As I mentioned in my last article this one will tell you what we the Fax Trust do and how you can help.   Firstly, I hope you have seen the £5,000 cheque presentation we gave to the Club in last week’s edition of this newspaper. How could you have missed it! It was achieved by a great deal of hard work by our eleven Board members, Trust members, and the Club supporters in general.   Our fund raising start’s with YOU becoming a member of the Trust for the princely sum of £15 for a full year! What do I get for this I hear you say, well it’s excellent value as for starters we will put you into a monthly draw with the prizes being of greater value than your membership! Good Yorkshire value!   On top of this we will send you a monthly newsletter and finally we have numerous shops and businesses who are prepared to offer you a discount on their products and services. This part of your membership has been temporarily suspended for this year due to the pandemic as it It was felt that with the majority of them being closed this year it wouldn’t be right to ask for discounts but it will be reinstated next year. Our communications continue with our social media platforms on Facebook and Twitter.   On match days at the Shay we have a presence at both the South and East Stands where we sell retro shirts and memorabilia as well as doing bucket collections all of which go towards the funds for the Club. Hopefully we will be there again this year, depending of course on Covid restrictions.   It’s not all work as we do like to play, and we hold a monthly quiz at the Ivy House on Shay Lane which includes a supper for only £3 courtesy of Pete Macnamara and if you are really lucky we sometimes throw in a game of bingo with prizes !   As sports fans we all like to pick our own teams be it in football or rugby and we are no exception. So we also have a Fantasy League of our own kindly managed by Steve Thomas and this can be found on our new website which we launched this year. Also on the website you can purchase merchandise and sign up for membership all at the click of a button.   We also have a market stall in town twice a year, hold auctions on our Facebook page, and have had past players dinners, sport's quizzes in local rugby league clubs and race evenings.   So as you can see all of this enables us to support our Club and if you would like to get involved or have ideas you would like to put forward please do contact me.   What we really want next is of course to able to watch live games!   Our season starts in earnest when we take on London Broncos on Friday 2nd April 5pm at the Shay. The game is being streamed on the Our League app and we can’t wait. It’ll be like Christmas come early!!   Reports on match days and away travel adventures will follow as soon as we are able. Please stay safe and well !   David Durbin. Chair Fax Trust.

Who are we? We are Fax Trust. A group of people from all walks of life ,united by just one thing – our love and passion for Halifax Rugby League Football Club, or Halifax Panthers, as we’re now called. If we were a stick of rock we’d have Halifax Panthers written all the way through us. Cut us and we bleed blue and white. We support our team through thick and thin, win or lose, good or bad. We get knocked down, but we get up again and we never stop supporting our club. We are an independent voice for everyone who loves and supports our great club. We give our time, our money, and ourselves to help our club. To help our club be the success that we all want it to be. We’ve been around for quite a while. We started as the Supporters Club at the old Thrum Hall – now there’s a name that will bring back memories for a lot of people! Speaking of Thrum Hall, here’s a fact which you can amuse your friends with – at the time it was the highest professional rugby league ground in Britain! Anyway, in 2002 we changed our name to the Halifax RLFC Independent Supporters Trust. Now we know that’s a bit of a mouthful, so most people call us the Fax Trust. WARNING – BORING BUT IMPORTANT PARAGRAPH ALERT. Back then, we registered ourselves as an industrial and provident society. ‘So what?’, you might say. Well, that means that we are regulated by the FCA, and we are required to provide full financial accounting transparency. That means that everything which our members raise or contribute is accounted for and every possible penny goes to our club. So, over the years we’ve existed solely to raise funds to support Halifax Panthers while at the same time maintaining complete independence. Over the years, we’ve raised several hundred thousand pounds. Yes, really. You know those big cardboard cheques that lottery winners get presented with? We’ve given more of those than you’ve had hot dinners. Well, almost. For many years we supported our Reserve grade team, and at the risk of blowing our own trumpet, many of our current players are here because of our efforts. Names like Brandon Moore, Conor McGrath, James Woodburn-Hall, Elliott Morris, the Davies brothers, Sion Jones and Will Calcott, and the returning Nick Rawsthorne ,to name just a few. Not to mention those who are plying their trade elsewhere,  like Welsh international Chester Butler now at Huddersfield Giants. Not a bad result I hear you say! Our next article will let you now what we do and how you can help.Please stay safe and well!   David Durbin. Chair Fax Trust.

Posted by Duncan Mitchell Now you can become a member of Fax Trust, or renew your membership subsciption at the click of a button. Just click on the green 'View Merch' tab on our home page, then choose 'Membership' from the options, and follow the straightforward instructions. It's secure, fast and easy. Job done!