He had quite a few things to share. In case you missed it, and want to be kept up-to-date before his next column in Tuesday's programme against Crystal Palace here is his piece:

Blimey….just where has the summer gone!?!

It seems like only yesterday that I could ‘pretend’ to have a life back, with the season over, but in truth all of us have ideas ticking over, already planning for the new campaign, off the pitch.

I had a wonderful summer break, as I was extremely fortunate & honoured, along with soooo totally jealous, to have been over in Germany to see our good friends from Altona 93 clinch promotion to the Regionalliga Nord, from the Hamburg Oberliga, which puts them at Level four in the German football pyramid. While over there I confirmed the date for our special 125th anniversary match with them next summer, when we visit them on Sunday 15th July 2018, taking them on at their historic Adolf-Jager-Kampfbahn, where Edgar Kail graced the very same hallowed turf, back in 1925, on the Easter tour there.

I head into the new season, with more than a bit of nervousness, albeit with some cautious excitement thrown in. There is the inner-worry of trying to come up with new, fresh ideas, rather than just plodding along with ‘tick-boxing exercises’; but I’m fortunate that not only do I have confidence of the entire Football Committee & the playing management with whatever is proposed, especially George Parnavelas who does so much behind the scenes working with our ever-growing local schools initiatives, but there is huge swell of enthusiasm from the Supporters Trust Board & lots of our own fans, as individuals.

One of my main focusses for the next few months will undoubtedly be continuing to co-ordinate the Hamburg weekend, when we are also going to arrange a game on the evening of Friday 13th July, so that the whole weekend becomes a full training camp for Gavin & his squad. Tomorrow night I am sitting down to ‘number crunch’ the figures as much as we can, to see if we need to revise our £8,000 target…which may go upwards, as that was set pre-Brexit, with the pound to the euro becoming substantially weaker. One this for sure, we WILL raise whatever we need, by hook or by crook, as we build for what will be what will undoubtedly one of the tours of a lifetime, for the vast majority of our fans who go.

As most of you will have seen, the fixture list has been released, and we have been ‘blessed’ with a home fixture on ‘Non League Day’, which is scheduled for Saturday 7th October, when we host Needham Market. We are extremely grateful to all of those at Meadows Residential, who run the Football Club, for allowing us once more to host a ‘Pay What You Like’ fixture, with the proceeds from the gate going to charity, once all of the associated match day costs have been deducted. Last season over three thousand pounds was shared between ‘Football Beyond Borders’-who were our official charity partners for 2016/17-and our near neighbours ‘Dog Kennel Hill Adventure Playground’. This year whatever we raise through your generous donations through the turnstiles will be split between our new charity link-up for the coming campaign, namely the ‘Copleston Centre’ & an established local branch of a national charity, which I’m sorry I am not in a position to name in public yet, until everything is fully confirmed.

With the fixture list in place we are hoping to stage an ‘ad-hoc’ community meeting which will be open to anyone from the Football Committee & the Supporters’ Trust Board, a sort of ‘unofficial think tank’, so we can establish a full ‘community programme’ around home matches all the way up until the end of April/early May. This will also be open for any individual supporters to pop along to, so put your thinking caps on, and share your ideas with us. Not everything works, but there’s plenty we certainly haven’t thought of, so the more the merrier!

Talking of working with the Supporters Trust, I must thank Walter Johnson, who was one of their community leads last season. Sadly he stepped down after only one season in that position, but his enthusiasm, and ideas, were such a practical breath of fresh air, it was a delight. He did so much, but so seamlessly that you really wouldn’t have realised that he did anything at all. So I, personally, thank him for the input he gave. It certainly made my job much easier & put a smile on my face.

Hopefully Dave Rogers will still be on board as the Trust Board fellow community lead, he was instrumental in our club having such a successful day when we played at home to Bognor Regis Town, when 2,217 flocked to Champion Hill Stadium for our ‘Trade Union Day’ initiative. Days like this, which reach out to our local communities, by ‘thinking outside the box’, are what make volunteering for no reward so worthwhile. We give up our spare time for no other reason than we love & want to help our great Football Club grow, and yes sometimes you can feel unappreciated, or it gets on top of you, but when something comes to fruition like that match [apart from the final score...we can only do what we can off the pitch!] it is so spiritually rewarding that simple words cannot convey.

As our Football Club Chairman, Liam Hickey, has explained in his column elsewhere tonight, there are pressing matters off the pitch too. Whilst I cannot really influence that too much-the alternative does not bear thinking about-we can all crack on and continue with our community programme, where we continue to grow and grow, in tandem with the progress made on the pitch.

I think that’s enough ‘bunny’ from me so early into the pre-season matches! Don’t forget it’s away to Cray Valley(Paper Mills) in 48 hours, on Thursday; then back here at Champion Hill in seven days, for the match against Crystal Palace next Tuesday evening.

Mishi Morath (Football Club Committee, community lead)