Following the club's annual general meeting on Thursday evening, the club spoke with its business and project director Zoe Ward on a variety of topics.
For a full trasncript, see below:
canaries.co.uk: Zoe, we're speaking to you after the club's annual general meeting for 2021. Can you tell us your reflections on the evening?
ZW: It was a really good night. It was nice to see everyone back together again, obviously last year we gave everyone a virtual presentation and there was no interaction with the room. But it was nice to have everyone back and get some questions from the floor.
canaries.co.uk: It's been a busy period for the club with previous head coach Daniel Farke departing the club and Dean Smith coming in for his first game on Saturday. What are your reflections on the past few weeks?
ZW: It's been a tough few weeks. It was obviously a really difficult decision to part company with Daniel. We've all worked together for the last four and a half years and we've been on the same journey. To make that decision has been really difficult. But we move on and Dean and Craig (Shakespeare) have come in and made a really good impact. We'll looking forward to what the future holds.
canaries.co.uk: Furthermore, we heard some news tonight around Stuart Webber continuing his time at the club, agreeing a new rolling contract. How positive is that news?
ZW: It's great. We've been a journey together, Stuart spoke tonight about had we not had Covid, we felt we'd have been a lot further down the line with some projects than we currently are. I think he felt there was still work to be done and still growth for him and the club. It's great to have that sense of stability going forward.
canaries.co.uk: There have been some changes on the non-football side of the business as well recently. Can you tell us about those?
ZW: There have been a couple of key changes. Sam Jeffery has been appointed as commercial director, and that's really exciting. It's great when you see somebody progress through the club and get that kind of promotion. We're really excited about Sam's ideas and how he wants to move forward. Sam Hall, who presented tonight, has taken a wider governance role with the club and that is something we really needed.
canaries.co.uk: Touching on some of the topics raised by shareholders this evening, one of them was safe standing. We've seen a number of clubs implement this recently, and the club has spoken in the past about being an advocate for it. Could you reiterate the club's stance at this current time?
ZW: We're really keen to look at it and keen to implement it. What is positive is that we've got clubs undertaking a trial, so we can really get a steer from their learnings before we go down that road. There's an element of large fan consultation from us because of the number of season ticket holders we have. We've got to be comfortable that what we're doing is what supporters want. There is also the logistical piece if a supporter wants to move to a safe standing area, they can do that. Equally, if a supporter wants to move away from that area, they can do so. We need to roll that into any kind of season ticket renewal process as well. We also have ongoing conversations with the Safety Advisory Group as well about what they would like to see in terms of safe standing.
canaries.co.uk: Another topic raised was the situation in the summer surrounding the club's front of shirt sponsorship. Could you tell us what the club has learned from that?
ZW: The club has probably learned that it was a little bit naive in terms of its due diligence. It probably took for granted that BK8 were getting into partnerships with other clubs and it probably created some comfort that maybe shouldn't have been there. I think also one of the things we've learned is that we need to have wider consulation across the club on those big items and make sure we get input from more people to make sure we minimise every risk.
canaries.co.uk: And just finally, there's been lots of developments going on at Carrow Road and the Lotus Training Centre. From a club perspective, how pleased are you with those and, if you can, tell us about some plans for the future?
ZW: We always look to improve, generally, during the close season at both sites. We've done a lot of work here at Carrow Road, we're currently sitting in the new press room. We have a new player's tunnel, we've sorted lots of different things from a broadcast requirements perspective. And at the Lotus Training Centre, we've opened the SoccerBot360 in the summer - going forward we've got planning for a swimming pool and media building at the training ground and we're now opening up feasbility discussions around what a new stand would look like here at Carrow Road.