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Dibbles old paperboy

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Everything posted by Dibbles old paperboy

  1. Chuffed with score and performance in Renfrewshire Cup Final today. First trophy of the season bagged already.

  2. Happy with our efforts at Dumbarton tonight

  3. I do indeed use the Linthouse Barbers Shull

    1. Otto Repoman

      Otto Repoman

      I saw a 50+ body battle at the roundabout at Liinthouse last Saturday night, those wumin are vicious.....

  4. Handed my DD form in at the ground and got the email yesterday saying it had been received and to contact 10 000 Hours if i had pledged but hadn't handed in a DD form yet in case 10 000 Hours had the wrong info.
  5. We already have a new club secretary, so not a surprise to read we'll soon have a new chairman as well. Thanks and well done to SG
  6. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/13531490.stm
  7. http://www.paisleydailyexpress.co.uk/renfrewshire-news/local-news-in-renfrewshire/paisley-news/2011/05/18/trouble-in-store-87085-28715582/ Sadly the main offence taken by 'Paisley Buddies' which the PDE spoke to was over Morrisons listing the Paisley stores as being part of Glasgow, rather than say Morrisons not having an option of using a St Mirren summer soccer school instead of the OF in the Paisley / Renfrewshire stores. Here's to the CIC changing the local landscape in the years to come!
  8. Saddened to read so many posts going on about child abuse, brain washing and religion causes all wars. Despite all that has gone wrong within the Catholic church you or your kids are more likely to be abused by a member of the public than by a Catholic priest. Why don't we blame the politicians of all political colours who have declared umpteen wars in the last few decades when one of the main bodies which spoke out against he majority of these wars being declared was "the church"? You'd do well to find any recent wars where the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland or its Moderator, or the Archbishop of Cantebury or the Pope or any RC Cardinals have cheered on Tory or Labour governments declaring war on Iraq, Afghanistan etc.
  9. So how many co-ops run football clubs in the UK?
  10. Relegation is more likely to pose a financial problem for the St Mirren FC BoD than it will for the CIC board. Sounds like the CIC are looking like their corporate, community groups and individual memberships will have enough members signed up to repay the loans over he agreed timespan. Why does it follow that we will be in another relegation fight next season or be the favourite to go down? Are dunfermline looking a lot stronger than us? It sounded like St Mirren's squad budget for next season will stay at a similar level to this season's budget while a lot of other clubs are looking to implement big cuts in their squad budget for next season (eg Dundee United, Hibs, Motherwell...) and the likes of Kilmarnock will be missing the players and manager who got hem off to a flier this season and a club like Aberdeen will be trying to rebuild their squad and St Johnstone have been on a bad run in 2011. Where relegation would have a big impact would be the player budget for seasons following relegation... budget would be set by the St Mirren board (including CIC members) and other board members. At the public meeting last Thursday, Jim Mullen said that KibbleWorks had taken a punt a few months ago on the CIC takeover becoming a reality and had one of their own staff researching how much use St Mirren Park might get as a venue for conferences and for wedding bookings, birthday parties etc and whether kitting out The Void area would pay for itself and make a profit etc and there has already been a good number of bookings using the corporate suite area for the last few months and Kibble seem to be using St Mirren Park as their new venue for conferences and already have other regular bookings in place with the money going to St Mirren FC at the moment before the CIC gets started. I think they used a phrase like they were operating as if the CIC had already happened and the bookings and money was already coming in and helping the club. On that basis it is not fair to say the CIC have no idea whether the facilities and bar would get used much or make much money, even though the CIC hasn't officially started they already have bookings coming in and I guess that's why they are happy to give a figure in the presentation saying that the increased revenue from hiring out facilities at St Mirren Park should see a 7% increase in the squad budget by the end of year 1. RA also seems a fairly cautious character in terms of business - everything has to be transparent and above board, and he said the Maxi Group have operated without any debt since the 1980s... the CIC also seem well on the way to meeting their conservative target figures for the different types of memberships being taken up... even though many predicted the CIC would never get the backing from the fans or businesses in Paisley to get off the ground.
  11. The "money spinning bar" is not designed to be the sole means of repaying the debt! The debt would be repaid over 10 years through the 4 different types of membership subscriptions and through increased use of facilities at St Mirren Park throughout the week. If the club facilities begin to get used more often for conferences, weddings, funerals, birthday parties, Christmas parties / works Christmas nights out etc then the "money spinning bar" would be open for most of those functions and the CIC team seem confident that they can attract at least 50 such functions a year where the bar would be used and where individuals and companies and community organisations would be hiring hall space at the ground, or even hiring the car park to hold car boot sales, jumble sales etc. This weekend the boat jumble sale are paying over £1k to use he empty club car park for a day... if we got that type of booking once a month for the next ten years at only £1k a time then that repays one tenth of the debt before anyone has bought a drink in the new bar or paid to have a birthday party in the corporate suite. How do St Mirren FC begin making money from the CIC venture? If the CIC are successful in attracting businesses to the ground to use facilities for conferences, or if community groups are around the ground for birthday parties etc there is a decent chance that some of businesses and visitors may think about attending a game or booking corporate matchday packages etc if their initial contact via the CIC is positive. Lets say RA meets the target of the CIC hosting one function (wedding, birthday party, conference) etc a week on top of having community groups like local churches using the facilities every week and over the course of a year around 5000 people visit St Mirren Park on CIC business, is there not a decent chance that a 250-500 of those visitors might decide to come to a game or buy a corporate package or sponsor St Mirren in some way?
  12. SG didn't say he agreed with Sky's position he just said that his guess was that if the other SPL clubs forced the OF out of Scotland they would end up with less TV money than they get now with the OF involved and that Sky would help facilitate the OF entering the EPL by threatening to pull the plug on their deal with the EPL unless they let the OF in. SG said something like most people at the meeting including himself had Sky Sports subscriptions and were feeding the beast while also complaining Sky had too much say in football and when games were played etc. It seemed to be his opinion based on his experience of negotiating with the SPL clubs and TV broadcasters that it wouldn't simply be a case of everyone else telling the OF to stop trying to bully them and saying the OF need a league to play in and the Of would suddenly cave in because they were threatened with being turfed out the SPL.
  13. Once the debt is repaid we could use our £10 a month to fund the filling in of the corners of the stadium and increase the capacity of the stadium to cope with demand... or build safe standing areas at the corners.
  14. If one individual or a consortium bought the 52% majority shareholding they could control the club and run it as they saw fit without listening to the fans or the 48% of other shareholders. With the CIC model fans can have a say and have some voting rights and involvement.
  15. The fans would have control of the club in the sense that we have opted in to the CIC method of buying the majority shareholding and see the potential for funding the club by working over the next 10 years to replay the loans (£1.3m) to buy the majority shareholding and using the CIC to grow the fanbase to increase the revenue the club earns... seems like a better way to fund the club (more fans paying more money - attending the games, using the stadium for birthday parties, wedding receptions etc, more people buying strips and merchandise) than hoping the new SPL will divide the spoils more fairly or TV will give us more money to televise St Mirren v Inverness 4 times a season. If the fans buy in to the CIC in more substantial numbers than the 300 mentioned you would see the debt repaid sooner and also if you have 1000 fans paid up as part of the CIC the executive board will obviously want to keep them on side rather than thinking we were only responsible for a small percentage of teh numbers adding up to make the business model work.
  16. That suggestion was actually made from the floor last night and got a big reception from most of us here. SG replied in response to the suggestion that while the smaller clubs in the SPL make money out of OF crowds and a bigger TV deal due to the OF being part of the deal, that, as you say, the OF also need the other 8, 10, 12 teams in the SPL to have a league to play in... In his reply SG reckoned that if the other clubs tried booting the OF out the SPL the OF would appeal to UEFA to play in England and that Sky would welcome the prospect of the OF playing in the Championship or EPL and Sky might threaten to pull their TV deal with the EPL and Champions League etc unless UEFA and EPL allowed the OF in. SG also spoke about how Sky have too much power because no one else is putting in anything close to the amount of money Sky invest in EPL and said Sky basically hold all the cards. I think the feeling last night about SG's section was that people were amazed at how bleak things look for the SPL clubs being able to agree any positive changes for the benefit of the top clubs in Scottish football, but nonetheless SG had given the fans a candid flavour of what the negotiations are like and what a lot of the issues and stumbling blocks are... i.e as well as the OF wanting to cream off as much money for themselves and design a league that suits them best you have clubs like Aberdeen, Hearts, Hibs, Dundee United not liking the idea of a 14 team league and a split structure which could see them playing in the bottom 8 if they don't do well in the first bit of the season and how their fans wouldn't be happy being seen as a bottom 8 club rather than one of the teams challenging the OF.
  17. RA also said he thought £2m was a fair or even a cheap asking price for the club and hinted he could have bought the club himself without using the CIC method and involving the fans. SG said earlier that the consortium had knocked back an offer of more than £2m from an Italian consortium who would have borrowed against St Mirren's assets to pay for buying the majority shareholding... and the ground etc would have been the security on the loan and we would be back to where the club was 15 years ago in terms of the debt levels owed to the bank. RA also said he thought the £2m asking price was cheap when you consider the valuation of the new ground and Ralston is close to £12m and said to take control of managing assets worth £12m for a £2m asking price was in his business opinion pretty cheap. RA also mentioned that as well as what the consortium paid originally for their shares you have to factor in the years of soft loans and remortgaging their house to keep St Mirren afloat and also the amount of times the directors have paid for things for the club like heart monitors for the players (cost £4k) and never claimed the money back from the club. RA concluded by saying that while the consortium were making a profit on their original investment that he didn't think any of them were guilty of profiteering from their involvement with the club over the years. RA also indicated that while the consortium will be reinvesting some of their profit from the sale back into the club they weren't seeking election to the BoD again but would be around to advise the board and the CIC if either of them wanted their advise or to utilize their experience.
  18. SG also said that Sky were part of the stumbling block to SPL reconstruction along the lines of a 14, 16 or 18 team set up, and said when it was suggested that the other 10 teams could vote en masse to stand up and oppose the OF that he reckoned Sky have the power to force the EPL to admit the OF to their ranks against their will because the EPL clubs are so heavily in debt that they were dependent on Sky money to service their debts. He also said the game would be a bogey for the rest of scottish football if the OF were ever able to negotiate their own TV deals apart from the other SPL clubs.
  19. A logo for the Life Church appears alongwith another church and KibbleWorks etc on the 10 000 Hours presentation...
  20. Not often i come away from St Mirren Park impressed, but tonight I was. Decent turn out of around 200. Thought Gilmour was pretty open about the politics behind the SPL reconstruction... sounds depressing that either there will be no change to the status quo becaus ethe voting structure means the OF can veto what the other clubs propose, or that if change comes it will be piecemeal, or that clubs will be bullied into voting for changes they are not confident about. Thought Richard Atkinson spoke very well and handled the questions from the floor well too.
  21. How much is Craig Whyte set to pay for r*ngers? £6m to David Murray + £20+m to Lloyds Bank + £10m into the player budget for the summer and with the HMRC case pending which could see r*ngers asked to pay anywhere between £20m - 60m if they lose the case. £2m to buy 52% of a debt free St Mirren in the SPL... bargain!
  22. Can we pay our £10 a month by standing order or does it need to be direct debit?
  23. Doubts cast about the official attendance at St Mirren? Well I never!
  24. Can we pay via standing order or does it have to be direct debit?
  25. Met someone last weekend from the church that is looking into using the ground and they said Saints fans won't have to worry about them paying their way, also sounded like they were looking into the community side of the CiC.
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