'The club have recently stated that they are not against a fans representative sitting on the board of the club, and we believe they had planned to include this subject on the agenda for the AGM, but that it was somehow omitted during the rush to get the meeting details out to shareholders on time' said Ratcliffe.
'If Justin is successfully elected to the board of the football club at the AGM, it doesn't mean that he'll become a spy for the fans. Any director of a business has to respect the need for commercial confidence in the board room and we'd expect that to be the case here too, added Ratcliffe.
The candidate the trust board have chosen for election, as a director of the football club is Justin Tomlinson.
'Justin has already brought a wealth of experience to TrustSTFC since he joined us and we believe that he has the ability to enhance the skills of the current board of Swindon Town Football Company Limited' said Trust treasurer Leigh Collett.
'Justin already has considerable experience of marketing a football club in the community as he currently serves on the committee of Bracknell Town FC and is an avid football fan too. He lives in Swindon, runs a business in the town and is a Swindon borough councillor for the Abbeymeads area' said Collett.
'We're hoping that majority shareholder Sir Seton Wills will be able to meet up with Justin sometime before the actual day of the AGM, and we've asked the club to contact Sir Seton to that end' added Collett.
TrustSTFC are calling for all shareholders of the football club to back the plans to have real representation on the board of the football club. 'In an ideal world, it would be nice to see unilateral support from shareholders of the football club on this issue'.
'We've all talked about this becoming a reality one day. We hope that Boxing-day 2002 will finally see it happen and that the club can go into the new-year with it's supporters and directors all pulling together'.
The cost of producing the statement and postage etc will be bourne by TrustSTFC. This is usually done on a 'cost only' basis in cases such as this.
The statement was issued in accordance with companies act 1985 section 376 and was signed by Wendy Godwin, being a shareholder with in excess of one twentieth of the total voting rights of all the members.