kenbud

Div, can you write the statments from now on.... or at least provide a for dummies version on here soon after..... reading between the lines your post and the statement that came from out today say the same thing. but from a fans point of view i am 100% more reassured by what you had to say....

I am not quite at the toys out the pram stage.... but there was a big push rightly or wrongly to imply that if the fans did there bit (raised the £7500 / month) then the deal should go through and we would get to vode on the newco issue. The statment today was a bit shit... and reads like many of the older 10000hours statments "we know we have to make a statments, but we dont have good news so we are going to bluff you with 5 or 6 paragraphs that dosn't really answer any questions but keep supporting us we really want to make this deal happen"

So what happens if we get relegated this season surely thats a possible outcome, how would the CIC deal with this

I am really not sure how to read this statement... are we "10,000" hours trying to reduce the price because the SPL revenue cannot be gaurenteed at current levels due to the possibility that Rangers wont be playing in the SPL next season. The footballing income dosnt have an impact on our loan repayments ect so i dont understand why this should have an effect on our bid. Unless we are trying to lower the price based on this argument. The NewCo debate in the FAQ for 10,000 stated that the club board would disclose the facts to the membership, at the moment i say noto newco but tell me the facts so i can make an informed decision.

162 more people at £10 a month or less if people pay more.........

REA freely admits that when he started in this Journey he was not a St Mirren fan... but due to his extensive involvment he now wears the scarf as one of us. Who's to say that an oversea's investment group might not fall into the same trap... If you back the CiC it should be because you belive in the principles of community and fan ownership

I would buy a fleet of black and white minibuses, via sponsorship / grants and by badgering the council about their useless transport policies. The first thing I would do is paint some large!! Giant St Mirren logos and maybe a 10’000 hour’s one. These “St Mirren busses” would then be offered out or used in conjunction with 10’000 hour community partners (Another benefit of their £500 / year) or other local causes such as Football teams, Scout Groups, Boys Brigade. These buses would be the embodiment and free advertisement for what St Mirren in this community can be about. Picture the scene of during the day a bus moving about Paisley picking up pensioners taking them to the OAP lunch at St Mirren Park. At night being used by the local boys clubs to pick up and drop off kids from football matches. At the weekend being used to take our away support to Inverness or Aberdeen replacing the 2 coaches at £1000 a go.

I am still very positive and have been from the start about the potential community benefits of St Mirren football club being a Paisley community hub bringing groups together and expanding on the great work of the exsisting community team. Personally I agree with some of the sentiment that we as fans have to buy into the bigger picture to fully realise this potential, its not enough just to run a members bar on match day and hope a couple of weddings and funerals a year will make us a community. we need to utilised the members enthusiasm and expertise to come up with unique and beneficial ideas that will deliver for the community and the football club. Picking up perhaps wrongly on one of Stuarts points on youth teams gaining access to ralston, as the pro-youth teams are already using the 3G pitch 7 nights of the week we dont have the capacity at ralston to accommodate the extra use. Solution: Build another one at Greenhill Road Looking at the concept drawing from the offical site there were supposed to be another couple up the top so lets build a half sized 3G pitch for use by youth teams Monday to Friday. You then follow the Spartan Model here of running St Mirren in the community type street Friday and Saturday night. Whats the advantage to St Mirren? Because we can its the only way we will ever deliver One Town One Team by involving the town in more than just shit football on the park. We get some of the advantages listed earlier by providing support to local teams and expanding our scouting network. You can never have to many training parks? We can offset some of the social interest on outstanding grants by proving our social benefit of St Mirren being part of the community

got mine in while picking up my season ticket

Think that bit has always been there for season tickets?

From what I remember from RA and the meeting..... The Executive board could only veto budgetary control reasons or legal matters regarding some of the responsibilities of the CiC. I took that to mean, if the CiC board wanted to reduce season tickets to £100 a seat but couldn’t prove where they would get the short fall from then this would be overruled. On the other hand if the CIC wanted to sack Danny Lennon and could prove that there was enough money to pay off his contract and employ someone else it could and they Executive couldn’t veto it. The legal aspect I’d imagine would be clauses put in by some of the funders that are being looked at by the CiC. This is one area that I would like expanded upon and put before us in black and white at the next public meeting.

It may be possible depending on legislation and licensing laws, bowling clubs and social clubs somtimes do it for busy functions. so i dont see why the CiC couldnt do it

The anonymity of the internet makes it a poor medium for debate and this is obviously one of the biggest problems that the CiC will face in running the club. As a support and by the looks of this thread we cannot agree on the colour of the colour of dugs jobby, Let alone run a football club. Believe it or not on this thread has roughly 1700 posts but only has 122 unique posters and these statistics obviously don’t take into account any aliases or other internet bawbagary that goes on. There have been a number of good questions asked on this thread and good answers given by 10000 Hours or other posters who seem to have an understanding of what is being proposed. However there has also been quite a lot of hostile questions and answers by pro and anti CiC posters with the odd personal insult and attack on other posters or members of the CIC…. The sort of attacks or comments that you just would not make in a face to face meeting. My advice to anyone one reading this thread who is still not sold on the CiC is to go along to the public meetings, listen to what they are proposing I have yet to see a question on this thread that wouldn’t be answered by Richard or the team behind this. For me I can see no reason why this shouldn’t work…… I don’t have the evidence to back it up but St Mirrens turnover especially if / when we get relegated back to the first division will not be much larger (perhaps even smaller) than some of the larger Rugby or Cricket clubs down in England who run on a similar model to the one being proposed by the CiC. As great a job as Stuart Gilmore and the other directors have done in getting us where we are you cannot convince me that there isn’t another 5 fans who are buying into the CiC concept that could do a similar job.

Quite short notice for the first meeting.... wonder what the turnout will be like

This paragraph at the end of the document sums it up for me, this proposal isn’t for everyone and it is correct that we should debate the biggest question to fans of the club since SG took over the board or the lobbying of the council to allow the new ground to be built. I also have my reservations judging by some of the debates we as a fan group have on here or in the pubs after the game I am not convinced we would agree on the colour of shite sometimes, can we be trusted to vote on board electives and run a football club? What is the alternative I can envisage two outcomes. Mr Buddie full of the best intentions in the world pumps money into the first team, funds some players that the fans are happy and we start climb league. Mr Buddie’s personal fortune takes a kicking for some reason and he pulls out from funding the club. Our natural income can't meet our outgoings we goto the bank but with no real assetts to secure a loan on we get told to bugger off. Next we are robbing Peter or pay Paul or rather HMRC to pay Potter in an attempt to trade our way out of trouble. HMRC get pissed and call in the debt back to square one Miss Budett has a spare two million quid, she buys the saints and decides football is a bit of a mugs game that its unlikely you will see much of a return on your money. She sets stadium company and develops the unused parts so that she can get the two million quid back that she spent buying the club. She also decides that youth players are the only way to sustain the football club and gets our kids on some decent contracts. Kenny McLean and Connor Ramsay come into their own the team is playing well and we reach the lofty hights of 7th in the SPL. Million pound offers from English Prem come in for our young star players and they are off. What a season, the next year the best we can muster is a couple of jedward lookalikes and some has-beens Danny lennon has them playing “good football” but we could score in a smack hoose back to the first division we go. Mr Buddie followed the Dundee/Grenta/*** Cnt model and while we had some amazing highs the consequences of his good intentions has buggered us for years to come. Miss Budett is a fan of Ronnie Mac at Hamilton and that’s no bad thing but at the end of a day it’s a business to her. And who knows when she will get bored and sell on to Mr Buddie. Again I know I have just spouted a lot of rubbish and you’re asking what my point is. Simply if you disagree with the CiC what would YOU like to happen? I could probably live with someone like Ronnie Mac at our club but I am not convinced I like the idea of one person having so much control over my football team.

I am watching these events unfold with great anticipation and excitement, first things first we need to wait for more information on what/when/where/how 10000 hours are going to operate and how they (We) intend to pay back the 2million required to purchase the football club. Knowing a number of people who work in the volunteer sector and also being a very active scout leader within Paisley I know for a fact that with the correct know how and statistics to back you up application it is possible to get tens of thousands of pounds for community based projects or guaranteed funding to provide members of staff for projects. Here is a local example of a scout group in paisley getting 20K to invest in facilities for their hall. Linky Here is another example of £40,000 raised by peeseweep / lapwing lodge at the top of Glenniffer breas to build a high ropes course. Linky Ok so that proves scouting in Paisley can raise £60,000 to build climbing walls how does this help the CiC / 10000 hours or St Mirren? Well let’s look at this in a football context the CiC could apply to expand the Ralston or GHR facilities to provide a dedicated sports injury clinic for use by the community this benefits the community with local sports men/women/boys/girls having cheap access to sports therapy and the club benefit from having the facility as part of their training base. I know this is all pie in the sky at the moment and my example probably isn’t the best but it gives St Mirren a great platform to extend their community reach while tapping into funding opportunities that may not be available to other football clubs. I don’t think you will find many on here that will agree that the sugar daddy approach works! Scottish football is littered with the failures of one man bankrolling a club. I am sure almost all would agree that the club should be self sustainable i.e the money we spend on the park is the money we bring in through door. This to me explains why the CiC only needs £130k per year to be viable. There is no reason why volunteers and perhaps a small number of paid staff via the CiC cannot replicate the amazing work done by the current BoD.