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Charles Bannerman

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Posts posted by Charles Bannerman

  1. 3 hours ago, Yngwie said:

    No, income has dropped. Prize money and gate receipts massively down since the Premiership days.

    Certain running costs have increased with energy being one of them, and Big Dunc won’t be cheap, but look at the current squad and compare it with the one we had even in our relegation season. We are certainly not spending more than we did in the Premiership.

    One of the problems of being a “Small Company” is that the accounts aren’t very detailed. In fact when they eventually materialised last year, I don’t recollect any statement of turnover so we don’t really know, year on year, what’s happening with earnings. We also don’t know what the losses are as a percentage of turnover so we just have to speculate as to what the relative magnitude of that £835K loss was.

    • Like 1
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  2. 2 hours ago, STFU said:

    Our financial position and the future of the club is a situation of the boards making.  Living beyond our means to an extent that they are no longer willing to fund and now trying to hold the city to ransom over planning that will allow them to get that money back.

    Crying over fans not turning up in sufficient numbers when they're serving up a **** poor product at an ever increasing price.

    All sense of community and belonging stripped from the club, and any who dare protest being shown the door.

    If that's the cost of allowing the club to be run the way it is by those currently on the board, I don't want them there.

    It might not be so sad if we were seeing even a glimpse of success, but if people such as yourself are happy for the club's soul to be sold in return for a pitiful existence, then have at it.  The longer it continues, the fewer who'll be around to pick up the pieces when needed.

    I agree with a certain amount of what you say but there are other criticisms that were also made of the previous board and also of boards before that, and indeed are made by football fans throughout the game. The basic truth is that there is no obligation on anyone to put themselves in the firing line and spend their personal funds running a fundamentally non-viable business using a fundamentally non-viable business model - which is common throughout the game. It’s been clear from the start that there isn’t enough demand, neither actual nor (probably) potential, for a product involving around 30 full time front line employees with several more in backup roles, to make that business anything other than regularly loss making. Over time, something in the ballpark of £10 million of other people’s money has gone into keeping this business going and it always runs into the same problem because of its fundamentally loss making nature. Far too often in football there seems to be this expectation that it’s someone else’s responsibility to fund this loss making process and failure then leads to calls for the removal of those who have used their own money to try and their replacement by others prepared to expose themselves to the same routine.

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  3. 11 hours ago, STFU said:

    Unsecured loans, so they can shout all they want for the money, if we don't have it they can't get it.

    High chance we're facing administration anyway, so they'd get nothing back then either.

    I'd rather cut the cancer and take a chance on recovery than continue to let it slowly kill us.

    And if you did that - cast aside people who have been bailing out a fundamentally loss making position with their own money for years - who would you expect to take over the running of the club and to cover its ongoing financial shortcomings, knowing that this could happen to them as well? The community doesn’t owe football a living - especially if football chooses to live beyond its means and expects other people to pick up the tab for that.

    • Like 1
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  4. 11 hours ago, CaleyCiuin said:

    Great away day today. The young lads down the front were very vocal………… Sack The Board and Gardiner out were the main chants. A bridge & Castle for full effect was also flung in ,  Love it…….. but why only away days  ??????  Do you think SG and any board members were at the game, if so they surely heard it. 

    Has anyone chanting for the Board to be sacked managed to work out how much in loans would be recalled for immediate repayment as a result?

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  5. 16 hours ago, Leaky Blinder said:

    Clearly Dens Park is not a designated green belt zone I wonder if Scot Gardiner ever touted a battery farm there

    It would probably sink into the deep mud that was clearly afflicting the penalty spot there yesterday morning.😩

    • Funny 1
  6. 49 minutes ago, ictbob said:

    Skimming through this so don't know if this has been asked already but have council explained why only 5 turned up for the original vote but when the sh!# hits the fan over 50 of them stroll in. Is this not there job to look at these things and be there to vote if they have an opinion? Doesn't sound like there doing there jobs correctly!

    The original decision was taken by the South Planning Committee comprising councillors from south of the Kessock Bridge. Some of these failed to attend the site visit so were disqualified, some declared an interest and it’s said some couldn’t be @rsed, leaving 5 as against a quorum of 3.

    The decision was then referred to the full council, also including members from 100+ miles away from Inverness and that attracted an attendance of 56, with no apparent concern about declaring interests or not having done a site visit.

    • Well Said 1
  7. 25 minutes ago, Douglas Mackenzie said:

    Highland Council were happy for five of them (Councillors) to make a decision on this one,until three of the five voted in 'favour' and went off script. This was deemed a bad look. Then they scrambled about,broke a few rules and arranged the vote to go to the full Council. At this meeting we have the laughing show piece of Councillor MacPherson versus the Convener,three Councilors abstain,six cannot take part because of their interests ,or what they previously said or discussed on the issue,23 voted for and 30 against and this is deemed a good look. They are a laughing stock and it shows us all that when you put a group of unqualified people in a room and ask them to make key decisions on our future and that of the community,anything can happen. This is a classic example of you get what you voted for. Just a pit more people would not show an interest in local elections and vote for people that can do the job.

    In this case we have an area of 2% of the land available,which I understand is waste ground that could be turned into something thatwould generate income for ITC,but as important all the community work they do.In fact it would allow them to enhance all that and better serve the community at large in many ways. Unfortunately I guess politics came into play and blinded the views of some of these Councillors who were unable to open their eyes to the bigger picture.

    As for the club,  credit where it is due for pursuing this idea, just a pity that they had to come up against the great and good of HIghland Council.

    In 1995 Inverness District Council voted for a £900,000 grant to the club, of existential significance, to make the stadium project viable. On the strength of that, construction contracts were let - and then a cabal of councillors and council officials managed to find a technicality which they used to create a rearguard action against payment. The eventual outcome of a chaotic scenario was that, under threat of legal action, the cash was paid from the Common Good Fund.

    Fast forward to 2024 and Highland Council’s planning process made a decision to allow a battery farm, again of existential significance, worth £3.4 million to the club, but now another huge spanner has been thrown in these works in the form of another rearguard action by councillors (and possibly council officials as well) who don’t like this decision and are again intent on reversing it amid rumblings of legal action. Our local councils don’t seem to learn much from previous episodes of chaos that they’ve created.

    • Funny 1
  8. 1 hour ago, hislopsoffsideagain said:

    So the folk who actually own a significant chunk of the club are the same old names from the good old days - Sutherland, McGilvray, Savage, the Muirfield Mills folk. Should they be either sticking their heads above the parapet or forcing change behind the scenes, before it all goes completely to hell?

    I think what the breakdown shows is that the ownership of the club is extremely diffuse, with no single group holding an especially large holding. The biggest is clearly the Muirfield Mills syndicate where a block of around half a dozen people own around 900K shares but even that is less than 20%, with the Trust block coming in at less than 15% and the Savage, McGilvray and Sutherland holdings all less than 10%. I’m also not sure what the personal relations are like among these biggest players. It’s also worth noting that those involved are almost all over 70 years old and may not be in a position or have the inclination to do much.

  9. 2 hours ago, hislopsoffsideagain said:

     

    From the last info available on Companies House, I believe these are the people/groups with 50,000 shares or more:

      No. shares          
    Inverness Caledonian Thistle Trust Limited 729500          
    Caledonian Football Club 600000          
    Graham Rae 382400  
    Former Chairman (Muirfield Mills)
         
    Inverness Thistle Football Club 300000          
    Orion Engineering Services Limited 275189  
    (Alan Savage - Former Director)
         
    Dugald McGilvray 275167  
    Former Chairman
         
    Iain McGilvray 191816          
    Orion Group UK Limited 191317  
    (Alan Savage - Former Director)
         
    David Cameron 175000   Director      
    Roderick Ross 170000   Club President      
    Richard Hillier 164900   (Muirfield Mills)      
    Russell Cameron 102150   (Muirfield Mills)      
    Dornoch Developments Ltd 100000  
    (Directors include Caroline Clayton, George Fraser, David Sutherland)
         
    Paul MacInnes 89150   (Muirfield Mills)      
    Alan McPhee 77150  
    Former Director (Muirfield Mills)
         
    Emeric Innes 57750   (Muirfield Mills)      
    George Fraser 51600   Former Director      
    David Sutherland 50250   Former Director      
    Gordon Allan Munro 50000   Director      
    Caroline Clayton 50000          
    Anne Sutherland 50000          
    Catriona Ramsay 50000          

    Thanks for doing that very interesting leg work at Companies House, hislop.

    It’s also possible to group the holdings you list into the various “interest groups” that have been involved with the club over the last 25 years or so. I believe the still quite fragmented breakdown is as follows -

    David Sutherland, family and Dornoch Investments - 300,250.

    McGilvray Family - 466,983. (Includes some more of what Sandy Catto donated to the Hospice and which I believe Sandy originally bought from Ian Fraser who invested over £300K in the 1996 share issue)

    Alan Savage/Orion - 466,506 (See note above)

    Muirfield Mills - 873,500 (I believe that at least one other MM investment of less than £50K would take this above 900,000.)

    ICT Charitable Trust - 729,500. This is Tulloch’s holding which was donated to the Trust.

    The Thistle FC and the Caledonian FC blocks are “A” shares while the others are ordinary shares. I’m not sure what the voting arrangements are there or, if they have voting rights, who would exercise these. EDIT - while I was writing, Highland Exile made a post that reminded me of the A share arrangement. Thanks HE!)
    Note that David Cameron, Roddy Ross and Gordon Munro also have £50K+ Ordinary holdings and will also doubtless have internal political alignments.

    Many of these shares were bought to keep the wolf from the door - most notably the large Muirfield Mills conglomerate which is money that’s long gone covering losses. I’m also not sure how much is outstanding in loans that may have been made, but with no shares in return, and are still outstanding.

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  10. 3 hours ago, IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER said:

    Am I being overly optimistic but surely there must be a back up plan in the event of what has actually happened. I would also suggest that the "investors" have much to lose - reputation and financially wise. ICT is a mere clever but emotionally utilised 'side issue' but perhaps now highly beneficial that WE are cemented in the headlights and headlines. But I still blame the eejits, not in respect of the 'plan' which was evidently built on personal gain, but rather how they executed it.

    Unfortunately, in many respects this IS the backup plan…. after the collapse of the Concert Company.

  11. 5 minutes ago, wilsywilsy said:

    I'm not sure I would go that far and say it's scaremongering. There were some reasonable concerns highlighted today about fire safety and the environment that was all under lined by the lack of legislation that could offer any comfort. At least petrol stations have tight regulations and controls from HSE and other regulatory bodies that planners and councils can lean in to.

    I think that the club’s prospects of acceptance were on a dicky wicket once safety issues came into the equation. It’s easy to argue between the loss of 2% of a large green area by taking the Inner Moray Firth plan as the letter of the law on the one hand, and on the other a green initiative that will yield £125K per annum for the Council and hugely help one of Inverness’s highest profile organisations. However Elfin Safety seems to trump everything.

    Also, it’s easy for people in our position to highlight the benefit to the club but the ordinary person on the street or councillor in the chamber often has no partisan interest and could validly argue (Devil’s Advocate kite alert!) that the self-inflicted financial failings of a football club, notwithstanding its good PR etc for Inverness, cannot be taken into consideration in the course of deciding a planning application.

    • Like 1
    • Well Said 1
  12. Unfortunately this is the second non-football money making project that has been floated as a panacea, with no potential pitfalls initially flagged up…. until they suddenly emerged from left field.

    There was no indication that the Concert Company could encounter any difficulties…. until it went bust at great cost to the club’s local reputation. And now there’s the Battery Farm that suddenly ran into planning difficulties and we are where we are now.

    One of my concerns is that very little was revealed about the BF until the club meeting held the other week in response to the sudden public emergence of planning issues. Now that we know what the planning issues were - and irrespective of anyone’s viewpoint on them - was it not clear from the start that this was a project that could attract planning concerns, so at least came with some uncertainties? And if so why were we told so little about this project until a very late stage?

    So now… around two years on from the birth of the Concert Company… the club’s financial security continues to proceed ever deeper into a black hole.

     

    • Agree 4
  13. On 3/10/2024 at 10:41 AM, old caley girl said:

    If I was a conspiracy theorist I'd wonder why the Council parking attendants made an appearance yesterday? 

    They appeared also to be aware that there were potentially rich pickings from a large crowd at the Half Marathon and were booking people there - including, apparently, in the Archive Centre car park.

    • Well Said 1
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  14. 5 hours ago, CELTIC1CALEY3 said:

    Here is the conclusion that members were presented with at the South Planning Committee before approving it;

    CONCLUSION 5.1 Following the submission of additional information both the Council’s Environmental Health Officer and Ecology Officer have removed their respective objection and subsequently reasons for refusal 2 and 3 are no longer relevant. 5.2 Nevertheless, it is not considered that the submission has adequately justified the loss of designated open space as a result of industrial development and therefore the proposal’s impact on designated open space remains as assessed in the Report considered by the South Planning Applications Committee at its meeting on 22 November 2023. The recommendation is to refuse the application on the grounds of the impact on the open space. 6. IMPLICATIONS 6.1 Resource: Not applicable 6.2 Legal: Not applicable 6.3 Community (Equality, Poverty and Rural): Not applicable 6.4 Climate Change/Carbon Clever: Not applicable 6.5 Risk: Not applicable 6.6 Gaelic: Not applicable 7.

    RECOMMENDATION Action required before decision issued Notification to Scottish Ministers N Conclusion of Section 75 Obligation N 44 Revocation of previous permission N Subject to the above actions, it is recommended to REFUSE the application for the following reason: 1. The proposal is contrary to National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) Policy 20 a), and Highland-wide Local Development Plan Policy 75 by virtue that it has not been satisfactorily demonstrated that the Open Space is not fit for purpose, nor has substitute provision has been offered to meet the needs of the local area, nor is it considered that the proposal for the development of the Open Space would significantly contribute to the spatial strategy for the area, which aims to: ‘concentrate development on existing settlements, create sustainable new communities, provide the infrastructure and transport network required to support these communities whilst ensuring the area’s most valuable built and natural assets are protected.’ Consequently it is not considered that the threshold of maintaining the overall integrity of the Open Space network is achieved.

    The Notice of Amendment being considered by the full Council this Thursday is to review the decision.  That would suggest the issue is solely about 'the integrity of the Open Space network' . If members were misinformed, there was a mistake in law, or new material information has come to light could justify a review.  On the basis that the review is purely about the integrity of the Open Space - the Council's agenda does not clarify this - then I would expect all Councillors able to address the review are taken for a site visit prior to the meeting, as were the Planning Committee members. 

    The current decision of the Committee in the draft minute is as follows:

    Amendment: Mrs I MacKenzie, seconded by Mr R Jones to approve the application because, while it was acknowledged that the development would result in a loss of open space, the development would encourage, 44 promote, and facilitate renewable energy storage and so would comply with policy 11 of NPF4. It was considered that the benefits gained under policy 11 of NPF4 outweighed the loss of open space and therefore the application should be granted, with powers delegated to officers in consultation with the Chair and members who had participated in the decision to develop the appropriate conditions.

     https://www.highland.gov.uk/meetings/meeting/4950/highland_council/attachment/83016

    Is an English translation of this available? I’ve lost my Gibberish - English Dictionary.😱

    • Well Said 1
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  15. 2 hours ago, RiG said:

    Yeah that final paragraph is an embarrassing inclusion. Suspect someone bundled that on at the end but it's not overly helpful. The rest of it is a bit better in that it at least focuses on planning matters rather than petty point scoring. 

    I think that the club also needs to remember that this debate/campaign is being held in a very public arena, so overly aggressive communications with Councillors are also being seen by the whole community, and this is bound also to influence the perception of the club by that public. Here we also have to consider that public perception of ICT took a considerable knock after the collapse of the concert company and I fear that further damage could be done here. It’s unfortunate that the dire finances also exclude the employment of some advice on PR.

    • Agree 3
  16. 1 hour ago, DoofersDad said:

    Better late than never.  We will now have to wait and see whether it is too late.  The earlier pronouncements with their arrogant and bullying tones will not have gone down well with many in the Council and will undoubtedly have harmed the case.  This latest communication is a much more measured message from the Chairman.  It sticks to the salient points and provides sound arguments for approval which are relevant to the application.  For instance, whilst acknowledging that a small amount of green space would be lost, the statement highlights that additional trees and shrubs would be planted with a resultant biodiversity gain.

     All councillors will now have these arguments and I rather doubt that receiving multiple copies of the same email will make them any more likely to vote in favour.  As STFU says, the cards are all dealt.  Let's just hope there is not another joker in the pack.

     

    I said at the meeting that I didn’t think it was a good idea to antagonise the Council in the run up to this vote. God knows, Highland Council is a complete mess and in far more respects than this, but I reckon you need to be pragmatic so it’s not a good idea to tell them that under the current circumstances. 

    • Agree 1
  17. 9 hours ago, STFU said:

    The cards are dealt, and we now wait to see how it plays out.

    I'm not confident the vote will go in favour of the battery storage, and a quick search shows that in 8 appeals to the DPEA in 2022/23 involving Highland Council, only one was upheld.

    The club's focus seems to be fixed on a couple of very specific lines in the various legislation, with little regard given to context.

    i.e. they highlight net zero and government support for renewables, but ignore that legislation and support also exists for the protection of green spaces.

    What will be weighed here is the value of one against the other.

    Even if the club can prove there was a mistake made in the process, that does not automatically mean that it would be ruled the end decision was wrong.

    Based on the information given to us at the meeting, I think STFU has hit the nail on the head with the “loss of green space v net zero contribution” summary, although if these councillors were to be pragmatic, they would also take into account (without necessarily admitting it!) the extra £125K in business rates - even if they don’t give a toss about the future of club that has brought the Highlands untold public attention through winning the Scottish Cup and playing in Europe. (Indeed, how valuable to the Highlands was “going ballistic” alone?

    It’s difficult to quantify the “green energy dividend”, even with the numbers provided by the club, but it does appear to be significant. However, I think that the real power (no pun intended!) behind the argument in favour is the statistic we were given that the installation would only occupy 4% of the green area on that site, leaving 96% still untouched. I might also add that a hell of a lot of potential green space at places like the West Link and Craig Dunain seems to be yielded up by the Council to house builders without a hair being turned - and there are doubtless other similar instances.

    One further point. What would it look like if Councillors from over 100 miles away were seen to turn out mob handed and overturn a decision taken by an admittedly small but perfectly legal group of their colleagues representing areas much closer to the installation in question.

    • Disagree 1
    • Well Said 5
  18. 50 minutes ago, wilsywilsy said:

    It’s a bit extreme to be talking about the club not existing and taking the trust down with it.

    In the likely worst case, the club declares itself insolvent and goes into administration. Take the points deduction hit, restructures the debt (pennies in pound), come out of admin. The trust is an independent corporate identity and takes nothing financially from the club so wouldn’t be impacted. 

    Worst, worst case the creditors don’t agree a deal and the only route out of admin is liquidation and we are in Sevco territory. Gardiner will be slavering over these comparisons. 

    The thought of administration appals, but can’t be ignored even as a remote possibility. We don’t know exactly how much is owed to various people who have been chipping in to keep the club going, so we do have to wonder how much money, given in benevolent gestures to plug holes, might be at stake. Also, with all this spotlight on the club’s finances, how willing might local traders be to do business with it if they perceive some danger of bills not being paid, or only paid in small part? Unfortunately, I have to add that the demise of the concert company will already have done nothing to ease any such concerns. And if the administration horror show did materialise, how unwilling might future benefactors and suppliers be after the club emerged from it? There’s a huge amount riding on the next few weeks…. and minimal room for manoeuvre.

    • Like 1
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  19. 4 hours ago, wilsywilsy said:

    It easy to think up questions on hindsight of course. But out of interest, did you manage to tease out any additional information on how the asset was valued, who valued it, or who the buyers are?

    I don’t believe that valuation emerged as an issue at all.

  20. 1 hour ago, old caley girl said:

    I think the chairman's slightly aggressive response to Charles Banbermans question probably put people off? 

    Tbh I think folk were respectful and were listening carefully and taking everything in? I think there may be further questions when/if meeting goes against us next week? Mainly how do they get accounts passed whilst we wait on result of ScotGov appeal and how will club be funded to keep going until then? 

    Decent turnout and probably would have been more if more notice 

    Thank you for your observation, OCG, and also to Willsy. 😊 That was totally resolved after the meeting when I had a good chat with the Chairman. He’s clearly under a lot of pressure and perhaps my use of the term “sales pitch” in relation to the start of his statement wasn’t the best choice when I was just trying to suggest that there was no urgent need to “sell” the benefits of a battery farm to the people who were there. I was more concerned about finding out how much money was involved, what the implications for the club were if this is delayed or refused, what the club’s precise role is and what the mechanics of the whole project were.

    I think we are now a fair bit further on in understanding what we had previously perceived to be “Caley Thistle’s battery farm worth a ‘seven figure sum’ to the club.”

    • Agree 2
  21. I have to say that I feel a good deal more positive about the whole business, now that some vital information is in the public domain following tonight’s meeting. The absolute game changer is that the sum involved is £3.4M or, as the Chairman put it “seven Ryan Christies”. However that figure could in part be a little vulnerable, especially if planning is delayed. And we were also told that there’s going to be some kind of “Caley Thistle Battery Farm Company” that will sell interests to concerns on the industry and these deals. The club has a 40 year lease on the land, which appears to be owned by Messrs Cameron and Sutherland. There was a lot of stuff making the point about how beneficial battery farms are and how low planning risk this is. I’m not sure what value that approach is so late in the day but I gather that everyone on the club’s mailing list will be getting an email with Councillors’ addresses for lobbying purposes.

    As far as I can see, the situation is that if it goes through in the 14th, then the £3.4M is pretty well in the bag. And if it doesn’t, all is not necessarily lost because there’s optimism that an appeal to the Scottish Government would be successful, but at some cost. Specifically, that could take 6-9 months, a perhaps modest slice of the £3.4M might be lost, there would be significant cash flow challenges and the accounts, which have been delayed until the end of May, would be expected to show a less favourable “going concern” status from the auditor.

    However I also note that, with echoes of the £900K of 1995/96, KCs now seem to be mobilised so I suppose disappearance into the legal morass can’t be discounted. I did venture to suggest that if the Council tie themselves in knots… they could always pay the £3.4M from the Commob Good Fund.😩😩

    • Thank You 1
  22. 1 hour ago, old caley girl said:

    Never thought we'd be in a position like those meetings ever again Charles tbh 

    I’m not “in and around” nearly as much as I used to be in years gone by, but I seem to be detecting a degree of unhappiness and anger about the club’s current status. It’s not the same kind of issue as in 1993/94, but are you suggesting that levels of discontent are in that ballpark?

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