Time To Revive Community Ownership ?

[div]

It's 10 months now since the 10000Hours bid to move the club into community ownership fell short and had it's bid rejected by the selling consortium.

We've heard absolutely nothing about the sale of the club since then.

Dunfermline and Hearts have both been at deaths door since then, and both are now reactively moving towards community ownership with Pars United now appointed preferred bidder for Dunfermline and The Foundation of Hearts now one of the only credible bidders to take control at Tynecastle.

Both of those clubs were forced to take action because their club was threatened with closure.

Fans will always dig deep when their club is threatened but it would be a lot better, IMO, to start planning for this NOW, when the club ISNT in danger.

Over at Motherwell they are edging towards community ownership with the formation of the Well Society and they already have two members of the society on the board of directors and have a well established process and membership structure which looks well thought out and well planned. They have lent the club money recently to get over a cashflow bump and are actively engaged with the club at all levels.

In our case we have a popular board of directors who have worked wonders at the club, but they want out, they want to sell and they want to sell to the right people. In the case of 10000Hours they acknowledged that the best people were actually the fans themselves and that a community buyout was a good option.

We had 1100 members all pledged to spent £10 a month on becoming a community owner of the club, and that was despite a lot of misgivings about the project and a number of false starts and lack of communication.

If those lessons could be addressed then there is no reason why a community led takeover of the club could not be successfully mounted.

Is there no appetite from SMiSA to kick off this process and lead it from the front, in association with Supporters Direct ?

Forget about 10000hours, forget about Richard, leave the baggage from that initiative behind, and look forward. Surely having the club owned by a co-operative of St.Mirren supporters is a good thing in the longer term ?

Just a thought. At some point the club IS going to be sold. It's been on the market now for 4 years.

Please don't let this thread become a 10000hours bitchfest, I'm looking for decent discussion on this please.

[Drew]

Good thread, Div, and this is something that I've wondered about (as I'm sure have many others) since the 10000Hours thing fell through.

You mention the Motherwell situation, but hasn't there been a bit of a wobble there, with a few 'Well supporters who inititally bought into the initiative expressing concerns about how it is (or isn't) developing? I could be wrong, but I'm sure I read some posts to this effect on P&B.

Granted, any snagging with the Motherwell scenario needn't be reflected in any plan SMiSA etc. might try to take forward, but I suggest it would be worth monitoring. The Dunfermline and Hearts situations are different, as you indicate, and probably aren't models that we should be looking at given the specific circumstances/context.

I'm also never quite sure what to make of SMiSA, if I'm being honest. This is more about my own ignorance than anything else, but you have to wonder why they haven't seriously looked at this before now if the will was there.

[TsuMirren]

Is it not the case that without any of the 10000 hours corporate or enhanced memberships available, it would take far more than 1,100 supporters/people signing up to it. We weren't even in the door and had all the in fighting of "you have to be a Saints fan" or added involvement/levels of power attached to the extra tiers of membership. Plus, was it an average of £10 per person or just a minimum of £10 per person? How many £10 units per month were in there?

It's a tough ask, obvious issue is the amount of time it'd take for members donations to actually reach the park/other financial avenues. Then there's the whole argument of who does what and "oh what, no, hang on, anyone from the old regime needs to leave...we'll be fine, we don't need their knowledge" debate.

It could work, it should work...chances are it wouldn't be as smooth as we'd think and the natural drive to spend every penny on new players would just lead to so much in fighting that good people will leave rather than put in the work.

With regards to SMISA, they should be the vehicle for this. It shouldn't be anyone else, shouldn't need a side group. The main issue for them, I suppose, is the fact there is a price tag attached and a healthy club involved. They don't have the "easy option" of paying next to nothing for a poorly run, debt ridden, club that needs a complete overhaul and thousands thrown at it before they can even stand still.

[div]

Good points Kenny.

I think we need to look closer at the model being proposed. The concept of "fan ownership" tends to cause confuson from the off as some people seem to think they will get to have a say on players that are brought in and what team is picked.

Personally I don't think fan ownership in terms of St.Mirren needs to be much different than what we currently have today. The club would be "owned" by the fans with the assets locked away in the community interest company but those members would then just elect a board to run the football club and they would get on and do it.

The board would be ultimately responsible to the members but from a day to day point of view they would have to be given a full mandate to run the club as they see fit.

I don't really know all the ins and outs of the "german model" but that seems to work well enough to merit serious consideration.

[waldorf34]

the club have repeatedley turned down SMISA offer to buy shares but agreed to take a loan from them for the dome.

ie take SMISA money to increase the assets and therefore the value of their shares but refuse to sell shares

a win win situation for them

The supporters council is also raising money for the club to increase the value of the clubs assets ,nothing in their agenda about shares

so both organisations with a combined membership of less than 200 should be discounted meantime

Supporters Direct will help but it needs a new "leader" to take this on

[Lex]

Can't we just let SGG get on with it?

I know they want out but if no one comes in they will sit tight and continue to run the club in the fantastic way they are doing. I hope the majority of the current board is still in place in 10 years, and i have a feeling it might be

[Chris]

I heard last month that 10,000 Hours might try again. Maybe not entirely dead in the water yet.

I am entirely in favour of the principle, it's just a case of working out the details. It has to be the future, but I'm not sure that it can work successfully on the sporting side at this level at the moment, when so many clubs are still spending beyond their means.

[Stuart Dickson]

51% of the clubs shares are still held in a consortium for selling to a single owner. That to me still represents a huge danger to St Mirren. It's all very well to say that you trust Gilmour and Co to only sell to the right party, but Chris Robertson thought he was selling to the right party when he sold to Romanov.

For me the only way forward is for community ownership of the club - and I say community not because the club has a "community" section. I say community because it's important that the people of Paisley and the immediate surrounding district use the facilities on offer within the club and that the commercial interests within the club are expanded. You need their buy in if the club is to have any growth at all where fan ownership in the UK has tended to mean that the club just trots on along being maintained to try to keep the status quo.

It's no secret that I liked a lot of the elements within the original CIC proposal. I would have liked to have seen a number of area's explored in far more detail and much less emphasis on running a pub but perhaps that wouldn't have captured the fans interest right from the off.

I would also say that I don't think SMiSA are the correct organisation to take this forward. Their membership have made far too many poor decisions in regard to the use of their money. The dome is the latest catastrophe, but even more stupid was the waste of cash that was the t-shirt and towels story from the Gus McPherson era. The club should have been told that cash would only have been put in, in return for shares but the lack of focus towards delivering their goal and the fact that the leadership appeared to open their wallet every time someone in the club offered to flash their tits leaves me with the distinct impression that they wouldn't be fit to run a football club.

Maybe the Fans Council could be a route forward - but then I see from their minutes that they put this as a low item on the agenda and that they appeared to reject the offer of assistance from Richard Atkinson. Seems barmy to me as you would think that a Fans Council would be interested in securing the long term future of the club. I would certainly have thought that was more immediate and pressing than fund raising to buy tent to inflate the boards ego.

[davidg]

They should hand the shares over to lovestreet.

[div]

Can't we just let SGG get on with it?

I know they want out but if no one comes in they will sit tight and continue to run the club in the fantastic way they are doing. I hope the majority of the current board is still in place in 10 years, and i have a feeling it might be

Well yes, we could just sit back and let SGG and co get on with it, but they want to sell and the club remains for sale.

I don't think they put it on the market with a view to still being there in ten years time.

[Kendo]

I think that it would be great if the club was owned by the fans. Do we know why the bid was rejected? If we understand that then that would allow you to see if it was possible to bridge the gap or if it is really a non starter.

[div]

I think that it would be great if the club was owned by the fans. Do we know why the bid was rejected? If we understand that then that would allow you to see if it was possible to bridge the gap or if it is really a non starter.

The headline reason for rejection was that, at £1.25m it wasn't enough. I think there were also concerns about how sustainable the income was going to be.

The initial enthusiasm for the bid was when it included big chunks of cash up front which were being delivered via social investment grants/loans, I think when the model changed a couple of times there was less certainty that the income could be sustained.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/19548252

[Isle Of Bute Saint]

Can't see the numbers rising above what 10,000hours had would think there would be less this time. At this time I have absolutely no enthusiasm for it after what went on before. It's a hard sell which 10,000hours will openly admit. SMISA want shares but can't buy them so instead loan money to the club, there is a sticking point before you even begin the sell for a takeover. The board may want to sell to the right people unfortunately they are not in the market place because the fans can't raise the necessary funds. Sorry to be negative it wont happen.

[bud77]

If someone had asked 10 months ago when the deal fell through, if I would be willing to allow the direct debit mandate to go through in order to start building a fund for a possible bid at some time in the future, I would have said yes. I still think this is the way to go and would complete a direct debit again, even if the money was being taken out my account for a couple of years before a bid was put together. My big fear is that what happened to Hearts, Dunfermline, Rangers etc could one day happen to us. If the right people were to run it and a fund built up solely for a fans buy out, I would be in.

[div]

Can't see the numbers rising above what 10,000hours had would think there would be less this time. At this time I have absolutely no enthusiasm for it after what went on before. It's a hard sell which 10,000hours will openly admit. SMISA want shares but can't buy them so instead loan money to the club, there is a sticking point before you even begin the sell for a takeover. The board may want to sell to the right people unfortunately they are not in the market place because the fans can't raise the necessary funds. Sorry to be negative it wont happen.

If SMiSA really want to buy shares I know plenty of people who would be very happy to offload them.

That said, there is no benefit as far as I can see in SMiSA extending their existing shareholding.

The reason the board won't/can't sell any of their shares is that they are all locked away in a holding company to allow them to be sold in one lump, giving any buyer overall control of the club by virtue of holding a 52% shareholding.

[div]

Can't see the numbers rising above what 10,000hours had would think there would be less this time. At this time I have absolutely no enthusiasm for it after what went on before. It's a hard sell which 10,000hours will openly admit.

I think therein lies the crux of the problem. If the board came out tomorrow and said, look guys we need money or we are going to go into administration there would be mad panic and funds coming from everywhere. As it is most fans are looking at the club and thinking that things are going pretty well on the park, the fans bid failed before, so why bother looking at it.

My view is that someone should really have picked this ball up even before 10000Hours, and certainly when that ball was dropped last September. Ten more months have passed and nothing really appears to have been done.

[Isle Of Bute Saint]

Div Although there is no enthusiasm from me I would certainly do a direct debit as I know what's best for our club. Who in there right mind would be brave enough to lead , could see putting a committee together quite easy but a strong leader is needed clearly Richard was the man who 's work ethic I admire. It was so frustrating reading he was a not a St Mirren man and so was unacceptable to some of the support. Yes I will back any new proposal for the good of the club but will stay well back from the politics side of it. Your self employed Div and as such will have little spare time , you might not see it yourself but you are a leader of the fans who have the greatest respect for you. There could be a committee and you be the spokes person. Fully understand if you did not want that.

[pozbaird]

I agree with something Lochwinnoch Saint said. I have no enthusiasm for it now either. This does not mean I have no enthusiasm for supporting the team, for buying my ST (with or without knowing about signings in advance), for renewing my car park pass, and for supporting the re-introduction of AWP by buying club merchandise. That bundle of enthusiasm is intact. My enthusiasm for re-kindling anything remotely approaching the tortuous process that was played out before, and I supported in any way I could, is not something I personally wish to repeat.

[Lex]

Well yes, we could just sit back and let SGG and co get on with it, but they want to sell and the club remains for sale.

I don't think they put it on the market with a view to still being there in ten years time.

I know they didn't but it remains in good hands, they don't seem in a rush to get out. They won't get impatient and sell to Massone or Brealy or something.

I think we are the best run football club in Scotland, and i'm scared that would change if the current BOD was removed. That's why i don't see why we should be trying to push needless change.

[div]

Div Although there is no enthusiasm from me I would certainly do a direct debit as I know what's best for our club. Who in there right mind would be brave enough to lead , could see putting a committee together quite easy but a strong leader is needed clearly Richard was the man who 's work ethic I admire. It was so frustrating reading he was a not a St Mirren man and so was unacceptable to some of the support. Yes I will back any new proposal for the good of the club but will stay well back from the politics side of it. Your self employed Div and as such will have little spare time , you might not see it yourself but you are a leader of the fans who have the greatest respect for you. There could be a committee and you be the spokes person. Fully understand if you did not want that.

Ha ! Thanks for the kinds words mate !

I've no desire whatsoever to get involved again, once bitten twice shy and all that.

I will quite happily fill out a direct debit and put my money in to any fans bid but I'm not getting involved any more than that.

[div]

I know they didn't but it remains in good hands, they don't seem in a rush to get out. They won't get impatient and sell to Massone or Brealy or something.

I think we are the best run football club in Scotland, and i'm scared that would change if the current BOD was removed. That's why i don't see why we should be trying to push needless change.

I see your point, however the problem we have is that we cannot control what happens. The consortium may well eventually just sell to someone who they might only be 90% sure of. They won't hang around forever, as for some of them that is their retirement money that is tied up in the club.

I'd be quite happy for the fans to take ownership of the club and re-appoint SGG as chairman to run it on our behalf if he wanted to, as I agree we will struggle to find a better chairman, but I am sure he would rather be playing golf in the sun that spending his retirement years worrying about the running of St.Mirren.

[Drew]

If Div was such a great guy, he'd have negotiated a couple of ambitious marquee signings by now. I have no respect for him, whatsoever.

Get it sorted MacPherson Div!

Edited July 8, 2013 by Drew

[div]

If Div was such a great guy, he'd have negoatiated a couple of ambitious marquee signings by now. I have no respect for him, whatsoever.

Get it sorted MacPherson Div!

Ha, the Dome will be the only marquee you will see at St.Mirren Park this summer.

[buddiecat]

Having pledged to 10k hours and then witnessed it's downfall, i would be sceptical about supporting another buyout project, i still believe it is a good way to go rather than being subjected to the whims of an external person or consortium who would have there own reasons for buying the club but would most likely not have the good of the club or fans as a reason.

The fans council have rejected the idea of being involved in any sort of takeover as that is not our reason for being, and no one in the members meeting group expressed any interest in being involved when the subject was raised at a meeting.

I would suggest that a group of at least four people who could commit all their time to bringing about a project of this size would be needed. People who work full time may have the best interests of the club at heart , but would not have the time needed to pursue the project properly.

The promises of some corporate investors in the last scheme proved to be simple posturing and a need to be seen to be involved but with no intention of actually parting with cash - they added to the downfall.

In my opinion people would have to pledge solid support and have the cash deposited in an account before any offer was made, it would also be helpful if the selling consortium gave a commitment to the exact amount they would accept for their shares.

[davidg]

The only way it could be achievable would be asking the consortium to consider taking payment over around 4 years.

To do this we would need to increase the members from approx 1000 to 2000 or increase payment from £10 to £20 a month. I think £20 is more achievable than 2000 members.

1000 x £20 for 48 months would give the consortium £960,000.

Any better offers on the table?

Nae crap about who gets the revenue from a packet of crisps at a function. All money stays in the club. Job done.

Edited July 8, 2013 by davidg