Arsenal's AGM took place today. Here's what went on, with thanks to our intrepid reporter!

First things first they changed the format of questions so that you had to submit a question prior to the meeting rather than taking questions from the floor.

FINANCE

• turnover £156.4m (33%) increase on last year
• losses made form the agreement with granada and their running of arsenal.com
• the club made more from property deals (£16m) last year rather than football (£4.6m).
• the club have so far received £18m from nike.
• the emirates deal will pay bonuses for trophies won, the club will not divulge the figures. 

STADIUM

• the new waste centre is now open
• the stadium will be non-smoking in some part. either totally or just within view of the pitch. this has not been decided yet.
• for the first time in british history arsenal got the banks to release money prior to the land at ashburton grove becoming vacant possession. danny fitzman was very happy about that.
• only the south stand has yet to start construction. this was due to it being the last area cleared of building. all other stands are well on the way. west stand upper tier is already in place.
• the queensland road area of the development is still under CPO high court challenge. this will not be addressed until the end of the year but this would not affect the build. this is the only area under dispute now.
• the club will take charge of highbury's redevelopment along with a company called vision 4
• there will be a 50/50 split between emirates signs and arsenal signs at the new stadium
• 120 of the 150 boxes have now been sold. all the highest priced boxes went first
• premium seats will go on offer shortly (next 2 weeks). prices range from £2500 to £4750 per season. these will be available on an annual basis or in blocks of 4 (payable up front. possbile £20k payment!). there are 6500 premium seats in the stadium. premium seats will be the first seats sold.
• for allocation of seats there are 14 categories!
• C/D debenture holders will get first choice followed by A/B level debenture holders. the allocation will then be from the highest priced ticket holders having the next choice followed by the lower priced seats downwards.

TEAM

• not a lot of information really as wenger didn't talk much. the new question format meant that there were no votes of thaks to him and the players for last season.
• it was asked if we had enough defensive cover. Wenger said he though sol and kolo were ok! also said that he decided not to play senderos for the first 3 months of the season given his year injured last year. he also said he tried to buy a defender in the summer but it didn't work out. they would re-approach that matter in the transfer window.  

MISC

• Peter Hill-Wood kept forgetting to says emirates stadium. he kept saying the arsenal stadium much to the other board members amusement.
• someone asked if emirates sponsoring referees would cause a conflict of interests. he agreed and said it might but it would probably be to our favour so it wasn't a problem.
• another question asked if the board had any morale thought toward emirates and their involvement of saudi arabia's human rights record (to some applause). hill wood said that he wasn't aware of dubai having had a problem and that they were building some churches over there these days. it was also asked if the emirates deal would affect current contracts with schools in israel. again hill wood didn't seem to think it was a problem.
• bergkamp's testimonial- the club were still waiting for someone to approach them to ask for one. the club does not arrange them for tax reasons.