The Saints Trust is launching a great new Members benefits Scheme

The saints trust has relaunched itself with a great new slogan

"Sign Up If You Love The Saints"

Well aware that it hasnt been as succesful as it should have been in the two years since its launch, The Trust now has a new board and a new focus, one that is very apt, given Saints current situation.

The aim of every Supporters Trust is to promote supporter shareholding of their club, those who have read the press recently will be well aware of liverpool fans proposals to creat a Barcelona type ownership of the Club by the Supporters, whilst in the Merseyside's Clubs case it is a big task, in the case of Saints it will be fairly easy for its supporters to own a significant shareholding in a short period of time.

Southampton Football Club itself is very aware of the importance of supporter interraction and ownership and ideally the club would have 25% of its shares or more owned by a supporters trust on behalf of the fans, this would ensure that although the way would be open for a mega rich owner to take a majority shareholding, the Club's future would still be controlled by the supporters.

With this in mind the Club has agreed that supporters can join the Trust through the season ticket renewal form simply by ticking the box and adding the membership fee to the season ticket price.

If every season ticket holder and member did this this season then it would enable the trust to purchase something in the region of 3% of the Clubs shares, repeated over the next two seasons by 2010 Saints supporters could own 10% of the club through the trust, think about it this isnt a pie in the sky plan that involves every supporter paying out a stupid amount of money, its merely asking every saints fan to pay £10 every year, simple mathematics tell us how long it would take to get to 25%.

The fact that the Club has agreed to this tie up on the renewal form does not mean that the Trust is linked to the Club in anyway, it remains completely the opposite, truly independednt and democratic, with each and every share owned byt the Trust for its members, it is merely the fact that the football club can see the benefit of the future of the club being linked directly to the supporters.

But if the thought alone of the Clubs future being secured against unwanted buyers isnt enough then the campaign aims to not only involve the fans themselves but also the business community via the membership benefits scheme.

This scheme is aimed at providing Saints Trust Members with a great range of benefits and discounts that would mean they would get back the £10 membership feel many times over.

A small sample of what members could get.

Mortgages £50 cashback for any member mortgaging or remortgaging through our financial services partner FM2.

Golf, Two for one offers at Wickham Golf Club.

Car Servicing 10% off through Independent car sales and servicing of Chandlers ford.

Food 25% off food at the Encore pub in Commercial Road.

These are just a few examples of benefits available for more and these are being added to on a daily basis go to the trust website.

The Saints Trust

For those who want to know more about the trust and its work, its holding an open day at its matchday headquarters in the Solent University Students Union Bar, in New Road, just a short walk from St Mary's.

Open from 1pm till 2.45pm you will be able to speak to Saints Trust Board members and also benefit from a great selection of drinks at cheap prices.