and we were delighted to get an immediate response on the night but would definitely welcome any other helping hands.

It was a night that started with a guest appearance by Edinburgh Monarch’s Club Chairman Alex Harkess, with Alex adding his thanks to the Trust membership for their assistance during the season.  This added to thanks provided by John Campbell throughout the season in his match programme articles and ultimately in his end of season Dinner Dance speech.  It was also pointed out that the Club Sponsor Eddie McKenna of Border Roofing also had some really nice words for the Trust during his Dinner Dance speech.

We would also like to add our grateful thanks to every Trust member.

Thank you at times simply is not enough and this is one of those times.

The majority of 2015’s committee stood for re-election and were augmented by Craig and April Beveridge joining for 2016.

We can look back with pride at the achievements of 2015 but need to wipe the slate clean and start the hard work again for 2016.  We hope you will come along for the journey.

The first Annual General Meeting of the Monarchs Fans Trust is tonight at Armadale Stadium, the meeting will start at 7.30pm and we will be in the bar at the stadium from 7.00pm. All members are welcome as we discus and present what has happened in our first year and set out our plans for 2016. This is your opportunity to ask any question of the Trust’s committee and have your input into how we go forward. We are very keen to hear from our members and also looking for volunteers to help put some of these plans into action.

2015 was another special year for the Monarchs and we are determined that there will be many more years to come, we can only do it with your support and we look forward to some good conversations and thoughts on how to make the Trust as successful as possible.

Hot on the heels of news out of the BSPA AGM we had the inevitable announcement we all didn’t really want to hear, our captain fantastic Craig Cook will not return to the Edinburgh team next season. Craig is determined to reach the top of world speedway and to do this he has to stretch his wings and compete in the top leagues in Europe which means he won’t be in the Premier League. The Trust gives Cookie our full backing and wish him well in achieving his aims of reaching the top, we hope he can perform in Poland and in the GP challenge at the level we saw saw week in week out in an Edinburgh race jacket. I am sure many of us will raise a drink in his honour at the Dinner Dance on Saturday night in his last official occasion as a Monarch ( for now).

Monarchs 2015 Captain Craig Cook, photo courtesy of Jack Cupido

The 2016 edition of the speedway rules are now known and we will soon (hopefully) hear the seven riders who will wear our colours next season, the board have the unenviable task of finding someone to fill Cookie’s steel shoe.

It was probably the most important aim of the Trust to help us get to the tapes next season and it is great to see the club in a stronger position and all systems go preparing for it. As always the blue and gold army will be right behind the team and the Trust will continue to fight to make sure we are here for years to come.

We also continue to prepare for our AGM on Friday 27th November and would like to remind all members who would like to join the committee or propose any changes to our rules that they should do so before the end of the week. The deadline for this is Friday 6th November and after that we will be able to finalise details ahead of the event.