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All fair points. I can't see any logic in the decision from the Smisa committee. Only they can explain why they've decided to let this go through to a vote, but unfortunately their response doesn't say anything apart from 'complex finances', supporters want a 'big ticket item' and we think the funds are still 'ring fenced'. Which makes me even more concerned. The guys on the committee have a tough job, they should be removing near to all the emotional attachment to the club to make decisions.


I've a massive issue with the committee deciding it's acceptable to touch funds that are clearly set aside. As you said if they put it forward of we'll pay in instalments out of the £2 fund they'd be zero issue.

To me the proposal means that the supporters are actually paying 50k more than the agreed price for the club. We give the club 50k then have to refund ourselves out of a pot of money set aside for other things.

There's also still room for improvement in community projects. Getting a St mirren youth team sponsorship doesn't cut the mustard
Get football accessible to any child who wants in Renfrewshire, if you want to do anything at youth level.

How could the club put Morton fans in a corner of the West stand, having promised the West stand would be for St Mirren fans only, if we rallied around the club calling for fans to take up at least 1000 STs in the West? I’d go as far as saying those seats are ring-fenced for the use of St Mirren fans only. Oh.... right. Better get ready, singing section, your seats might be whisked away any moment.

Only two sleeps now. Having attended the last three games, all away, I am looking forward to Saturday. Sloppy against Inverness, poor at Brechin, better at Utd but not good enough - I believe we'll get at a least a point against Livingston.
It'll be hard, but I think we have too much for them.

(Fingers crossed )

That is us. Season tickets in W1 but haven't sat there all season. Been choosing from the plenty of better view, free seats in W5,
Looks like that will end on Saturday sadly.
 
 

I really hope there is people that can make the Agm and ask the hard questions.

Even what do Smisa define as 'ring fenced'.

We're all St. Mirren fans but we have to look after the takeover process as well as the club.

All fair points. I can't see any logic in the decision from the Smisa committee. Only they can explain why they've decided to let this go through to a vote, but unfortunately their response doesn't say anything apart from 'complex finances', supporters want a 'big ticket item' and we think the funds are still 'ring fenced'. Which makes me even more concerned. The guys on the committee have a tough job, they should be removing near to all the emotional attachment to the club to make decisions.


I've a massive issue with the committee deciding it's acceptable to touch funds that are clearly set aside. As you said if they put it forward of we'll pay in instalments out of the £2 fund they'd be zero issue.

To me the proposal means that the supporters are actually paying 50k more than the agreed price for the club. We give the club 50k then have to refund ourselves out of a pot of money set aside for other things.

There's also still room for improvement in community projects. Getting a St mirren youth team sponsorship doesn't cut the mustard
Get football accessible to any child who wants in Renfrewshire, if you want to do anything at youth level.

I need to declare I didn’t join buy the buds before I make any post, but there is something that is really confusing me just now. 
The statements that if this proposal isn’t funded by the £10 ring fenced money initially then the club budget for the year will be hit for £50k. If the proposal was for the £2 discretionary income to be used for several quarter then that would get over the ring fenced argument. 
The club are about to get a wad of ST money in to do it through the year, the players and staff will be payed weekly or monthly and bills will come in throughout the year so why is there a need to get the 50k in a lump sum?
Why isn’t the proposal for the next 4 and a bit quarterly funds to directly fund the pitch? If the club do really need this 50k lump sum now then I do really question the stewardship of the board. In addition if there is the need for this money should SMISA not be looking to further its community aims and squeeze a bit more of the community benefit out of the club. 
Please remember SMISA and the club are still two separate entities at the moment and it is incumbent on the office holders, including those that are also on the board to act within the rules, regulations, constitution etc of SMISA .
I reserved judgement on joining buy the buds waiting to see if it was going to become the bowling club committee that I feared, unfortunately I’m not seeing anything to allay my fears. 

I know it's not quite the same but I've been thinking quite a lot about this and also how a similar kind of situation at my Golf Club would be dealt with. The main difference is obviously that we pay "subs" to be a member and use the facilities of the club. However, those that can afford, can choose to put extra cash into various funds ie tree fund, continuous course development fund, clubhouse development fund and a couple of others. All of these funds have the monies ring-fenced and, as per the club constitution, cannot be dipped into or loaned from to cover any other costs within the club. There would have to be a vote to change the constitution first and if passed then new rules would have to be drafted and passed before any potential proposals for loans, gifts or any other disbursement of funds were even considered from "each" fund.  All this is for very good reason, to make sure that a) it's not a simple decision to take and gives everyone a voice at each stage of the process to either agree or disagree with each aspect in turn.
What I find staggering if I follow the  process above is that we have to go through all of that to deal with the "discretionary" funds rather than the main funds of the club and yet in our current situation it is the main funds that we are changing the process for with an apparent disregard for good governance and due process.
As I said earlier, despite my misgivings I voted yes but my real concerns now are what this disregard for due process and good governance could lead to in the future!!

Smisa shouldn't even have allowed this to go to a vote. This isn't about an AstroTurf pitch, it's about Smisa making a really poor business decision, which doesn't bod well for the future. That for me is something to be concerned about, in this format Smisa aren't showing enough business nouse to maintain the club and shape the club as we won't.

You can't blame people for stopping paying their money if they feel the clubs ownership is going in the wrong direction. I'm sure a lot of people were sick of feeling the previous board had went stale after years at the helm, and with little movement on the club sale, Buy the Buds was a perfect opportunity to do something about this. This isn't the way I expected or wanted smisa to be going about business.

"We appreciate the latest April £2 ballot has generated a bit of debate and the finances are complex but hopefully I can answer your question.

While I fully understand the point you are making, we don't believe what we have asked members to vote on goes against the principle of how #BuyTheBuds has been set up and we wouldn't have put it forward if we did.

To be clear, the money set aside for the share purchase (ie the £10s) will still be used for the share purchase. So in that respect, we would still consider it ring-fenced.

Ultimately our contribution to the Ralston project will - if approved - be paid for by the £2s. All we have proposed is using money which would otherwise be sitting in the bank to allow it to happen now.

We put this project forward because we saw it as a good way to support what members told us was their top priority for £2 spends - ie the youth academy.

All we have done is put a proposal to members - it is up to them whether they are happy to vote for it or not.

I hope this helps but if you wanted to talk it through in any more detail please come along to our AGM on Saturday."

My response from SMISA. Rather meh, and doesn't actually address anything.

I'm thinking I may be out no matter the result of the vote. I'm happy with the £2 pot going to community and youth projects, but not mainly the the club. I'd be interested to see how much of the £2 spend has already been given to the club for the first team.

I'm unable to attend the AGM but will be responding with my thoughts over the whole matter. I like the idea of a fan take over, but I want it to be run as a business making sure that we are taking on minimal risk and that everything falls within what we bring in as a club without turning to supporters associations.

"so in that respect we still consider it ring fenced"!

Utter guff!

Be honest ffs.

We thought it a good use of money and aim to repay it into the share fund.

We hope the members will see that us using ring fenced money was well intended.

Two options.

In the meantime.

I smell shite!

Yeah I'm pretty disappointed with the response, seems to be a pawing off rather than offering anything direct.

If the agm is Saturday, I expect no one will be there, as we'll all be busy celebrating!

I had to read that response twice to make sure I believed what I was reading.
 

"We appreciate the latest April £2 ballot has generated a bit of debate and the finances are complex but hopefully I can answer your question.

While I fully understand the point you are making, we don't believe what we have asked members to vote on goes against the principle of how #BuyTheBuds has been set up and we wouldn't have put it forward if we did.

To be clear, the money set aside for the share purchase (ie the £10s) will still be used for the share purchase. So in that respect, we would still consider it ring-fenced.

Ultimately our contribution to the Ralston project will - if approved - be paid for by the £2s. All we have proposed is using money which would otherwise be sitting in the bank to allow it to happen now.

We put this project forward because we saw it as a good way to support what members told us was their top priority for £2 spends - ie the youth academy.

All we have done is put a proposal to members - it is up to them whether they are happy to vote for it or not.

I hope this helps but if you wanted to talk it through in any more detail please come along to our AGM on Saturday."

My response from SMISA. Rather meh, and doesn't actually address anything.

I'm thinking I may be out no matter the result of the vote. I'm happy with the £2 pot going to community and youth projects, but not mainly the the club. I'd be interested to see how much of the £2 spend has already been given to the club for the first team.

I'm unable to attend the AGM but will be responding with my thoughts over the whole matter. I like the idea of a fan take over, but I want it to be run as a business making sure that we are taking on minimal risk and that everything falls within what we bring in as a club without turning to supporters associations.

"We appreciate the latest April £2 ballot has generated a bit of debate and the finances are complex but hopefully I can answer your question.

While I fully understand the point you are making, we don't believe what we have asked members to vote on goes against the principle of how #BuyTheBuds has been set up and we wouldn't have put it forward if we did.

To be clear, the money set aside for the share purchase (ie the £10s) will still be used for the share purchase. So in that respect, we would still consider it ring-fenced.

Ultimately our contribution to the Ralston project will - if approved - be paid for by the £2s. All we have proposed is using money which would otherwise be sitting in the bank to allow it to happen now.

We put this project forward because we saw it as a good way to support what members told us was their top priority for £2 spends - ie the youth academy.

All we have done is put a proposal to members - it is up to them whether they are happy to vote for it or not.

I hope this helps but if you wanted to talk it through in any more detail please come along to our AGM on Saturday."

My response from SMISA. Rather meh, and doesn't actually address anything.

I'm thinking I may be out no matter the result of the vote. I'm happy with the £2 pot going to community and youth projects, but not mainly the the club. I'd be interested to see how much of the £2 spend has already been given to the club for the first team.

I'm unable to attend the AGM but will be responding with my thoughts over the whole matter. I like the idea of a fan take over, but I want it to be run as a business making sure that we are taking on minimal risk and that everything falls within what we bring in as a club without turning to supporters associations.

"We appreciate the latest April £2 ballot has generated a bit of debate and the finances are complex but hopefully I can answer your question.

While I fully understand the point you are making, we don't believe what we have asked members to vote on goes against the principle of how #BuyTheBuds has been set up and we wouldn't have put it forward if we did.

To be clear, the money set aside for the share purchase (ie the £10s) will still be used for the share purchase. So in that respect, we would still consider it ring-fenced.

Ultimately our contribution to the Ralston project will - if approved - be paid for by the £2s. All we have proposed is using money which would otherwise be sitting in the bank to allow it to happen now.

We put this project forward because we saw it as a good way to support what members told us was their top priority for £2 spends - ie the youth academy.

All we have done is put a proposal to members - it is up to them whether they are happy to vote for it or not.

I hope this helps but if you wanted to talk it through in any more detail please come along to our AGM on Saturday."

My response from SMISA. Rather meh, and doesn't actually address anything.

I'm thinking I may be out no matter the result of the vote. I'm happy with the £2 pot going to community and youth projects, but not mainly the the club. I'd be interested to see how much of the £2 spend has already been given to the club for the first team.

I'm unable to attend the AGM but will be responding with my thoughts over the whole matter. I like the idea of a fan take over, but I want it to be run as a business making sure that we are taking on minimal risk and that everything falls within what we bring in as a club without turning to supporters associations.

The vote is skewed. Loaded. The fact they attached the astroturf to the vote was no accident. It is designed, in my opinion, to make a yes result more likely, and is a device to make a no vote seem like you are voting against something good happening that would benefit Jack Ross, and therefore, our team. 

It shouldn't be that confusing. The "hard liners" you refer to are simply those who read and absorbed the literature that was available before Gordon Scott took over the club - and they want SMISA to live up to their promises. 
If it was always SMISA's intention to be a fund raising vehicle for St Mirren FC Ltd then the Community Benefit Society model was the wrong one to use. If the intention was to spend the "discretionary fund" on Sports Scientists, players wages, and consumables for St Mirren FC Ltd, then the fund should have been set up outwith the Community Benefit Society and SMISA should have been much clearer in it's literature that this money would only some times be used to benefit the local community. 
Here we see SMISA breaking yet another promise. The proposal is that protected, ring-fenced funds that are supposed to be kept safe for the eventual take over of the club from Gordon Scott, is to be loaned to St Mirren FC Ltd and repaid, not by St Mirren FC Ltd, but by the members of SMISA. 
I am a strong supporter of community ownership of football clubs. I always believed passionately that it would be very much to the betterment of the sport if senior football clubs were much more closely linked to their local communities and if resources from the community and from the football club could be shared to cut costs and increase revenue. I wanted BTB to be done properly and for it to be a success. Unfortunately SMISA has reverted to type, lost focus, gone back to the days where it bought t-shirts and towels for the club and forgot completely it's commitment to be the fans representatives on the football club board. It's abused it's Third Sector status and the benefits given to Community Benefit Societies and I can't see anything but a tumbling house of cards as awareness of the abuse grows. 
What I will say though is that I commend the debate that has happened on here over the last few days. It shouldn't be suppressed like others tried to do last time. It's certainly been enlightening. 

Suspect
It's the blueprint to play against us

Good points.
So essentially the proposal is so ill-considered and divisive that, regardless of the outcome of the vote, SMiSA's custodians will probably have created a lose / lose situation for themselves and their members.

Smisa shouldn't even have allowed this to go to a vote. This isn't about an AstroTurf pitch, it's about Smisa making a really poor business decision, which doesn't bod well for the future. That for me is something to be concerned about, in this format Smisa aren't showing enough business nouse to maintain the club and shape the club as we won't.

You can't blame people for stopping paying their money if they feel the clubs ownership is going in the wrong direction. I'm sure a lot of people were sick of feeling the previous board had went stale after years at the helm, and with little movement on the club sale, Buy the Buds was a perfect opportunity to do something about this. This isn't the way I expected or wanted smisa to be going about business.

The £2 fund has definitely been overused in matters that are associated with running the club, from the sports scientist to new balls. Ideas that I don't really feel the £2 pot was supposed to be about. I was sold it was about community projects, something that would boost St. Mirrens profile off the pitch and make us a hub for the communities around Renfrewshire, from late night youth football to supporting local sports teams that have not had links with the clubs.

The £10 pot is for buying the club, and that alone, no money should be taken out of this apart from the purchase of shares.

Buy the Buds isn't a vehicle to support the club on the pitch or in the background. It's about a group of supporters taking over a business, we have to treat it accordingly, so we can shape the club how we see fit. Too many people understandably can't or won't be able to separate the business from the club they support. That in the long run will make things difficult when we do hit sticky patches. When this AstroTurf needs relayed under our ownership it'll be rightly be coming out the playing budget, if we don't want to do that, we don't have an AstroTurf field.

People signed up for buy the Buds because the felt the old ownership was stale and had a fear of a rogue businessperson running the club into the ground. It feels now that Smisa is just giving the fans the option to vote for poor future management with the constant club bowl being passed around.

I'm still awaiting to hear back from SMISA, but to be honest depending on what they say and future votes I'll be seriously reconsidering my membership of a project that clearly isn't on the right track and may not be able to correct itself.

Smisa shouldn't even have allowed this to go to a vote. This isn't about an AstroTurf pitch, it's about Smisa making a really poor business decision, which doesn't bod well for the future. That for me is something to be concerned about, in this format Smisa aren't showing enough business nouse to maintain the club and shape the club as we won't.

You can't blame people for stopping paying their money if they feel the clubs ownership is going in the wrong direction. I'm sure a lot of people were sick of feeling the previous board had went stale after years at the helm, and with little movement on the club sale, Buy the Buds was a perfect opportunity to do something about this. This isn't the way I expected or wanted smisa to be going about business.

The £2 fund has definitely been overused in matters that are associated with running the club, from the sports scientist to new balls. Ideas that I don't really feel the £2 pot was supposed to be about. I was sold it was about community projects, something that would boost St. Mirrens profile off the pitch and make us a hub for the communities around Renfrewshire, from late night youth football to supporting local sports teams that have not had links with the clubs.

The £10 pot is for buying the club, and that alone, no money should be taken out of this apart from the purchase of shares.

Buy the Buds isn't a vehicle to support the club on the pitch or in the background. It's about a group of supporters taking over a business, we have to treat it accordingly, so we can shape the club how we see fit. Too many people understandably can't or won't be able to separate the business from the club they support. That in the long run will make things difficult when we do hit sticky patches. When this AstroTurf needs relayed under our ownership it'll be rightly be coming out the playing budget, if we don't want to do that, we don't have an AstroTurf field.

People signed up for buy the Buds because the felt the old ownership was stale and had a fear of a rogue businessperson running the club into the ground. It feels now that Smisa is just giving the fans the option to vote for poor future management with the constant club bowl being passed around.

I'm still awaiting to hear back from SMISA, but to be honest depending on what they say and future votes I'll be seriously reconsidering my membership of a project that clearly isn't on the right track and may not be able to correct itself.

The £2 fund has definitely been overused in matters that are associated with running the club, from the sports scientist to new balls. Ideas that I don't really feel the £2 pot was supposed to be about. I was sold it was about community projects, something that would boost St. Mirrens profile off the pitch and make us a hub for the communities around Renfrewshire, from late night youth football to supporting local sports teams that have not had links with the clubs.

The £10 pot is for buying the club, and that alone, no money should be taken out of this apart from the purchase of shares.

Buy the Buds isn't a vehicle to support the club on the pitch or in the background. It's about a group of supporters taking over a business, we have to treat it accordingly, so we can shape the club how we see fit. Too many people understandably can't or won't be able to separate the business from the club they support. That in the long run will make things difficult when we do hit sticky patches. When this AstroTurf needs relayed under our ownership it'll be rightly be coming out the playing budget, if we don't want to do that, we don't have an AstroTurf field.

People signed up for buy the Buds because the felt the old ownership was stale and had a fear of a rogue businessperson running the club into the ground. It feels now that Smisa is just giving the fans the option to vote for poor future management with the constant club bowl being passed around.

I'm still awaiting to hear back from SMISA, but to be honest depending on what they say and future votes I'll be seriously reconsidering my membership of a project that clearly isn't on the right track and may not be able to correct itself.