BoWSaint

Since the webpage you quoted doesn't really tell you anything at all I delved a little further to find out about these pioneers. So they developed the Rochadale principles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochdale_Principles) which are the commonly accepted list of rules of how a co-operative should work. As far as I can see 10000hrs are following everything to the letter apart from 2 things..... 1. The third principle of economic participation. Everyone doesn't have to pay the same amount in (although the democracy isn't affected due to OMOV) 2. The fifth principle about providing education and training. Apart from that we seem to conform to the co-op rules and principles completely. Well done 10000hrs.

Correct. You have been able to pledge your £10/month right from the start! Hardly the last to be involved. There is plenty information for the fans to make an informed decision, and many have (both for and against the CIC). Some fans just seem to want more and more and more. And then when they are given more they just want more. Once the buyout is complete you will be able to be as involved as you want, whether that is standing for a place on the board or quietly voting by email whenever necessary. Be as involved as you want to be. The positions of power will be evenly spread amongst the members via the OMOV system. If someone on the board appears to be abusing their position and pushing things through that isn't the will of the members then it only takes a small amount of members to quickly get that sorted out with an EGM. If you don't like any of the major decisions being made, speak up and get them changed. This is the only bid where you actually do have a voice that will be heard.

Until SMISA give us a document clearly stating their concerns, how this will actually not work, and not some vague non-statement then everyone should sign up to 10000hrs. We don't have a single fact from SMISA, just heresay and speculation and nothing of substance. Where's their transparency with the fans. blah blah blah. zzzzzzzzzzzz

But I didn't quote you in my last post?! Mainly because I was replying to your general theme rather than a specific post. Hence I used your name to direct the info in your direction. It wasn't a point and laugh post either. But whatever floats your boat..............................

Sid, of course the fans will service the debt with their £10/month. This is why it is a fans buyout. In return we will get to decide the major decisions within the club. How can the guys in it for commercial reasons effectively run the club however they want if it is OMOV. The fans will vote against anything they don't like. We aren't simply handing the club over to a bunch of unknown people; we are buying the controlling interest for ourselves. We just need 10000hrs to be the vehicle for that to happen. The fact that RA and 10000hrs have been around now for a couple of years show that they didn't come to make a quick buck. Stewart Gilmour and the board have had ample time to scrutinise them and work alongside them and still firmly believe that this is the best option for St Mirren to prosper. This BoD haven't done much wrong by us in the past. Why would they start now?

You are running round in circles. Trying to decipher what you actually want here is harder than trying to understand what the CIC are doing. You are being even more vague than anyone at 10000hrs about this magical document that will ease your mind. Print out the FAQs, staple them together, write "Sid's magic document" at the top and rest your sphincter.

Trying to include the fans from the very beginning would be pretty difficult and would result in bedlam because none of the fans had actually made any commitment at all, they just filled out a form on a website to receive emails. Do you really expect 10000hrs to let these non-members make seriously important decisions? Until direct debit mandates have been received and fans are actually commited, then the offer to purchase can go ahead and then the direct debits can be started and the actual members can start to vote and have their say. The fan empowerment starts once the takeover is complete and I for one am glad that we have people like RA sorting everything out for us and arranging the interim plans until our first AGM where we can tweak any changes that we think might need to be made because at this time the fans will have the power. You say that the commercials guys will have all the power but that completely goes against the OMOV principle and this nonsense about getting one vote every 3 years is also nonsense. Have as many votes as you want about whatever you want. I am glad that they didn't allow all the pledgers of last year make these important decisions because it could quite easily have involved 1000 Rangers fans intentionally fcuking us over for a laugh for the mere cost of filling out an email address on a website. Not many of that 1000 would want to go to the length of subscibing to a £10/month DD to screw us over. By not allowing "fans" to make all the decisions from the start 10000hrs have protected the club and the CIC takeover. The interim plans and BoD seem fine by me and if you have a problem with who is allowed on the BoD or for how long then join up and get it changed! I'm sure the members will be more than happy to listen to proposals that will allow the CIC to run in a smoother, more efficient way.

But it is the case now. You have won. Enjoy it. It is exactly what you wanted. Fan representation. FWIW, last week there was the option for 2 fans to be on the board. Now there are more seats for basic fans. Well done. So they have listened to the fans and given them what they want; the scoundrels. Not ignored, accepted and happy with it. Investors getting paid back is completely normal. GLS giving a whole bunch of shares to help push this through and getting money back on them is fine by me if it helps us get started. Do I want anything back from my tenner a month? Nope. It's a means to an end, and not even a bad means. You will. The CIC will be full of fans and will hold the majority of votes on any decision and can be voted onto the CIC board if they like. That's pretty well represented. Again, you ask, they deliver. What's so bad about them giving you what you want? There's plenty info. No debt can be secured against the club. Club can only be harmed if 75% of fans choose to harm it. As for numbers. They were explained, with the addition that if we didn't reach the numbers required then a reduced bid would be made based on the number of signed up members to see if the selling consortium would accept. No. It's supposed to be about the fans running the club. Transparency is just a added bonus. Apart from the mystery funder there isn't really anything else that has been held back, and they have a pretty good reason for doing that so I'm happy enough.

Was there not something in the FAQs about £100,000 cashflow available to cover any club shortfalls? Yes there is. They get to decide club decisions. This, for me at least, isn't a moneymaking venture. We can happily vote in dividends or returns once the debt is paid off tho. Yes it will. Who better than the fans to make the decisions and no debt can be secured against the club or its assets. No we won't. CIC members will be on the interim board. And who's to say that Richard, Gordon, Chris and Tony aren't fans? You should stand for election and get this whole thing running ship shape. I would vote for you.

I honestly think that the new FAQs have a good amount of information about how this will work and written in a way that is both easy to read and understand; something that the draft constitution didn't do. For people subscribing £10 a month, you really just want to know what your part in the whole thing will be and it seems to be pretty clear to me. In fact, it just confirms how I already thought it would work. The fans (well one fan really) have screamed for a simple explanation of how this will really work and here it is, in laymans terms, black and white, on a single page, with examples. Admittedly there are no pictures but I think we get it. You asked for it, here it is, but you're still not happy. As for the minute details of funding and debt, it is mentioned that long term commitment is expected by the members to service the debt and that is fine by me. We can afford to pay it off and we get to run the club. It would be nice to have no debt. It would be nice to pay it off within a year. But it will get paid off, and when it does we will get to decide what to do with our tenners. I don't really need or want any more information than that. If it turns out that the creditor is someone dodgy that we would rather not be in bed with then we will cross that bridge when we come to it but it is an unlikely scenario and the BoD wouldn't allow it in the first place. We don't have any substantial reason to believe that 10000hrs are doing anything but good here. Good for St Mirren and good for the fans. If there is anything you don't like about it, join up and get it changed.

A tenner a month....................................................................................

It turns out there is a maximum number of quotes you are allowed. Had to delete a few. But I think we get the picture.

You can't hide from the truth Stuart..................... Anyway, my last couple of posts have been more tongue in cheek than anything. I just tend to use Sandman-esque lines of dots instead of smilies...........................................................

I thought your finger went from hovering over the cancel button to pressing the cancel button on your direct debit a few days ago? By your logic we shouldn't need or ask for information. We need to trust the board. They will look after us. A tenner a month is a lot less than a season ticket so the financial stakes here are a lot less. Only a real fan would join10000hrs......................................

With regards to the Rangers situation you are campaigning for fans to trust the BoD to make the right choice without making threats or demands. Take some of your own medicine and trust that the BoD want to sell to 10000hrs for all the right reasons. Sign up now and have some faith in your BoD.

But if the car is supposedly worth £20k (or will secure your future travel needs forever) and you are asked for a tenner a month and you are not committed to keep up payments and the car isn't from a Nigerian lawyer who wants to rest a few £mil in your account...............

I was unaware of this. I thought that a fixed price had been agreed and the June 15th deadline was the date that the full amount of pledges must be secured by i.e. the numbers in their email is the line in the sand. It would be good if there was some wiggle room on the price as it would be a shame for this all to fall through due to being just a few pledges short.

No, anyone can join if and when the deal is done..........but it will make me a better fan than you because I signed up and supported them earlier........................

June 15th deadline for Rangers to lodge their papers to decide if they can play next year. June 15th deadline for 10000hrs plan to buy majority stake in SMFC. Shaping up to be an interesting day.

I think there is a bit of a chicken and egg thing here. We need to get these guys on board initially to get enough capital to start the proverbial ball rolling. I don't see them making serious money from SMFC and the support tho and I have no problem with them enjoying some benefits for their financial support in the CIC. Why does it have to be so sinister? If the CIC crashes and burns then the investors like me will have lost the sum of our £10 per month i.e. no big loss. If the CIC goes into administration why will the club be docked points? SMFC won't be in administration. They are two completely separate companies. It is nothing like the Craig Whyte situation. If the CIC doesn't do what it says it is going to do and the investors (like me) all walk away then any debt will lie solely with the CIC and NOT with SMFC. We will be back to square one and looking for someone to buy this 52% stake i.e. the exact same position we are in now. That's my understanding of it anyway. I honestly think that it is more likely that the 10000hrs guys are trying to do good rather than bad here. I am just glad that someone is doing something. Situations pass by all the time when people have great ideas but do nothing about them. Now we have a golden opportunity where someone has actually taken the initiative to give it a go. Call me naive but I'm giving RA the benefit of the doubt. The rewards are too great to not take the risk.

Well I am under the impression that once the debts are paid off then the members will have the chance to vote on what goes back into the club. I don't have any insider information as to why a forecast hasn't been presented. It is possibly because 10000hrs actually DO want it to be run by the fans and therefore they can't predict how any future voting will go regarding fund distribution. If they start dictating where all the money goes then they will be met with criticism for not allowing a democracy to decide. An unfortunate scenario which I don't deny. However, I don't know if Richard has attempted anything as ambitious as this in the past and he will probably admit that he could/would/should have approached some things differently in hindsight. It certainly isn't enough for me to denounce the whole idea. So you have to do a little bit of work to find out some of the answers; maybe even contact the guy directly. It's hardly the end of the world. I'm still willing to give it a go. What's the worst that could happen?

I think it would be a helluva plot twist if it did turn out that Richard Atkinson, GLS or Tony Fitzpatrick did turn out to be evil St Mirren hating asset strippers and managed to take SMFC to the cleaners and leave us weeping in a pit of despair where our stadium used to be. I also don't see how they could actually do this within the 10000hrs setup. I don't see how I (as a £10/month member) could use this opportunity to take money or assets out the club either. Everything points to a bunch of very decent, like-minded people actually trying to DO something. That has to be applauded. Why does it have to be a big conspiracy with a sour ending? I accept some of the sticking points that people have but a little bit of faith for a mere tenner a month when the potential rewards are so great is well worth the risk in my opinion.

For anyone swithering, if they don't get enough backing by the deadline then we will never know if it would have been a good thing or a bad thing and we will just be left with the speculation that we have now. I have submitted my DD mandate because I genuinely believe that they trying are to do something "good" for the club, despite some rough edges here and there. I believe that I will get to vote on the CICs stance on ALL decisions that will go to an SMFC boardroom vote. I believe that there will be at LEAST an AGM that will allow decisions to be made by me and all the other members i.e. not just one vote every 3 years and the board make the rest of the decisions without consulting me. I believe that if I want, I can nominate myself to join the CIC board and if you all vote for me then I WILL be on the board so fan representation is entirely realistic. If it turns out I am wrong about this or it doesn't pan out how I want then I will have invested a mere tenner a month and I will cancel my DD and continue my life. Basically I think there is enough for me to give the CIC a chance and if it fails I will always be wondering if we have just passed up a wonderful opportunity for our club.

This is the bit that really bugs me too. What if Rangers or Celtic get into a position that they could be relegated. We would basically be setting a precedent that would allow them to dodge future relegation, based purely on the tagline "Scottish football needs them in the top league". That is utterly disgraceful. I may be wrong here but is it not just the SPL board members that vote on letting Rangers into the SPL i.e. NOT the individual club chairmen. If this is true then St Mirren and most other clubs wouldn't even get a say in the matter? Celtic, Dundee Utd and St Johnstone have members on the SPL board but the rest of the clubs will just have to abide by the decision that is made.

It was. Imrie is a great addition to the squad. I agree that admission prices should be cut though.