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Recent 10000Hrs Cic Email Re Meeting & Key Points


ktf

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£1.3m of debt that rests with the CIC and not St Mirren FC... and if SMISA do vote to support the CIC and add their 50k to Richard's 50k then that is £1.4m raised before you add in the 10 (?) corporate members ready to pledge £10k per year which could the total up to £1.5m more or less raised before you add in community members and ordinary members pledges.

I think we need to take on speculating on the numbers and how this all plays out. The target was £2M and that hasn't changed. What has changed is that the £700K is missing from the final target, but REA did say that whilst part of that was grants (a small part) the rest was on some for of deferred payment. That suggests to me that the revenues brought in from the original memberships may still be required to manage the £1.3M. The big game change is in the nature of the membership where you don't just get a vote, you actually own shares. I reckon we will see the sort of investors that were in limbo under the last membership model......those that weren't going to invest £10K per annum, but would certainly want to invest more than £10 per month. It would only take 5 x REA / GLS throwing in £50K to produce an additional £250K. Then there'll be some chaps like myself who will throw a couple of thousand into the mix......probably a few as the 87 club appears to have been fully subscribed. I'll also be upping my monthly direct debit - although I will use some aliases to ensure I can rig the voting in my favour. whistling.gif

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Assumptions, and Pressumptions M8 ! I Deal with Fact, not Fiction ? punk.gif Mon the Posee bye1.gif

yet you still won't provide any quote where RA called himself the "saviour of St Mirren" as you claimed he had or provide any evidence that he is they 'shyster' that you keep saying he is. Your alternative to the CIC going through was GLS buying the club off the consortium even though GLS didn't want to meet their valuation and has now invested his money in property and wouldn't have the money to buy the club outright, and yet you say you deal in fact, not fiction!

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yet you still won't provide any quote where RA called himself the "saviour of St Mirren" as you claimed he had or provide any evidence that he is they 'shyster' that you keep saying he is. Your alternative to the CIC going through was GLS buying the club off the consortium even though GLS didn't want to meet their valuation and has now invested his money in property and wouldn't have the money to buy the club outright, and yet you say you deal in fact, not fiction!

Chancer ? GLS ? - At least Gordon put an offer in for Our Club ? Shyster. Didnae ? He want's Dafftie's, To do that For Him ? FCUK him - GLS all The Way ! punk.gif Mon The Saints Possee !!!! thumbup2.gif

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yet you still won't provide any quote where RA called himself the "saviour of St Mirren" as you claimed he had or provide any evidence that he is they 'shyster' that you keep saying he is. Your alternative to the CIC going through was GLS buying the club off the consortium even though GLS didn't want to meet their valuation and has now invested his money in property and wouldn't have the money to buy the club outright, and yet you say you deal in fact, not fiction!

Fcuk, Gordon took the right choice, Property ? Oh Fcuk !!! SMFC Different Kettle of Pish - Snake Oil Salesman ? - or sum Kid oan " Shyster " Gordon Scott, is My Man - True Buddie - True Saint ? Not some Interweb Ailias, or Some Ayrshire Bandit, Chancing his Fcking Dongle ? £ 50K The Bawbags avin @ Laugh !! punk.gif Mon The Real Possee ! thumbup2.gif

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At the moment the club is being run perfectly....

why dont all the CIC pledgers just stop their DD and dont tell SG...and the club will stay his forever more and all will be well

he is doing a grand job after all

pssssst.......just dont tell him

Am for that cunning Plan - Fcuk All else going at the moment ? jerry.gifjerry.gif

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Oh dear, it looks like the anti-CIC brigade are back to personal abuse of REA. It would that the rumours of the CICs death were a tadge premature - I guess that makes the anti-CIC brigade premature tadgers.

It is no longer about REA or 10,000hrs. It is now a straight choice between being a one member one vote community owned club or being taken over by people most of us don't know who will raise debt against the assets and pay it off from St Miirren FC's operational budget.

Time to focus on the club's long term future and what we want the club to be. The disruptive strategy from some of the above posters is an attempt to distract people from the opportunity we have before us. SG and the consortium not selling is not a realistic option as at some point they are going to and we have no control over that. We have the opportunity to asset lock the club forever through fan ownership.....no asset stripper will ever be able to take our club from us. That is a pretty big prize in itself. The community-led growth of the club is the icing on the cake.

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Guest somner9

so regarding my previous post is it not the case that those chosen as cic board members will still remain as such

need to see the detail proposed, but in it's purity they would all need to be up for election in an IPS/Co-op

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Oh dear, it looks like the anti-CIC brigade are back to personal abuse of REA. It would that the rumours of the CICs death were a tadge premature - I guess that makes the anti-CIC brigade premature tadgers.

It is no longer about REA or 10,000hrs. It is now a straight choice between being a one member one vote community owned club or being taken over by people most of us don't know who will raise debt against the assets and pay it off from St Miirren FC's operational budget.

Time to focus on the club's long term future and what we want the club to be. The disruptive strategy from some of the above posters is an attempt to distract people from the opportunity we have before us. SG and the consortium not selling is not a realistic option as at some point they are going to and we have no control over that. We have the opportunity to asset lock the club forever through fan ownership.....no asset stripper will ever be able to take our club from us. That is a pretty big prize in itself. The community-led growth of the club is the icing on the cake.

There seems to be some constant innuendo about "all other bids" - is this directed at KMG ? I don't know - does anybody else ? Nobody knows the details of the KMG bid. I cannot imagine that SG would have given it houseroom thus far, if they planned to raise debt against the club. Nobody knows if the KMG bid will involve supporter membership schemes for a place on the board; etc.

The CIC#2 option is actually more preferable to the first version. It would still be my preferred choice, but it does seem unfair that any alternative option is being labelled as putting the club in danger / not involving the fans, when we just don't know this as a fact. I am just assuming that SG wouldn't indulge anyone throttling SMFC with debt. If the KMG crew don't go public with their plans, then they cannot really complain about missing the boat if CIC#2 gets the backing.

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At the moment the club is being run perfectly....

Is it? 2010/11 is the third season in a row that the Wages/Turnover ratio has been over 70% although last season's figure of 71% is slightly down from the 76% it was in the previous two seasons. The net debt at May 31st 2011 stood at over £300k - an increase on twelve months before.

I'm not trying to claim it's all doom and gloom - I still think we are in a reasonable financial position but everything is not rosy in the garden and if we are lucky enough to make a bit of money during the January Transfer Window I would use it to pay off the aforementioned debt.

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The impression I get is that McGeoch and Co know that the CIC is doomed to failure and they are waiting in the wings to push through a "cheaper" deal in the new year when one or two in the selling consortium finally lose patience ?

I don't see that anyone can predict with any confidence that the 10000Hours bid won't succeed. There is £1.3m of funding already completely approved, £200k of which is sitting in a bank account with the rest waiting to be drawn down if and when an offer is approved by the selling consortium.

10000Hours could offer £1.3m today for the club without doing anything else and obviously they are now actively looking for the fans, community and local businesses to pitch in to increase that offer towards what the selling consortium are looking for.

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Agreed Yflab.

Personally I have no desire whatsoever to sit on the board of a football club, but I would like to have a say in who does and I would like to have an influence over certain decisions that are made around the club away from the football pitch.

As a member of 10000Hours every supporter can have that if they want it.

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Guest somner9

What disappointed me last night was the lack of debate among the attendees of the pros and cons of the solution being proposed.

By all accounts there were people in the audience who have major reservations on the 10000Hours proposals and fan ownership.

It would have been great to have heard the concerns and/or an alternative approach.

I have concerns about fan ownership and two spring to mind right away...

  • whether sufficient membership can be generated and sustained - you only need to look at the relatively small numbers that got involved with SMiSA during quite a difficult financial period for the club
  • whether those that get elected to the governing board have the time, energy and broad shoulders to deal with the difficulties of running an SPL football club and cope with the criticism that will come their way

I believe that this provides a sustainable solution versus a traditional football ownership model via the KMG bid. I still feel that the benefits of fan ownership outweigh the negatives.

A properly structured IPS/Co-op should address your second concern. That is the Elected members, and fans on the smfc board are there to uphold the greater aims and objectives of the IPS, by holding to account the senior mangement of the club (commercial/playing side/community). The members/fans are not and should never be responsible for, or get involved in day to day operations (picking teams, sacking below senior manager, transfers in/out, pulling up employees etc) unless obviously they hold a senior management position as well (not desirable though).

There is education and training readily available for anyone being elected to, or wishing to stand as a co-op board member/director to equip them with the knowledge, skills and support network to develop them in the role.

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Guest somner9

Dougie - I fully understand what you are saying and how this would work in a typical co-op solution - my concern is that this is a prominent fitba club where opinions are divided on just about everything and are discussed every hour of the day on these forums.....would we ever agree on the "right" people to lead this....perhaps you might be the right person for the job.....after all you were one of the finest centre forwards that ever graced the Love St turf - part time too but managed a goal every 2nd game - Golden Boot winner too.....aah the memories....one of the points raised last night by the audience was to get St Mirren legends like yourself on board.

the opinions are discussed amongst the members, raised with their elected members, and at the right time, and in the right way raised and addressed by the board members with the senior management. In short can every individual opinion/idea be acted upon?.. No! however an effective co-op ensures that the "consensus" of the membership is the light that should guide the board to hold the senior management responsible for delivering what the consensus is.

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I would use it to pay off the aforementioned debt.

But, as discussed before, most of that debt is due within 1 year to current creditors and will therefore be paid anyway as when due from income at that time. That "debt" is about 10% of turnover, ie we're buying goods and servives, getting invoiced for them then paying them, for example, the following month. To pay off that £300k would in effect be taking £300k working capital out the club and isn't necessary. Its normal business practice. Every business operates like this.

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however an effective co-op ensures that the "consensus" of the membership is the light that should guide the board to hold the senior management responsible for delivering what the consensus is.

Indeed, well unless of course the senior management don't really want to. Highly unlikely here as Danny already gives us updates and we hear from Stewart etc when appropriate, which wouldn't change as far as I can see. I suppose one major factor that will drive, let's go with heated debate, will be a failure of members to see the financial implications that may be put in front of them. There may be a vote to look at filling a corner or corners, but the initial financials will show just how difficult that'll be (with the initial proposal prior to vote also highlighting this, but it gets seconded through anyway), and the vote will be a "yes" with regards to looking at it. Some people will realise this means do some feasibility, look at what funding streams could be kicked off or funding redirected and then come back with we can do it or we can't, whilst other members could quite easily assume that the "yes" was a direct instruction to fill them in and then the in fighting begins.

It has to be said that issues like that and the discusions they could begin are a worry about going with this model for a football club. There is less chance of it at the moment though as we're not a £1 club, not in administration, not the final option and not an Ebbsfleet (by Ebbsfleet I mean a club whose board saw the shiney thing and went with it).

To pick up on the above point 1. I think the SMISA issue was centred around "we want to buy some shares" and even "we want one seat on the board" would have seen lower numbers than "gain control" could/should/will if allowed lead us towards. SMISA also never developed the model and, later on, the club looked safe after the ground sale anyway as that was the message coming out. I'll hold my hands up and say I was never a member, but I did buy more merchandise than ever before during the last decade and I got involved in things like Saints Aid. I'm sure other fans were the same, just like I'm sure if the CIC went through you'd see more people join as it developed, or you'd see fans get involved in any identified revenue streams.

I know it was raised last night, the whole "what do you get if?" and Richard said something along the lines of it being hard to be specific. But, why couldn't we now come up with a simple grades of things like pay £x you get whatever...for example, pay £x and that gets you membership and a day training with the squad or a day shadowing Danny or sitting in at a press conference, a tour of the ground and training complex, some match worn kit, a Carbrini bib etc.

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Guest somner9

Indeed, well unless of course the senior management don't really want to. Highly unlikely here as Danny already gives us updates and we hear from Stewart etc when appropriate, which wouldn't change as far as I can see. I suppose one major factor that will drive, let's go with heated debate, will be a failure of members to see the financial implications that may be put in front of them. There may be a vote to look at filling a corner or corners, but the initial financials will show just how difficult that'll be (with the initial proposal prior to vote also highlighting this, but it gets seconded through anyway), and the vote will be a "yes" with regards to looking at it. Some people will realise this means do some feasibility, look at what funding streams could be kicked off or funding redirected and then come back with we can do it or we can't, whilst other members could quite easily assume that the "yes" was a direct instruction to fill them in and then the in fighting begins.

It has to be said that issues like that and the discusions they could begin are a worry about going with this model for a football club. There is less chance of it at the moment though as we're not a £1 club, not in administration, not the final option and not an Ebbsfleet (by Ebbsfleet I mean a club whose board saw the shiney thing and went with it).

To pick up on the above point 1. I think the SMISA issue was centred around "we want to buy some shares" and even "we want one seat on the board" would have seen lower numbers than "gain control" could/should/will if allowed lead us towards. SMISA also never developed the model and, later on, the club looked safe after the ground sale anyway as that was the message coming out. I'll hold my hands up and say I was never a member, but I did buy more merchandise than ever before during the last decade and I got involved in things like Saints Aid. I'm sure other fans were the same, just like I'm sure if the CIC went through you'd see more people join as it developed, or you'd see fans get involved in any identified revenue streams.

I know it was raised last night, the whole "what do you get if?" and Richard said something along the lines of it being hard to be specific. But, why couldn't we now come up with a simple grades of things like pay £x you get whatever...for example, pay £x and that gets you membership and a day training with the squad or a day shadowing Danny or sitting in at a press conference, a tour of the ground and training complex, some match worn kit, a Carbrini bib etc.

On the first bit the 52% (maybe plus?) membership through the elected members board/Club board control the club so the employees would be contractually obliged to carr out lawful instructions. However this dosen't mean uncle tom cobley and all get to instruct them! It's done through the boards interaction with the general manager/chief exec.

the scenario you describe about merits and process re filling in corners, would only move forward once consensus had been reached, like an individual member and individual on the boards cannot make an arbitary decision. The senior management team Stewart and Danny etc make decisions in their remit because that is what they are paid to do, use their skill set, and knowledege to discharge their duties.

Both would have an agreed budget to operate within, and clear understanding of the club (members) policies and vision.

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But, as discussed before, most of that debt is due within 1 year to current creditors and will therefore be paid anyway as when due from income at that time. That "debt" is about 10% of turnover, ie we're buying goods and servives, getting invoiced for them then paying them, for example, the following month. To pay off that £300k would in effect be taking £300k working capital out the club and isn't necessary. Its normal business practice. Every business operates like this.

That would be all very well if the debt hadn't increased in the twelve months between this and last year's accounts and who knows what it will be next year - I'd be willing to bet it'll not be any less. Any transfer fees recieved during the upcoming transfer window should be treated as a windfall and used to reduce the club's debt. The manager would have the freed up wages to play with.

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I know it was raised last night, the whole "what do you get if?" and Richard said something along the lines of it being hard to be specific. But, why couldn't we now come up with a simple grades of things like pay £x you get whatever...for example, pay £x and that gets you membership and a day training with the squad or a day shadowing Danny or sitting in at a press conference, a tour of the ground and training complex, some match worn kit, a Carbrini bib etc.

To most of us it would be enough just to be a member, but to be realistic in these times, there will need to be some form of "incentives". Nothing too mental, just a wee sweetener. I note that there are plans for kids / OAPs / family memberships - again, a good thing.

I've spoken to RA today (he replied to an e-mail), and whilst there's no way I'll break any confidences, he is aiming to get as many people involved ASAP. Of course, this makes financial sense from the perspective of the CIC#2 bid, but I don't see anyone else (bar Mo'well) trying to get as many of the fans involved in a football club. Nobody is having an emotional "gun" pointed at their head to join up either (ie. SMFC are not in trouble). I also understand why they didn't press ahead with mass recruitment in the past (ie. if something went wrong - it did - then it would only magnify the already poor issues of communicating with fans).

I'm a cynical auld bassa, not quite in Shull's league, but getting there. I've heard all the pros & cons, and I've seen the positive/gutsy reaction from the CIC to initial failure. This is an opportunity that would be wasted if we look back in later years. RA may not be a Saints Man, but what he is trying to do is something unique that would clearly have a large number of benefits to St.Mirren FC and its fans.....and that's from someone who has had more than his fair share of queries about the whole affair (still not happy about the £2m price though).

The forum is so polarised - you are either anti/pro, with no room for debate nor persuasion, and that's a shame. I must have chilled out a bit lately. Age getting the better of me.

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(still not happy about the £2m price though).

I will put my house on the CIC not going through unless the 2 million figure is brought down.

With the selling price at 2 million the numbers needed to join the CIC will not be met, it will not happen just look at the history of the share issue.

Maybe something can be done with the council after all the club will become a bigger part of the community.

Every seat for one home game needs a carefully worded flyer followed by RA going onto the pitch with a microphone to back that up with a plea to come join the CIC.

It’s the last throw of the dice. The forum is like a dog chasing a tail never ending going over the same old , the same old.

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