These boots were made for walking...

The whole idea of doing Chesham United Travels was to give myself a reminder of all the good and bad moments as they happen, a recollection of how I really felt at that moment rather than the tainted memory of time. If only I was doing it a couple of years ago, making a mental note of exactly how I felt for the last few miles of that last walk; the long, tiresome trudge along the Grand Union Canal to Leighton Buzzard.

Yep, the old walking boots are coming out again (well actually they're not, I'm going for trainers this time, I can't put my feet through the same misery as Leighton) to repeat the walk to Dunstable Town for the FA Cup game in just over a week. It's short notice, there won't be anywhere near as many of us and we won't raise as much money as in the past, but it seemed to good an opportunity to miss, and it is the FA Cup.

I spoke with The Bucks Examiner today so hopefully we will get some good publicity from that, though I was asked some good questions, like "What made you decide to do it?"

I suppose in my mind it goes back to the Supporters' Trust AGM just over a week ago when the subject was approached whilst looking at the Trust's accounts. A sponsored walk was a good source of income to help the club with the many things it needs to keep the club an excellent facility and source of entertainment for the town. The walk's also give us a chance to raise some decent sums of cash for local charities that we like to support; we always have our facilities available for their use, but it is not very often that we can actually hand over money, and I'm sure that is appreciated. Although we are not a charity, I can empathise with their situation - kind gestures and freebies are good, but that needs to go hand in hand with the money.

At the AGM the Trust announced the intentions not to try and take over 50% of the club's shares as had been decided at the previous years AGM and in the first instance this seemed to brush by fairly quickly before lengthier discussions about coaches for away games, Christmas parties and toilets... The toilet situation is an ongoing one. Many of my previous fundraising activities in the past have been to raise money for new toilets at various places around the ground; very important, but not the most exciting. As I suppose might be expected the Ladies toilets in the Chess Suite were called into question and a huge debate arose about who should pay for the toilets - club or Trust? I admit, I was a bit bemused at first because before the start of this particular meeting we had spent the past 12 months priding ourselves on how the club was run by the Trust and we were effectively one and the same...suddenly I felt as though I ought to be making a trip down to the money tree to find the cash for new toilets.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not sticking my head in the sand and ignoring the problem. I know we need new toilets in The Chess Suite, along with many other jobs that need doing around, I could probably give you another list of at least another hundred, but suddenly before my eyes a debate was enraging about what the club should be funding and what the supporters should be funding and...a part of me felt a backwards step had been taken. For all the positives - and you reading this may justifiably totally disagree with me - of a new era, this was nothing like the Organisation Structure we as a Supporters' Trust had launched to the world just 15-16 months ago. We had different areas of the club covered by individuals who had the role of looking after that area; both income and expenditure, profit and loss, volunteers and helpers, employees and expenses, proposals and suggestions, investments and returns... it isn't all about cutting costs, maintenance needs to take place as well.

The ideal solution within the structure would have been for people to feel they could come forward with some costings and proposals as to why a particular job needs doing, what the benefits will be and let the board discuss how things should be prioritised.. I guess I felt a bit as though the club was being attacked on the night, a 'them and us" created; when the whole brave new world previously had been about Us being the club. Obviously the share issue situation is going to change that slightly, probably not until the longer term, but it does change what were the key objectives when we went through a change of management just over a year ago?

Anyway, I'm going off in the wrong direction again, and my good friend David Atkins will be looking down on us from above shaking his head saying: "Oh golly, they are talking about bloody toilets again!"

So the draw came out on Monday and we are away to Dunstable Town. I immediately thought, mmm, that was a really pleasant walk last time we did it (which it was, particularly the last stretch coming over Whipsnade out onto the Downs) and we were only talking the other night about there not really being a game in the fixtures suitable for a walk? The idea was originally suggested via email, greeted with minimal response, so I used my vast experience of trying to arrange nights out down the pub with friends. There's no point waiting for everyone to agree, get two of you to say, right, we are going to do this, at this time, on this day, if you want to join us...

...And so Mike Warrick and I, with his partner Laura, and anyone else who may join us, will be walking to the cup game at Dunstable Town - I make no apologies if the Manager and players feel extra pressure to win the game because the Chairman and Finance Director have walked to the game, so they should!

I must admit The Bucks Examiner have been excellent in their support and were on the phone as soon as they heard about the walk, hopefully with the publicity they can raise and our attempts to ambush the modern world of LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter we can generate some decent amounts of money for the Aaron West Goalkeeping Academy and the football club. Already within the first couple of hours of announcing the fundraising attempt we have reached £250; I've no idea what amount we may end up reaching, but the way I look at it, it's all money that neither party would have had if we didn't do it.

Elsewhere off the field I'm still keen to get things moving with the Mini-League and Junior set-up, I've met more of the managers in the last few weeks than I ever had before, which is a positive and a poor reflection on what has gone before. The latest state of play is that I want to get a meeting in place with the current Chairman of their set-up, put forward the proposals I have discussed with various other managers, and then arrange a meeting with all the relevant people from the youth set-up to discuss the path forward, air grievances from the past if need be, then start with a clean slate and a new committee to run this part of the club. At the moment I am trying to tie down a meeting with the current Chairman, but I'm hopeful that as soon as that is done we can move this whole area of the club forward.

Income remains an issue, we need to keep generating. Like a marriage, this is the area that causes the most tension in the Boardroom. I think my programme notes on Saturday will talk about the need to be all pulling in the same direction and working together. To quote what I said at the start of the last Board Meeting: "If you bring in more money than him, it doesn't make you any better; if you spend more hours at the club than him, we're still equal; just because I'm Chairman, doesn't make me any more important...." And that is what we have got to remember going forward, working together.

I know I've said this before and people might not agree, but I would love to see us grow our commercial team. Giles does a fantastic job working countless hours chasing up invoices and following endless leads that start off sounding so promising, but end up fruitless. Honestly, you really would not believe the times that it gets suggested that a sponsorship deal could potentially hit the five figure mark, but then it disappears... That said, we need to maximise our income opportunities and it is disappointing that we have gone so many games early on without a match sponsor, this was one of the areas discussed over the summer where we must fill that potential hole. To do that, I think we need more of a sales team creating a competitive sales environment bringing in new sponsors and leads (even if 90% of the leads end up with nothing).

Life might not be perfect at Chesham, but overall I think with the people we have around things are going fairly well. I noticed today that Truro City have been hit with a winding up order...We must make sure we never again go down that route.

I don't anticipate a response, but if you do feel you could help out with a few phone calls to promote the advertising and sponsorship opportunities at the club, please do give myself or Giles a shout.