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Smisa And The Fans Council


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The impression I got from a brief chat with SGG a couple years back was that the stadium was deliberately left as a bit of a blank canvas for the new owners.

IE no recognisable name, no stadium sponsorship, no imaginative naming of any stands, a void left for development.

The idea being that new owners would be able to come in and be able to change the stadium/stand names without too much fuss, and fill out the void as they see fit.

As opposed to having to change an established name or rebrand whatever the void was established as.

Of course the problem is no new owners came and the blank canvas remained blank.

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There are usually 8 (season tkt holders) of us that meet around 1230 for a pint or two in town prior to home games. On a good few occasions we drag along not so regular supporters with us. The bar should be first come first served which would maximise revenue, not some dude arriving at 2.30 for a Dr Pepper then toddling round to the game, surely this is about raising money to help our club. Not a pop at the FC but just my opinion that current model is not the best one

There was a members bar at Love Street . It was never that busy I know as I was a member eventually it was taken away and given to the players and staff.

There was a members bar in the Caledonia stand pre-match. It was never busy ether.

I'm a season ticket holder also like a few other offshore workers who get to 10 games or less at home. I would love to go to the stadium for a beer pre-match. Being a member of the new bar does not make sense for me and lots of others even though we would love to go in for a pint.

This has been done to death already with BLAWA members putting forward good ideas.

However the fans council has cotton wool in the ears and welding glasses on.

Yes the council do good and all work is for a good cause , for whatever reason , reason does not prevail on the fan bar subject.

Bottom line what you have not tried you don't miss but I fully expect the rule of membership to change at this bar after its first year accounts are done.

The only way this bar will make money is keeping it open to the wider fans which 99.9% of all other clubs do for a reason.

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Issue i assume is that in order to fund the fit out of the facility a lump sum is needed and that is not available form the current budgets which means that to fund the capital outlay they have decided to spread the cost via a members fee.

Not sure what alternative there is to doing it that way if the Clubs current account is not able to fund it.

Richard I'm quite sure something could be done donation wise from the wider fans with lots of cash raising ways. plus add skill factor to help fit out from the wider fan community. Unless you are a member who is going to help. You know there is a lot of skilled people in the support but its needs to be tapped the right way.

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Richard I'm quite sure something could be done donation wise from the wider fans with lots of cash raising ways. plus add skill factor to help fit out from the wider fan community. Unless you are a member who is going to help. You know there is a lot of skilled people in the support but its needs to be tapped the right way.

Indeed and emails were sent recently to ask if any fans could help with the fit out.

I know when I looked at it we had offers from a few quality folk who would have helped particularly with the M+E works.

Our design was however different in that access to the stand was possible meaning anyone in those sections could use it at half time.

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St Johnstone-bar below the main stand; all welcome, home or away fans. Always busy, hot food at decent prices served.

Livingston-large function suite, all welcome. Hot food served at decent prices.

Airdrie, Kilmarnock, Hamilton etc-ditto.

St Mirren- your name's not down, you're not coming in.

Easy Peasy Lemon Squeazy my arse Gary.

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The board must be pissing themselves laughing at this one, bunch of clowns kitting out the void in stadium for them...when it spectacularly fails which it will they will open and run it as matchday bar for everyone....

Who you think should pay for it?

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That's correct - however people like Tommy Craig, Imrie, Harkins and various others do given the BoD sanctioned the early termination of their contracts.

They probably paid out less than they would have if they'd carried on until the end of their contracts though

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Who you think should pay for it?

If this was done for the wider support we could raise the cash ourselves through various means with the fans council leading. Can only speak for myself in that I would happily contribute while special fund raisers could be organized. . Can only imagine how basic this bar is going to look with a limited number contributing. Will predict after one years accounts are completed the fans council will need to sit down and come up with a new strategy to generate more income time will tell.

Can anyone from the fan council tell us if you have the numbers are full for membership. Gary is the only one I know on the council.

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The club doesn't have the money.

Are all the clubs listed in Southside Saint's post awash with cash which allowed them to have 'open to all' bar facilities in their grounds? Pretty sure Dumbarton can be added to that list too. Perhaps the difference is not them being minted, but rather that they could be fcuking bothered actually doing it, and indulging in a small act of 'speculating a bit to accumulate a bit'. We can't even update the Ho.............

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I, like many before, enquired about running a club lottery, but l did not get a definitive answer as to why we could not run one, that being the case I see we are back to selling scratch cards at £1 each. I managed along with some others to get a couple at the Rangers game.

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I thought the club were paying for the fit out, and the members of the anti social club would be paying them back through their dwindling subs?

Correct the club are providing the majority of funding for the fit out, but i dont see it written anywhere that it is a loan to be repayed. Meanwhile the academy are in need of equipment - So ditch the bar idea and fund the needs of the academy i say.

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would like to have used the bar but no way would I be paying to go in for a drink...for once could the group involved not have got together with the club and funded kitting out the bar for everybody to use instead of continually trying to raise and save as much money for a takeover which is never going happen...

if they don't charge there will not be a bar. Unless you have a spare £60.000.
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It is the club paying up 95% and the FC funding the rest from memberships. I had heard they reckoned under £50k would do it, now as posted by SPS it's £60k and when proposed by the CIC debacle it was £150k for kibble to fit it out.

Its an expensive White Elephant at any of those prices. Purely from a personal curiosty I will have to have a conversation with the appropriate people on the Fan Council to understand how?

Their numbers stack up for a bar thats only open for approx 80 hours (20 matches X 4 hours) a season, that has a maximum target catchment of 275...?

I only ask as every retail venture I have been involved carefully identifies, details and targets the entire elligible local population as potential customers when the sums are done to determine if it is worth progressing as a unit that will make the required return on investment, over its first seven years.

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Its an expensive White Elephant at any of those prices. Purely from a personal curiosty I will have to have a conversation with the appropriate people on the Fan Council to understand how?

Their numbers stack up for a bar thats only open for approx 80 hours (20 matches X 4 hours) a season, that has a maximum target catchment of 275...?

I only ask as every retail venture I have been involved carefully identifies, details and targets the entire elligible local population as potential customers when the sums are done to determine if it is worth progressing as a unit that will make the required return on investment, over its first seven years.

Good luck with that, you can email them, but dont expect a reply unless you are offering them money. The only way to talk to them face to face is to join the fans council, then you can say what you want but it will be recorded differently in the minutes of that meeting - I speak from personal experience - i may have mentioned this fact before whistling.gif

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Good luck with that, you can email them, but dont expect a reply unless you are offering them money. The only way to talk to them face to face is to join the fans council, then you can say what you want but it will be recorded differently in the minutes of that meeting - I speak from personal experience - i may have mentioned this fact before :whistle

Nope... Not in the version of the minutes I read!

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would like to have used the bar but no way would I be paying to go in for a drink...for once could the group involved not have got together with the club and funded kitting out the bar for everybody to use instead of continually trying to raise and save as much money for a takeover which is never going happen...

They have got together with the club (the club set them up in the first place), and the club is paying 95% of the cost (meanwhile the academy is short of finance) the fans council are not raising money for a takeover, in fact they have voted against supporting the SMISA takeover bid, it was only verbal support that was asked and they held a vote about changing their constitution to enable them to say it was a good idea and give verbal support and they voted no. The majority of fans who completed the SMISA survey on fan ownership were all for it, the 20 or so members of the fans council would not even agree to say it might be a good thing - they purport to be a bridge between club and fans, yet have never surveyed fans on any of their decisions, all they have done is ask for money.

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The Fans Council and SMiSA could do with updating their websites with news or minutes more often. Last minutes were from July (FC) and August (SMiSA). C'mon people - more regular updates would be appreciated.

That is my only criticism of both groups - fair play to these volunteers giving up their free time to the benefit of the St Mirren FC Ltd company.

I'd rather read the news of progress from your web sites that read what the self appointed Fans spokesman on BAWA seems to know is true.

ETA Fans Council AGM on Thu 12th Nov 2015.

Especially when the info provided on here contradicts what info The Fans Council eventually provide... Edited by davidg
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