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garzo

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1. It had No Fcking Chance being run by Shysters.

2.SMISA should have been the Vehicle

It went that Far Div, Because your Forum allowed there flawed message to gain support ? whistling.gif .

I personally backed the 10000Hours bid because it was, and remains the only, one that offered protection of the clubs assets, namely the stadium the training complex and the majority shareholding. The constitution of the CIC would have locked them away, in exactly the same way that Hibs fans are trying to do.

This isn't "My Forum" but regardless, I think a quick glance at the archive will show that not only was the forum used to gain support for 10000Hours, it also allowed free reign for those that wanted to shoot it down.

SMiSA COULD have been the vehicle, maybe it SHOULD have been the vehicle, but they had 2 years before 10000hours came along and they've had 2 years since 10000hours failed, and they haven't. You would need to ask the question why not ?

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I personally backed the 10000Hours bid because it was, and remains the only, one that offered protection of the clubs assets, namely the stadium the training complex and the majority shareholding. The constitution of the CIC would have locked them away, in exactly the same way that Hibs fans are trying to do.

This isn't "My Forum" but regardless, I think a quick glance at the archive will show that not only was the forum used to gain support for 10000Hours, it also allowed free reign for those that wanted to shoot it down.

SMiSA COULD have been the vehicle, maybe it SHOULD have been the vehicle, but they had 2 years before 10000hours came along and they've had 2 years since 10000hours failed, and they haven't. You would need to ask the question why not ?

Do not Disagree Div ! The Minority who where against this cobbled up Solution, Where Vanquished To the Sidelines, While the Spiv's Lied to make a Case ? whistling.gif

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Surely the Saint Mirren support are smart enough to see the signs and act. Gretna was always going to happen, Dundee was obvious and Livingston owned nightclubs and the stupid business centre. Hearts was pretty obvious too, once the Scottish players were slowly moved on and Rangers...

1eye.gif

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I personally backed the 10000Hours bid because it was, and remains the only, one that offered protection of the clubs assets, namely the stadium the training complex and the majority shareholding. The constitution of the CIC would have locked them away, in exactly the same way that Hibs fans are trying to do.

This isn't "My Forum" but regardless, I think a quick glance at the archive will show that not only was the forum used to gain support for 10000Hours, it also allowed free reign for those that wanted to shoot it down.

SMiSA COULD have been the vehicle, maybe it SHOULD have been the vehicle, but they had 2 years before 10000hours came along and they've had 2 years since 10000hours failed, and they haven't. You would need to ask the question why not ?

A free reign to shoot it down???

If you count thinly veiled threats from the selling consortium's lead, 10kh attempts at ridicule and inciting fellow saints fans to gang up on any nay sayers, a forum and admin that continually joined in on this naysayer witch hunt, and 10kh even going to the lengths of disclosing personal data to achieve their aim of ridicule and marginalisation and the obvious coordination of this activity between the guilty parties.. (What your saying at these meetings you never discussed the negative "chatter" on the forum and who was involved?...)

Aye right a free reign...

FYI bitches... The messages, emails, posts etc are in a safe place

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A free reign to shoot it down???

If you count thinly veiled threats from the selling consortium's lead, 10kh attempts at ridicule and inciting fellow saints fans to gang up on any nay sayers, a forum and admin that continually joined in on this naysayer witch hunt, and 10kh even going to the lengths of disclosing personal data to achieve their aim of ridicule and marginalisation and the obvious coordination of this activity between the guilty parties.. (What your saying at these meetings you never discussed the negative "chatter" on the forum and who was involved?...)

Aye right a free reign...

FYI bitches... The messages, emails, posts etc are in a safe place

Oh Jesus Fcuk - You hit the Nail on the Head ? Div my man - Where iz the Luv ? xx

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Then it's not a community buy out John, and what you are left with isn't a Community Interest Company - it's a fan buy out and it's something entirely different.

To be honest I don't really understand the attitude of those, like you, who believe the clubs facilities have to be kept for fans of the club only. It gives those appeals to Paisley locals to come out and support their local club a truly hollow ring to it and it damns the attitude of those who would criticise Old Firm fans who don't follow their local club. Surely the best way to expand the customer base of any business is to increase the footfall by making your premises indispensable to those living in the local vicinity. To do that you need to stop being so damned parochial!

I didn't say the community at large couldn't use the club or facilities only that the St.mirren community (fans) should own the club

the community currently use the facilities and the current consortium are praised everywhere for it, the only difference would be the people (fans) that would own it wouldn't be looking to sell it on to make money from it

Edited by thewhiteman
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I personally backed the 10000Hours bid because it was, and remains the only, one that offered protection of the clubs assets, namely the stadium the training complex and the majority shareholding. The constitution of the CIC would have locked them away, in exactly the same way that Hibs fans are trying to do.

This isn't "My Forum" but regardless, I think a quick glance at the archive will show that not only was the forum used to gain support for 10000Hours, it also allowed free reign for those that wanted to shoot it down.

SMiSA COULD have been the vehicle, maybe it SHOULD have been the vehicle, but they had 2 years before 10000hours came along and they've had 2 years since 10000hours failed, and they haven't. You would need to ask the question why not ?

not enough members or cash or volunteers with lots of time on their hands and the relevant experience

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2,000 - 4,000 fans versus a population in Paisley of 74,170 and in Renfrewshire of 170,610.

If you want to make more money you have to increase footfall. The parochial attitude shown by many St Mirren fans, and by John White at SMiSA is exactly the kind of behaviour that holds clubs like St Mirren back.

parochial as in the previous initiatives like the schools art competition with 800 plus entries from across renfrewshire and part of glasgow or the rebranding of the panda club to double the attendance of it encouraging kids out with the current fan base or the museum exhibition initiated by SMiSA encouraging the whole of renfrewshire to focus on St.mirren, if that is the accusation of being parochial then yes, guilty as charged

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And rather ridiculously one of the main snipers was the clubs own Supporters Trust

completely wrong

the clubs own supporters trust was initially supportive of 10,000 hours and was ready to go in with financial backing until the trust started to ask questions about the other funding sources and repeatedly not getting answers or proof of imminent grants and loans and in the end choose to withdraw due to what was felt was unsubstantiated claims. As time went on it became clear that the commitments of some of these other sources were not as they seemed after all.

And that last part is the reason the consortium knocked it back

and to add, sniping ? at no time did the trust come out and tell others not to get involved with 10,000 hours or publicly criticise the plan or efforts, the supporters trust only chose to stop being involved

Edited by thewhiteman
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I didn't say the community at large couldn't use the club or facilities only that the St.mirren community (fans) should own the club

the community currently use the facilities and the current consortium are praised everywhere for it, the only difference would be the people (fans) that would own it wouldn't be looking to sell it on to make money from it

But that is parochial and it's a sure fire way to ensure the club stays small, getting smaller.

I'm not going to sit and layout my vision for others to ridicule but I've repeatedly said that someone at the club - whether it's directors of the club or SMiSA - needs to book a trip up to Oban and organise a meeting with the guys who run the Atlantis Leisure Centre to see how Community Ownership really should work and how ultimately increasing footfall is the way to raise more revenue growing the business year on year.

BTW just to pick you up on one point - the fans owning the football club should be the least of your concerns. The important thing is securing the assets - the stadium, the training ground and the clubs senior league status. The football club is worth f**k all.

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and if my memory serves me right, div and stuart Dickson wernt you both in SMiSA at one point ?

maybe you can actually answer your own question as to why SMiSA dint become the vehicle as anyone can become part of the committee and maybe you could have both made it happen ?

Aye right John. You know as well as I do that I'd have been as welcome on a SMiSA committee as Hannibal Lector would be at a Come Dine With Me dinner party. rolleyes.gif

You're right though. I was one of the first group of members to sign up. Div must have already been a member because he phoned me at home to answer some of the concerns I had about SMiSA and it was ultimately Div who convinced me to join. I've no idea if Div will remember the conversation or if he'd be willing to back me up but I made it clear at that time that I wasn't into the idea of making directors rich, or of covering the costs of their failings within the football club. I was only interested in backing SMiSA if the aim was to get ordinary fans onto the board and to get their voices heard. At that time I was already a member of similar supporters groups at Exeter City, Wycombe Wanderers, Swansea City and at Stockport County.

When the SMiSA membership was asked to vote on whether they wanted to use members funds to buy towels and t-shirts for a business with a £million+ turnover that's when I decided I was out. I made my views known, particularly to poor Jim Cummings who had to listen to me rant on for a bit.

Edited by Stuart Dickson
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completely wrong

the clubs own supporters trust was initially supportive of 10,000 hours and was ready to go in with financial backing until the trust started to ask questions about the other funding sources and repeatedly not getting answers or proof of imminent grants and loans and in the end choose to withdraw due to what was felt was unsubstantiated claims. As time went on it became clear that the commitments of some of these other sources were not as they seemed after all.

And that last part is the reason the consortium knocked it back

and to add, sniping ? at no time did the trust come out and tell others not to get involved with 10,000 hours or publicly criticise the plan or efforts, the supporters trust only chose to stop being involved

Well if I'm completely wrong it was certainly the impression SMiSA left me with over the course of the 10000hours bid. Indeed, following the Twitter feed and feedback I got from other forum users who were at the second meeting - I couldn't be there cause I was working - it seemed that all SMiSA wanted to do was to get 10000hours to name the Big Issue as the group providing the Social Funding so that everyone could have a good laugh at it.

As others have pointed out for all the lessons learned and for all the aims and objectives of the Independent Supporters Association movement, there has been no subsequent attempt from the most natural source within the club at resurrecting fan ownership or even an attempt to get a SMiSA member on the football club board. Instead what we witnessed was the SMISA membership drop their trousers again at the prospect of yet another knee trembler from the board. "You'll get f**k all shares and no place on the board, but gonnie give us a loan of your money so we can buy a tent". :rolleyes:

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Aye right John. You know as well as I do that I'd have been as welcome on a SMiSA committee as Hannibal Lector would be at a Come Dine With Me dinner party. :rolleyes:

You're right though. I was one of the first group of members to sign up. Div must have already been a member because he phoned me at home to answer some of the concerns I had about SMiSA and it was ultimately Div who convinced me to join. I've no idea if Div will remember the conversation or if he'd be willing to back me up but I made it clear at that time that I wasn't into the idea of making directors rich, or of covering the costs of their failings within the football club. I was only interested in backing SMiSA if the aim was to get ordinary fans onto the board and to get their voices heard. At that time I was already a member of similar supporters groups at Exeter City, Wycombe Wanderers, Swansea City and at Stockport County.

When the SMiSA membership was asked to vote on whether they wanted to use members funds to buy towels and t-shirts for a business with a £million+ turnover that's when I decided I was out. I made my views known, particularly to poor Jim Cummings who had to listen to me rant on for a bit.

can't speak for other people's thoughts on your first point, particularly back in the day, but I would have no issues with any individual being on the committee of SMiSA particularly if it was done through a majority vote

I accept and understand your reasons for choosing to leave and the results and outcomes of any group don't always live up to every individuals expectations, people leave jobs, social groups, clubs, etc etc often for that reason but whether they choose to accept that fact and move on or choose to continually criticise the remainder of the group for years after the event in my opinion is unnecessary

in SMiSA's case the group is still there and has been for the last 14 years, and despite losing momentum just after the cic bid and the refusal of the club to sell them shares, the number of members has doubled in the last year, so they must be doing something right ?

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Well if I'm completely wrong it was certainly the impression SMiSA left me with over the course of the 10000hours bid. Indeed, following the Twitter feed and feedback I got from other forum users who were at the second meeting - I couldn't be there cause I was working - it seemed that all SMiSA wanted to do was to get 10000hours to name the Big Issue as the group providing the Social Funding so that everyone could have a good laugh at it.

s:

all SMiSA wanted to do was get the claims of other sources of funding substantiated and certainly not to have a good laugh at it but to protect the funds that were to be put towards it and frankly we take the future of St.mirren fc to seriously to spend time to try and set up others to laugh at, anyone spending time and / or money with good intention on smfc is to be applauded even if it doesn't work out as they had hoped

I would be happy to let Richard Atkinson be the judge of our disagreement on the subject of sniping, and even if he was dissapointed on the actions of SMiSA I can assure you sniping was not on the agenda

not being funny but I didn't even know Twitter existed then ?

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in my opinion fan ownership would be the best provision of that

We could disagree on this forever. Take some time out and contact the people at the Atlantis Leisure Centre. Community ownership of the facility there was hugely important as the population believed that they were all looking after and using an asset that belonged to them. Then ask yourself why a Rangers, Celtic or Morton fan living in Paisley would want to book a room for a party at a facility that was wholly owned and run by St Mirren fans for the sole reason of profiting the football club.

IMO fan ownership IS too parochial and far too narrow. Look at the ideas that were mooted on here by St Mirren fans for additional revenue coming into the club during the CIC debate. It was extremely narrow and there was a complete disregard, even disrespect for the church group who were going to use a room at the stadium. I'm not going to claim that I have a silver bullet that would massively increase footfall into the stadium, particularly on non matchdays - but there will be people in Paisley who will know exactly what the town needs and what the town could do with the support of it's local senior football club to help them attain it. Without increased foot traffic coming to the stadium on a daily basis the best you could hope for is the same stagnation of the football club on and off the park - the worst would be that the stadium failed to develop and evolve and eventually would fall into disrepair as was happening to a large extent at Broadwood for example.

Edited by Stuart Dickson
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can't speak for other people's thoughts on your first point, particularly back in the day, but I would have no issues with any individual being on the committee of SMiSA particularly if it was done through a majority vote

I accept and understand your reasons for choosing to leave and the results and outcomes of any group don't always live up to every individuals expectations, people leave jobs, social groups, clubs, etc etc often for that reason but whether they choose to accept that fact and move on or choose to continually criticise the remainder of the group for years after the event in my opinion is unnecessary

in SMiSA's case the group is still there and has been for the last 14 years, and despite losing momentum just after the cic bid and the refusal of the club to sell them shares, the number of members has doubled in the last year, so they must be doing something right ?

What are you doing right John? The original objective was to get at least one or two of your members on the board of the football club so that they could be the voice of the fans. 14 years on, how many members do you have on the board of directors? Do your members have representation on the board at St Mirren? Will you be able to exert influence over who or what new owner the club is to be sold to?

I hate to be scathing about guys who are just well meaning volunteers, but I can't see what you have done right. Even when you were in a position of power with £90k in the bank that the board of directors wanted, you simply handed it over without using it as leverage to get that place on the board.

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IMO fan ownership IS too parochial and far too narrow. Look at the ideas that were mooted on here by St Mirren fans for additional revenue coming into the club during the CIC debate. It was extremely narrow and there was a complete disregard, even disrespect for the church group who were going to use a room at the stadium. I'm not going to claim that I have a silver bullet that would massively increase footfall into the stadium, particularly on non matchdays - but there will be people in Paisley who will know exactly what the town needs and what the town could do with the support of it's local senior football club to help them attain it. Without increased foot traffic coming to the stadium on a daily basis the best you could hope for is the same stagnation of the football club on and off the park - the worst would be that the stadium failed to develop and evolve and eventually would fall into disrepair as was happening to a large extent at Broadwood for example.

Understand that is your opinion based on, I assume on previous experience ? But fan ownership doesn't automatically mean that and if there ever was for example to be fan ownership at St.m would it be any more parochial than currently ? If anything I think it would be more open tbh

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What are you doing right John? The original objective was to get at least one or two of your members on the board of the football club so that they could be the voice of the fans. 14 years on, how many members do you have on the board of directors? Do your members have representation on the board at St Mirren? Will you be able to exert influence over who or what new owner the club is to be sold to?

I hate to be scathing about guys who are just well meaning volunteers, but I can't see what you have done right. Even when you were in a position of power with £90k in the bank that the board of directors wanted, you simply handed it over without using it as leverage to get that place on the board.

50k is the maximum we've ever had

it wast the only objective stuart, and the main objective originaly was to generate funds and investment in the club which was in dire straights at the time, however, I take your point about getting representation on the board and in the past couple of years SMiSA could not genuinely claim to represent the majority of fans and unless the group have some muscle it is never likely to happen in the closed shop that is the consortium, despite the current situation the club finds itself in, but over the past year SMiSA has increased its shareholding and its membership numbers substantially to the stage where from three different aspects, ( shareholding, numbers & finance) the trust has and continues to become stronger than it has ever been and in a better position to pursue board representation and the more fans that sign up the stronger that position becomes, so . . . when you joining up again ?

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Understand that is your opinion based on, I assume on previous experience ? But fan ownership doesn't automatically mean that and if there ever was for example to be fan ownership at St.m would it be any more parochial than currently ? If anything I think it would be more open tbh

In what way John? How would you get a Rangers or a Celtic supporter living in the town to engage and feel part of St Mirren if the club is fan owned rather than Community owned? How would you stop those kids growing up to get on buses to the big city to watch a bigger, better and slightly less parochial club?

Clubs have to change their attitude. We talk about copying the German model of youth development but not one person from within the game appears to grasp that the key to youth development in Germany or Belgium is the fact that clubs in the same community, at all levels, share resources. In Scotland, where our football clubs have become so parochial they have distanced themselves from their fans, never mind the communities that kind of idea would blow club directors minds. Sharing.....:rolleyes:

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In what way John? How would you get a Rangers or a Celtic supporter living in the town to engage and feel part of St Mirren if the club is fan owned rather than Community owned? How would you stop those kids growing up to get on buses to the big city to watch a bigger, better and slightly less parochial club?

Clubs have to change their attitude. We talk about copying the German model of youth development but not one person from within the game appears to grasp that the key to youth development in Germany or Belgium is the fact that clubs in the same community, at all levels, share resources. In Scotland, where our football clubs have become so parochial they have distanced themselves from their fans, never mind the communities that kind of idea would blow club directors minds. Sharing.....:rolleyes:

I think we all know how to stop the Rangers or Celtic supporter, but it's really not in our gift to put an end to the protestant or catholic faiths. As for sharing resources, one minute you want St Mirren to make money from facilities and the next we're to give them away for free.

I take it parochial was a headline on a chip wrapper you read whilst having a snack in-between visits to Aulds and Greggs. We await your next poorly constructed argument...

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In what way John? How would you get a Rangers or a Celtic supporter living in the town to engage and feel part of St Mirren if the club is fan owned rather than Community owned? How would you stop those kids growing up to get on buses to the big city to watch a bigger, better and slightly less parochial club?

Clubs have to change their attitude. We talk about copying the German model of youth development but not one person from within the game appears to grasp that the key to youth development in Germany or Belgium is the fact that clubs in the same community, at all levels, share resources. In Scotland, where our football clubs have become so parochial they have distanced themselves from their fans, never mind the communities that kind of idea would blow club directors minds. Sharing.....rolleyes.gif

Stuart i agree the only way is through the community and i feel St Mirren could do with building some bridges with some local boys clubs in the area.But St Mirren do give the community access to the Dome for free and for paying public so they aren't guilty of that

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not enough members or cash or volunteers with lots of time on their hands and the relevant experience

i thought everyone knew that SMISA (and the BOD ) pulled away from 10,000 hrs because of the unanswered questions on the unnamed corporate backers, who either did not exist or were only getting involved for a bit of networking and had no intention of putting their money in, or possibly found that they would not get any extra funding for themselves, cant believe people who knew this are now asking why SMISA was not putting itself up as "the vehicle" FFS 10,000hrs was "the vehicle" and you were backing it, maybe they need reminding that SMISA is there to support and have as much say in running the club as they possibly can, it could blossom into much more if those who now choose to slate it would actually dip into there pockets and join in, but i feel that the genuine "one member one vote" idea does not appeal to those who want something extra for themselves.

Edited by buddiecat
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