The Iron Trust has reviewed our membership policy to better reflect the changes at our club since we launched three years ago. We launched when Steve Wharton was chairman and we were cutting costs following relegation from the Championship, witnessed the boardroom battle to replace him and are now left with the club controlled by Peter Swann as he pushes ahead with plans for a new stadium where we could be playing from as early as next summer.

Scunthorpe United is a very different place now, and our relationship with the club reflects this. Mr Wharton gave us great encouragement as we launched and allowed us to target a place in the boardroom. Mr Swann has different views and we have been discouraged from increasing our shareholding in the club. He has suggested we would have greater influence if we represented more fans.

We feel what we need to do now is increase the number of fans we represent. Our priority now has to be to ensure we have an accurate
gauge of supporters, especially with key decisions to me made by the club as to how they will fill the new stadium. We feel the best way
the club can get this right is by asking supporters – something we have made clear to the club.

So in appreciation of our desire to represent a greater number of Iron fans, plus the realisation that our current level of investment in the
club is small change compared to that of the Swann family, we are making the following changes to our membership criteria:

• We will now offer lifetime membership for a one-off fee of £10, or £3 for U16s
• Anyone who has been a member of the Trust over any of our three years of existence will pass this criteria so is automatically enrolled as a life member. We know many people forget to renew or felt it was less important given the changes at the club so hope many of those who were not members in 14/15 will fall into that category (anyone who does not wish to rejoin can let us know).In recognition that commitment lifetime members who paid £100 have made to the Trust, they are invited to nominate up to seven non-members to receive membership at no further cost as part of their earlier payment. If they do not wish to take up their full allocation, they are invited to return these unused memberships to the Trust and we will keep these to offer membership to people we think have been a big help to the Trust but are not members.

We have made these changes as we feel the only way the Trust will gain influence over the next few seasons is substantially increasing our membership. We feel we can make this change because we have matured as an organisation to develop other revenue streams, so encourage those who wish to continue supporting us financially to participate via other means. We will look to expand these to bring in income to aid supporter causes, while we’ve also been .

We are launching a monthly Hat-Trick Draw (www.theirontrust.com/hattrick), our established fundraising events include our annual race night and we supported the annual Flag Day which packed out Cafe Indiependent in the town centre. We also held an evening of sixties music from local band The Moggies and have had a number of evenings with former/present club staff – Alex Calvo-Garcia, former director Dennis Hobson, Peter Swann / Russ Wilcox and Lee Turnbull.

You can also support us when shopping online through EasyFundraising – so if you use stores like Amazon, they will pay us a percentage if you register your support for us first. You can find out all the details at www.theirontrust.com/easy.

The Iron-related artwork from member Will Wharton has proved popular – we’ll continue to stock product when available, while they can also be
ordered online at www.scunthorpeironart.bigcartel.com Will kindly donates all profits to the Trust.

So what do these changes mean for the Trust? Well, that depends on members – everyone who is a member has been sent a link to an online survey. This is what the Trust will follow.

If you are not a member and would like to join the Trust, you can sign up online here.