A new Carlisle United supporters' organisation has today set out its mission to make the club's supporters' trust "more representative".

Unita Fortior has been established by a group of supporters who believe the trust - CUOSC - needs many more members to speak for the Blues fanbase.

They want to drive up numbers, aiming for 1,000 fans to join CUOSC and, in the process, make the trust "a positive force for change" rather than something seen as "ineffective and unrepresentative".

Twelve Blues fans have, at the outset, put their names to the Unita Fortior initiative, which takes its name from the Latin club motto 'United is stronger' as seen on the club badge in years gone by.

Today's announcement follows meetings amongst the fans in recent months following struggles on the pitch and what they describe as a feeling of "stagnation" off it.

Unita Fortior explained the intentions behind their campaign in a public announcement today.

It reads:

The club we love continues to go through difficult times on and off the pitch. We all want better and secure times ahead, and we’re all frustrated that progress on future ownership, stadium issues and on pitch improvement has been challenging.

For many fans, watching these events unfold under the control and direction of a small number of groups has been frustrating and there is a perception that the Supporters Trust should be a voice for all fans, but is at times ineffective and unrepresentative.

As fans ourselves, we got together to talk about our take on events at the club and to share our views and not surprisingly these were many and varied.

We are however, all united in the view that our Supporters Trust needs to be more representative of the fans as a whole and given its shareholding should be doing more to help the club thrive and succeed, as well as to challenge the owners in a positive way.

As a group we are not necessarily putting ourselves up to run the Trust. However, we do think that the Supporters Trust is the best vehicle to convey and transact the fans' views to the owners and to both support and challenge the owners in equal measure – and to protect the club’s legacy. We believe that many fans feel the current leadership could improve in this regard.

What came out of our meeting was an idea to strengthen the Supporters Trust, by testing the appetite of supporters to make the Trust more representative. To make sure the views of the fans are conveyed in a more democratic way - and to be blunt, that more than a few dozen people actually vote and have a say.

We are not doing this to set our own agenda or propose our own manifesto - what we’re trying to do is simple – get the fans to participate in the Supporters Trust and make it representative of the fans at large, not just a few.

Success for this group would be a thousand fans committing to join up and then setting their own agenda, electing their own board, raising their own funds, and becoming a positive force for change and improvement. That’s it!

Some of you may be thinking “Is that really it?”. Yes - we’re not re-inventing the wheel here! We have a Supporters Trust with approximately 400 members. That’s roughly 10% of a home attendance. Of those 400, approximately 50 vote in the yearly Trust AGM. That’s roughly 1.25 per cent of a home attendance. Incredibly poor figures when you break it down so simply, and it’s something we’d love to see increase rapidly!

Others will say “What a waste of time!”. To those we say, that if you don’t try, then you can’t complain? Let’s show that our fanbase is one of action as opposed to talk. Draw a line regarding the Trust and all its previous business and let’s look to the future. Imagine a Carlisle United Supporters Trust with a strong four figure membership count and the collective voice we could have?

There’s been previous talk of people joining our Trust en-masse, but nothing was ever sorted. This time we’ve taken it upon ourselves to do the organising and make the rally cry. We really do feel that this is the time to do it and hope you do too! A chance to revitalise the membership and potentially help create a modernised Trust, ready to re-engage with our fanbase is too big of an opportunity to pass on.

Fellow League Two club Exeter have a fantastic 3,600 members in their Trust, and with all due respect are no bigger club than ourselves. Such figures may seem to be a dream, but if we can get people to join, and persuade their friends and families to join up too, we could see a move from the current stagnation to a refreshed and bigger, more representative Trust. A move which surely could only be a positive in terms of giving the fanbase both a voice and a standing we feel it’s worthy of.

The group ended the statement by urging people to join CUOSC via http://cuosc.org.uk/apply-for-membership/

Unita Fortior say they will keep a running total of those who have joined, if fans inform them.

The supporters named in the statement are: Chris Armstrong, Mike Booth, Kieron Bulman, Tim Graham, Martin Horne, Daniel MacLennan, John Mitchell, David Noble, Ross Parkinson, Lee Rooney, Matthew Spooner and Riegan Thompson.

Daniel MacLennan and Matthew Spooner previously represented thecumbrians.net forum at Carlisle United Supporters' Group meetings, before thecumbrians.net pulled out of the group.

Tim Graham previously ran the CUFC Online messageboard, while Lee Rooney, Mike Booth and Dan MacLennan also run the Brunton Bugle podcast.

Unita Fortior are on Twitter and Facebook and can be emailed at UnitaFortiorCUFC@outlook.com

The News & Star has approached CUOSC for comment.

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