Reynard

I'd rather have the stand filled by churchgoers on a Sunday morning than a bunch of boring, bitter atheist dullards like you.
Our club is named after a Christian saint. You must have a small brain haemorrhage every time you mention his name.
Maybe you should go to the church under the stand when it starts up. It might make you a decent person.

If the club is going down the community club route then we might as well get used to various groups of folk using the place. I don't have a problem with that and neither should anyone else.
If JimDick wants to set up his own wee group of like minded individuals to gripe about stuff and he wants to use the space in the stand to do it ,then fine. The more the place gets used by folk from the town, the better.

Have you read this thread? Thye amount of people jumping to the defence of a religious organisation astounds me.
Anyway will this group of worshippers be paying the £10k to join the CIC or are they getting a freebie?
Will they use the affiliation with St Mirren FC to promote themselves in the eyes of the young thus assisting them in indoctrinating the young into there bizarre ways?
In a modern society should we really accept religion at face value when the creationism story has been completely and utterly disproved by Darwinism?
Is religion really a force for good or a force for evil bearing in mind how it stands in the way of science and tries to undermine our understanding of the real origins of life?
Is a football forum really the place to have such a debate?
If not then does that indicate that a football club is not the place for a religious organisation at all?
Is it fair to expose children to these religious zealots?
Will these zealots issue the Supra's with free tambourines as a thank you?
What about a triangle then?
Or a guitar?
Is this the beginings of a cult?
Could we have bible readings over the tannoy system prior to kick off?
Are you aware of the story of the Sodomites?
Is this really an acceptable way to treat woman in a modern society?
Exactly who at the club is pushing this drive toward organised religion at our football club?
Were the Crusade's really wrong?
What about the second Crusade then?
And the third?
Should we have another Crusade, maybe an oil crusade?
Who is the better fighter, Moses or Jesus?

The return of the magnificent seven.
Still seven of us fans and still seven fans who are extremely worried.
Our stranger is keeping low yet small bits of information find their way out. It seems he wants to buy over the big house on the cheap, a fact that has caught the attention of one of the news sheets in the locale. A national title. Questions are being asked. Searching questions. Our man is unavailable for comment, he seems to have flitted to spaghetti western land on a temporary basis. Fair enough that may well be coincidence, everyone is entitled to a holiday. You might claim that he is far from being a daily male for a week at least!
When some of the villagers read or hear of this they leap to all sorts of spin in the absent stranger’s defence. Some hit out at the news sheet, I don’t blame them actually, its not one of my favourites but their story is fact based. The local sheriff fears a smokescreen. Could it be that some of the rustlers fear being hit by a few slugs?
Some of the gringos are amazed that some of the villagers are willing to do this while the man is away. Surely he can speak for himself? Maybe his trusty side-kick would have wanted to comment in his absence. Maybe not. He is the silent man.
But let’s not let the facts get in the way. A spokesman for an interested group, the taxpayers alliance, quoted in the article, is on the receiving end from some posters for making statements that are quite clear. Only someone wishing to misinterpret them could fail to see his point, that Scottish taxpayers’ pesos could be used to fund a scheme, because that is exactly what we have here, a scheme, to buy up a controlling interest in one of Scotland’s oldest football clubs without having to put in even a red cent of your own money Senor Stranger.
Amazingly some of the villagers still discuss on the forums the prospects of cash being put into the team after the CIC takes control. From where? The CIC (in the teeth – or worse). Don’t think so. It will have massive debts to repay and only one sizeable source of income. Remember 52 percent controlling interest means a vote can divert Saints income in almost any direction. It could be packed onto mules and sent off to the lenders in jig time. Circle the wagons. The team could starve!
As for the doubters - well they like the 48 percent of shareholders don’t matter - as the stranger has already said to others and to one of the magnificent seven to his face!
The stranger introduces churches into the mix. A debate follows on the unofficial site. Very quickly that debate becomes a discussion on the merits or de-merits of religion/worship, call it what you will. St. Mirren has never been entangled in this kind of stuff. We are indeed a broad church in the true sense as one poster said. The point is that the debate only showed how fast and how deeply religion divides opinion, attracts ridicule AND DETRACTS FROM THE THREAT TO OUR CLUB.
Another consideration was discussed around the campfire though. A previous poster pointed out that the stranger is a director of the Scottish Bible Society. A connection that surely suggests an agenda or at the very least a willingness to use church contacts to further his ambitions. Many of these churches come from outwith the local community. For someone so connected to take advantage of a situation where as a prominent poster pointed out other directors have been ‘shafted’ and the almost half of shareholders deliberately left behind hardly speaks volumes for the stranger or his moral code. We wonder where that attitude could take our club.
Apparently he has spoken to some of the SMISA villagers recently too. These are decent guys. But some are talking. Some of his comments betray a bit more of his motives. Oh yes he wants the big house and the chair that goes with it. Word on the dusty street is that he is disappointed that the buds will stay in the SPL. His plans are more suited to a lower league club. Some now worry that a first division position may not be low enough. Less than 50 percent present were convinced of the situation to date.
Are we being alarmist? Hell yes, with good reason.
A note to pin to the tree in the village square: At no time has any person been named or individually referred to in these posts. None of us would ever decry anyone for helping the CLUB.

I think this a key point. For eons St Mirren has been run by a BoD made up of small local businessmen. That wasn't a bad thing; however as we have all experienced to our frustration they have been been fairly limited in their ability to market St Mirren. Small business people attract small business people. I am trying to make this point without being disrespectful to the current BoD who have done remarkable things and continue to do remarkable things with the current undertaking.
The BoDs of St Mirren certainly since the 70's / 80's have always been as mysterious and secretive as the ratf"king old grammarian society - many of the past Board members being part of that organisation.
We have had a history of minority shareholders from a small business background and their business networks reflect their standing in the business world.
A quick look at the business background of Richard Atkinson tells a story. ANyione with google can carry out some research on Richard or his family company. Somoen with the contacts of "animal" will of course know of Maxi Group already. We are hearing much from people how they have contacts with businesses that currently invest in St Mirren. Yet they have offered nothing by way of research into the people involved in the CIC program. They clearly prefer to deal in the easier tactic of made up speculation and rumour spinning negativity on every grain of information fed to them.
Take a look at Maxi Group and the companies they engage with as a matter of course. Think about the network of contacts that a Director of a Group of Companies of which each member company are all larger than any St Mirren board members I have seen in the past 20-30 years (happy to be corrected on this).
We have the £300-a-go player shirt sponsors and the auction dinner tie wearing w@nker types in place already and they are worthy of our praise just as a student or pensioner who spends their limited disposable income on a season ticket or the odd game when they can afford it also deserves our praise, we have the repeat local sponsors and the scumbag political parties investing our hard earned tax on the hoardings plus we have the great deal with Braehead. Already JD Sports are now involved at St Mirren. According to the press releases we have a number of obviously larger than normal companies getting involved with St Mirren at the "it'll never work according to some bawbags" £10,000 per annum corporate membership.
Dafites are posting that none of these organisations will invest that amount in St Mirren. I reckon the opposite will be true as we have seen with JD Sports. You were all at the game yesterday - or where you? JD Sports already have their kudos with the St Mirren support through the shirt deal and yet our Commercial Director Richard Atkinson managed without any arm twisting to get them to invest in the "hall of Fame" initiative dreamt up by a rank and file supporter - something our previous commercial department may have knocked back. What was in that for JD Sports? If some of the self important fandans that post on here are to be believed JD Sports would never do that - what did they hope to gain? Do JD Sports really think supporters will run out and buy more tops or shop at their stores as a result? The real question should be, would Provans - again no disrespect and at the risk of making Big Fras cry - but could Provans have made that investment in the club and in the support - did we even ask them or give them the opportunity? Again Provans did great things for our club and the support and deserve our plaudits for it.
Take a look at the people who are becoming involved in our club. They operate at a different level in terms of their business community and network than what has gone before. The second element to these people are the social responsibility element and their history and experience there. They will attract money from their corporate network. They will attract money from their social responsibility and funding network. They are also working their bawz off to ensure that the fans are right at the heart of the club and the decision making processes of the club.
There is no issue in expressing caution, no issue in expressing concern....but at least try to appreciate that these guys and the current BoD might just be trying to deliver something very, very exciting not only for the long suffering hard core support, but also for our entire area and perhaps most importantly for the voluntary organisations in our area and the members of our community that they serve.
For me this is simple:
Corporate Network - money into the club, but also business leaders and their ingenuity coming into the club to leverage the St Mirren brand.
Social Responsibility Network - access to previously untouchable sources of funding coming into the club, opportunities for the social responsibilities to benefit from St Mirren - very much a symbiotic relationship that for me sums up what being a St Mirren supporter is all about.
Community Ownership - fans no longer sitting on the outside of the club, their ideas and talents being brought right to the heart of the decision making table.
That for me is enough to listen with an open mind and a warm heart to the proposals. The fact that part of the deal is for community ownership with the fans leading the club is a massive bonus.
Some of the petty sniping at the information available so far through the media, or worse just the rumoured or frankly made up pish is embarrassing to our support.
It is difficult......we will try and put words into mouths....we will fret about areas of concern and may even get neurotic as we care about the situation so much. But lets try and keep a positive eye on the prize here - niggling doubts aside we must surely agree that if this is the real deal it could be absolutely massive for St Mirren.

Too right. Even in these tough times £10000 is nothing for larger businesses. It will obviously depend on what is on offer for them of course and nobody on here seems to know this. So lets just wait and see what the deal is for all of us. Businesses and individuals. If it's worth buying into then it will work. If not it won't, and we all move on.