barrymitchell

Hi there, not sure why your DM never came up as a notification, I've sent you on an email just now.

What's wrong with those. I quite like going to Saporito and prefer it over going to the ground. Coming straight from work I can get a coffee and some food.

I disagree, you are being funny.

Why don't you ask him. [email protected]

Nah you said "You are right when you say that the 75% shares controlled now by GLS give him virtual carte blanche." That is not a given by any means.

Again, GLS does not own 75%.

Gordon doesn't control over 75%....

Ballot will be live tonight.

This is really, really, not funny.

Welcome to Jack The club this week confirmed the appointment of Jack Ross as the new manager and the SMISA committee would like to welcome Jack to the Paisley 2021 Stadium. SMISA's man on the club board David Nicol was obviously involved in the recruitment process and we know Jack really impressed the board with his vision for the club and that they see him as a good fit for their long-term plans. It was also encouraging to see him talking up the benefits of fan ownership in his interview on the official website today - for those who missed it, there's a good insight into his approach here. It goes without saying supporting St Mirren hasn't been easy over the past few years and maybe the atmosphere hasn't always helped matters on the pitch. But we now have a new manager, a new board and a new opportunity to move forward as a club. We hope all members and fans will give their full support to Jack and the team, and hopefully better days lie ahead. Latest member numbers Current membership numbers as of the start of October are 1344. That is slightly down on last month but we always expected that over time numbers would tail off and we budgeted on that basis. Of the handful of cancellations, the feedback we have from those who wrote to us is that their reasons were purely down to finance. We have been given no indication anybody has left because they are unhappy with the job we are doing or because of results on the park. As always we would stress the work to take the club into majority fan ownership is a long-term project which will take years to save up for, and that means we need a long-term commitment from as many members to stay the course as possible. First £2 pot spend One of the key ways we will be keeping everybody engaged is by spending the £2 proportion of your monthly membership, which we plan to do every three months. We wrote to you last week with the results of the survey we ran on your priorities and the feedback from that will be used to inform future spending decisions. As we explained in that update, the bulk of the £8,500 raised through the first three months of #BuyTheBuds money will be used to make up the shortfall (estimated at £6,000-7,000) on the club’s planned disabled platform at the back of the main stand. But we asked the members to vote on where the remainder of the money should go – either into youth development or to be left in the pot for future investment. Voting closed earlier in the week and the results were as follows: Option 1 (Spend on Youth Academy) 43% 325 Option 2 (Carry funds over) 57% 430 Director election As you know, one of the key points of the #BuyTheBuds campaign is that you the members can elect one of your own to represent you on the club board. SMISA committee member David Nicol has been doing this role for the past couple of months but it was always our plan to hold an election to be concluded before the club AGM at the end of the year. We have now produced a set of election rules, along with a timetable detailing how the process will unfold over the next couple of months. The first stage of that will be a nomination period where any interested members will be able to put themselves forward to go on to the ballot. The full set of election rules, including details of how to nominate yourself, will be sent out later this week, along with a job description outlining the expected duties of a SMISA rep on the club board. Volunteer call to action Something both the SMISA committee and Gordon Scott are keen to investigate is how to harness the membership’s collective power to volunteer on projects which will help the club and community. The club have approached us with a couple of projects which they need some extra pairs of hands on and have asked if SMISA members are willing to provide them. The first project involves the possibility of the club installing an electronic advertising billboard on land at the north end of the stadium, which could be a very lucrative income stream. However the companies who operate these boards will only install one if they know there will be a certain amount of traffic at that location each day. So to find out if this idea is feasible, the club is looking for a number of volunteers to work in shifts to help electronically count the vehicles at that spot over the course of one day (note - this is likely to be a weekday). If you were able to spare an hour or two and would like to register an interest in this or any future volunteering opportunities, please send an email to [email protected] and we will be in touch with more detail when we have it. If there was sufficient interest, this could be the start of a SMISA volunteer pool of people who use their collective skills to work on various club and community projects as and when required. This could be ideal for members who are perhaps retired and willing to give up some time to, or those who are looking for something to add to their CV.

Ha! I can assure you that David and the Collum are nothing like each other in person. I mean Dave is very nice but this....this is...well...

Photo of David Nicol by Drew Reid © Welcome to the latest update from the trust committee. It’s now been around six weeks since our joint bid for the club with Gordon Scott went through and we’ve continued to be busy behind the scenes. It’s been a massive transition for us, with our member numbers going from 200 to nearly 1,400 and our annual income from four figures to six, but we feel we now have the back-end admin and financial processes we need in place to deal with that increase in workload. Our member numbers have held pretty steady throughout August and as of the end of the month were sitting at 1,370. Along the way we have lost a few and gained a few and we expect that is how it will be – we know from our discussions with friends at the Foundation of Hearts that numbers will vary. Obviously it is important we maintain our numbers as the years go on and we aim to do that by showing members the benefit their money is having on St Mirren and the local community. The £2 per month members pot With that in mind, we will soon be in a position to start investing your cash in the club. As we told you last month, the plan is to spend the £2 ringfenced from each member’s monthly subscription on a quarterly basis. The September subscriptions will be the third tranche of #BuyTheBuds money, meaning we will have in the region of £8,000 to invest in the club as the members choose at some point soon. The plan is for the SMISA committee to speak to the club about their priorities for investment, to survey members over their priorities and ideas, and compile all of that into several costed spending options through which members will vote via secure online ballot. We are still finalising the details of the exact procedure through which we will do this, but will be in touch with members soon regarding the next steps. SMISA director and club matters As you know, SMISA committee member David Nicol is now on the board of the club. Dave’s feedback from the first of the board meetings is that they have been really positive and that Gordon Scott in particular has lots of ideas he wants to implement at the club. On club matters, it is important to again stress that SMISA is not directly responsible for club business – the club board control club operations, as has always been the case. But the benefit to having a SMISA rep on the board is that we have a man in the room who can raise issues which matter to our members. If there is something you wish Dave to raise for possible consideration at a club board meeting then let us know via [email protected] We would also remind you that Dave’s appointment is only temporary for the time being – we plan to hold an election before the end of the year where members will choose who will do the job over the longer-term. Open meeting – 5 September To give members a chance to speak directly with the SMISA committee and to raise any issues they wish to discuss, we will be having a drop-in session during one of our regular meetings. We will be in the back room at Saporito Coffee in Gauze Street, Paisley, on Monday 5 September between 7 and 8pm. If there is anything you want to talk to us about, please pop by. Events and benefits update We ran our first public event since #BuyTheBuds became reality when more than 100 fans joined us for a fan party in the library cafe at the University of the West of Scotland after the Morton game. Gordon Scott, Alex Rae and Tony Fitzpatrick joined us and addressed the crowd, as did SMISA chair George Adam and director Dave Nicol. We want to thank everybody for coming along, as well as UWS for hosting and Billy Gray for being DJ on the night. We have also started to roll out the benefits due to those who signed up the #BuyTheBuds through the £2,500 premium package – with some of those members joining the squad during the official team photo last week. Some of the £25 per month members have also been picked to enjoy directors guest lounge access at the Paisley 2021 Stadium for home games. Paul Wycherley was the man chosen from the hat for the Hibs game and we'll announce the winner for the the Queen of the South game on Saturday 10th shortly. We are also working on plans for the first of the exclusive £25 per month members events, and hope to have more free events for all members at some point too. In the meantime, you can contact us via [email protected] if there are any queries. The SMISA Committee Original article from smisa.net

Not stupid at all, error on our part. It should read £8,000 per quarter. Will update website post to reflect.

Member numbers We are conscious we haven't updated you on member numbers since our joint bid for the majority stake in the club with Gordon Scott was completed last month. As of 3 August we had 1,373 members of the trust - numbers have actually crept up slightly since the deal was completed. Of that, around 12% are on the £25 per month membership, which is slightly ahead of our initial target of 10%. We had always said 1,000 was the minimum we needed to hit to trigger the deal - we are thrilled to have smashed that and want to thank every one of you for signing up. The more members the trust has, the stronger we are financially and the greater our ability to benefit the club. There is no upper limit on members, so please keep spreading the word to fellow fans that anybody can still sign up now at smisa.net Spending trust income As you know, the bulk of our income is going towards the share purchase and saving up the cash ultimately needed to buy out Gordon and achieve fan ownership. But £2 per month from each member will be ring-fenced to be spent on the club as you choose, and at current membership levels, that is just over £8,000 per quarter. We are still finalising the details of the procedure for spending this but the plan is for us to survey members on where they want to see the money spent, speak to club about where they need investment, and compile the results into a shortlist of options for members to vote on via secure online ballot. We hope to repeat this process every three months, meaning members will get four votes per year. We feel this will be a really good way to keep the membership engaged, while deciding how their money will help the club. SMISA director As has already been announced, Gordon Scott has asked SMISA committee member Dave Nicol to join the board of St Mirren as the SMISA representative. Gordon was keen there be some continuity with the guys who had worked with him over the past year, and Dave - who had led on the financial and legal aspects of the deal from SMISA's side - was the obvious choice. However Dave's appointment was only ever intended to be temporary, as one of the key points of the #BuyTheBuds campaign was that SMISA members elect their own director. We are still working on a procedure through which this will happen, but the plan is to hold an election for members to elect one of their own on to the board before the end of the year. It is important to stress that as things stand SMISA are only the part-owners of the club - ultimately Gordon controls the majority stake. In practice, the club will be run by the board, as it always has been. But the key difference is that board now contains a SMISA rep, who can raise issues on your behalf for potential discussion. If you wish to raise an issue with the SMISA director, you can do so by emailing [email protected] Events and member benefits We will have a number of events this coming season - the first being a fan party to celebrate the success of the bid after the Morton game on Saturday in the library at UWS. Entry is free but tickets are required. To sign up and for full details see our Eventbrite page. There will also be a number of events for those of you on the £25 per month and £2,500 premium packages - we are still working on these but will be in touch with details as soon as they are confirmed. We will also be running a draw for each home game this season for a £25 per month member and a guest to watch that game from the director's guest lounge. Cameron Sanderson was the lucky winner for the Morton game. The rest of you in that membership category have around a one in ten chance of winning at some point - we will be in touch if you do! Football Pink Magazine Article The Football Pink Magazine are writing a piece about St Mirren's Scottish Cup win from 1987 and along with some interviews from players from the team they're looking for fans' views and memories of the occasion. If you were there that day and don't mind answering a few questions about the game please drop as an email and we'll forward them on. Contact details Finally, we want to ask members to keep us updated with any change in your details using our contact page. If you've changed your email address or phone number, we want to make sure you don't miss out on any events or benefits due to you. All our updates will come from [email protected] so please add this to your address book to ensure our emails to you don't end up in junk mail.

Hardly a head office.

http://www.smisa.net/news-archive/19-buythebuds/206-july-update

Existing members will not have had an email when the payment was taken but an email when the new payment was setup which could have been over the last few months.

I've taken the counter down for now and I'll produce monthly updates on membership going forward.

Can you PM me or email at [email protected] and I'll look in to it for you.

Yeah but it depends on when you signed up as there's a certain amount of notice that needs to be given to a bank to setup a direct debit mandate. For example if you sign up now the first payment wouldn't be taken until the 1st of August as typically we do indeed take payments on the first of the month.

Not all the direct debits will be taken today. Some will be next week. If you are worried there might be an issue email me at [email protected] and I'll look in to it. With Direct Debit it gets instructed today and then it'll draw down on it over 3-5 working days so I can't say for certain until later on next week if there's been an issue with a payment.

It's not been as much of a priority to get it updated but we have had few signups since then. Key is to make sure everyone's set up for Friday and we don't take duplicate payments etc. I would hope the next push will be when the season starts.

I'm in the process of setting up more international subscriptions this week for those outside the Eurozone. I've emailed everyone that had already enquired but in case anyone else hadn't got in touch give me an email at [email protected]. We're going with PayPal until GoCardless rolls out more support or we can get something more appropriate.

Evening Times owned by same group as Herald so just reprinting yesterday's story for more coverage.

If majority of members want that split to change because we have well over our target then it can change.