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The first step in addressing any problems is in recognising and acknowledging that there are problems. It looks as though the club have now done this and have been more frank and open than they have been for a very long time. Many of those issues have been in place for a very long time so we can't expect instant solutions but if, over the next few months, communication and honesty improve and we begin to see progress both with the team and with some of the very poor facilities that we have had to put up with then we will know that this present regime are delivering with deeds and not merely words. All in all a very welcome and encouraging start. The board have received, and rightly so, a lot of criticism of late but credit where it's due. Time now for us fans to stop carping and get fully behind the enormous challenge and effort that lies ahead.

Any notions of an SFA bias against ICT is laughable. The fact is that a lot of these referees just aren't very good, make mistakes and are very inconsistent. For a classic case of this look at Craig Thomson (Thompson?) the other week when he let a United player (Toshney) away with hauling down Calder but didn't book him only to, correctly, book one of our guys for a shirt pull. Both were yellow card offences yet only one was punished. It's nothing to do with some kind of anti ICT agenda, it's just erratic officiating.

At last night's meeting, John Robertson gave some interesting comments around the signing of players and his attitude towards developing the youngsters. Firstly, on the negative side, he echoed the Chairman's earlier comments about the budget being around £1 million less than last year. That obviously makes recruitment difficult when current players are already on relatively high earnings. Location is also a major problem and he said that there had been several players who had turned down offers because they wanted to stay in the central belt where there would be numerous clubs in commuting distance of where they live. He mentioned one that signed for a Division 1 side rather than move. He says that he has been helped by a scouting network he has. He talked about the mental fragility of a lot of players. They are nervous about making mistakes and he used this to explain why the team seemed to lose a bit of their drive once we got into the the lead against Morton. It was far removed from complacency or sitting back and defending the lead; what I understood he was saying was that players get anxious when they get into the lead because they will be criticised more for not winning if the have gone into the lead first. This perhaps highlights both a nervousness about the expectations of results here and, on a personal level, the fact that for many of our players, they know they need to succeed here for their careers to develop. Related to that, he talked briefly about the difference between what he sees on the training ground and what happens on the park. I guess the unsaid message there was for the fans to go easy on some of the players because he knows what they are capable of, and having fans on their backs all the time just piles more pressure on them makes it more difficult for them to perform to the level they do in training. His attitude to youth follows on from that. "if they are good enough, they are old enough" is what he said. He explained why he was keen on getting the kids out on loan to HL clubs and supportive of the idea of getting a colts team in the HL. He is wanting to toughen the kids up and put them under pressure by playing with men in games that really matter. He said that a few of the new recruits (Calder, Elsdon, Chalmers - I think, and maybe others) had never played a first team match before they came here! Think about it! What a culture shock it must be to find yourself in front of a vocal crowd and see your name in the paper as making a mistake that cost your team the game. These new recruits need time to get used to these new pressures and he is confident that as they do, they will develop well. Similarly, getting that first team experience rather then playing in the development league will toughen the kids up and make them ready mentally for first team football when they are good enough to be picked. It all made a lot of sense to me. Danny spoke really enthusiastically about how good some of the young kids coming through are. There does seem to have been a bit of a disconnect in recent years and lads seemed to have moved on elsewhere, but he felt there were several lads who should be good enough to feature before too long. This was echoed by the manager who suggested that for a couple, this may be as soon as next match! It was all fascinating and largely encouraging stuff. But for me, the message to fans has to be that many of our young players (and by young I don't mean just the teenagers) are very nervous and seriously lacking in confidence. They desperately need our support and our patience.

TBH, its also a sign of the sad state of Scottish football that for several seasons Sportscene showed highlights from Championship games as well as Premiership but strangely that all stopped when 'The Rangers' got promoted - almost as though the lower leagues and smaller clubs no longer matter any more to the BBC or to the SFA beaks. Sadly the limited viewing audience and funding/advertising revenue probably limits the opportunity for an independent lower league highlights show these days a-la Scotsport (who?) - which is sad but we should be grateful to any highlights posted online or anywhere due to the lack of mainstream media looking at this league now.

Lack of resource. The club was very lucky to have a group of willing volunteers to do a lot of stuff for them but now that number has, by all accounts, dwindled and the resource / time isn't there to offer the same scope of services. Whilst I've been critical about some aspects of the media team there is no doubting the good work they did in raising the profile of the club. Now some folk have moved on the output has suffered. You need only look at the dearth of tweets from the club account nowadays (We still haven't announced the signings of Donaldson and Trafford AFAIK) and unfortunately the longer video highlights that we sometimes got on YouTube are part of that reduction in output. The club has, in my view, taken advantage of the generosity of some of these folk. A social media presence is vital these days and this is something ICT need to seriously look at.

If a have a concern about last night's meeting it was the failure of any of the other Board members to engage. The new Chairman spoke well and enthusiastically but he is just one member of the Board. Others on the panel were on the Board at the time when the decisions which got us into the mess we are now in were made. Even just a brief few words from one of them acknowledging that mistakes were made, that lessons have been learned and that the Board is fully behind the approach outlined by the Chairman would surely not have been difficult. As it was, the Chairman did the apologising on their behalf and he wasn't even on the Board when those decisions were made and when core activities were being neglected. There were issues raised and the Chairman responded that he couldn't really comment as he didn't know, but would look into and get back to the questioner. Other Board members have been here long enough to have had knowledge of the issues and should have been able to speak up and comment. What was the point of them being there if all they offered was a wall of silence? The way forward outlined by the Chairman was good, but it is not going to happen unless the whole Board are signed up to that approach. I saw no evidence that this was the case. It might have been good, for example to have individual Board members taking responsibility for overseeing some particular area of activity and taking the lead on the discussion related to that. We all know that despite his faults, Kenny Cameron lived and breathed this football club and worked tremendously hard for the club. One suspects that other Board members were happy to let him get on with it. Hopefully the new Chairman will insist on other Board members taking a bit more responsibility and showing a much more public face and public buy in to the more progressive agenda. In Graham Rae, Danny MacDonald and John Robertson we have a great team of leaders to see us pick up the pieces and move on. They need and deserve the support of the entire Board. That support may be there, but it was not in evidence last night.

Massive plate of doughnuts upon arrival, always a good start! I - along with several other small groups and individuals - have met with Danny over the last couple of weeks and it was fantastic to see the same commitments and promises being made by the chairman in public as the COO said to us. It was great to see the chairman fully backing both Danny and Robbo ie plans for both off and on the park, and apparently very open indeed to criticism and feedback. He seems like he's a pretty shrewd man, and if last night is a fair representation then he's both a good talker and listener. Might seem odd to anyone who didn't witness it directly, but the comments about Raven and OFW came across as fair and logical. Very different circumstances as has already been said. Raven obviously still held in high regard but OFW - hmmm not quite! Touched on Doran's situation which I don't think has been mentioned so far. Fair way to go until we see him again, and the over-riding message was that he's been through a horrific time and it's been touch and go whether he his football career would continue. Sounds like a host of folk from here will get an invite to meet up and give their opinions too, please take it if you get the chance. Plenty gone wrong in the past but with Graham Rae, Danny and Robbo we have 3 people with a clean slate, positive outlooks and who want to engage. Fingers crossed they live up their claims, I for one buy into what they are saying and willing to give them the opportunity to follow through. Oh and for anyone who is worried about youth, I firmly believe that Robbo and Danny are two great fans of the youth systems and fingers crossed we'll see evidence of that on the pitch for the first team sooner rather than later.

On Raven they have informed his agent it would be easier to get a 32 year old right back a longer deal in the summer rather than January when his contract is up and sounding like it won't be renewed, he will start Saturday as Seedorf is suspended. Fon Williams his contract is not terminated but free to find another club up until the transfer deadline(no fee to come into the club) if still here after that will be considered for selection. The Foran situation wasn't made fully clear just that it was a 4 year deal, which in hindsight an error from the previous board/chairman, there must be a clause that this is only for say 12 months after departure, if not again previous chairman/board have a lot to answer for the shambles that ensued. You get the feeling that he wouldn't be welcomed back with open arms under the current management.

Chairman spoke very well about the club and that it wanted to gain the supporters trust again, stated there was obviously a shortfall in income due to relegation amounting to more than £1 million, expecting about a quarter of the revenue we've had previously from travelling supporters also no TV money etc. There are plans to remove the eyesore that is currently the club shop how and when were not clear but assumed to be happening sooner rather than later. Also talk off the concourse at the home end in the main stand to be made into a sportsbar type idea, toilets behind the west stand to be renovated, contracts with catering suppliers to be looked at and initiatives to re-engage with fans ie mailing lists etc to be looked at. On the playing front looking to move on Raven sooner rather than later due to wages as Robertson would prefer a younger player in that position, Fon Williams had a relegation clause in his contract which he had to instigate and did so to leave on a free, has had offers but he has rejected them he was also supposed to be involved in a couple of games but got injured the day before on both occasions, a hint of Coutinho-itis I believe from Robertsons reaction as he is fit to join the Wales squad coming up. As most will know Foran is on gardening leave and still being paid for by the club. All in all a good meeting and more are planned, drop ins to speak to Graham or Danny are more than welcome as stated by both.

I'm told Macrae is one to watch, so hopefully he gets a chance.

An interesting and very well attended evening with the Q&A session going on more than an hour after the advertised finish time. The new Chairman came across pretty well. He seems enthusiastic for the future of the club but is clear in the basic principle that we cannot spend more than is coming in. This year's budget is over £1 million down on last year so nobody is under any illusion of the scale of the task ahead. COO and the Manager spoke well and were pretty honest in their responses. The 3 of them all seemed to be singing from the same hymn sheet. Lots of assurances about better communication, improvements to the ground, club website, match day experience etc. Promise to hold similar meeting in future when they well report back on the progress made and also meetings where people will be invited to bring ideas which can be discussed. Of course, it is easy to say what the right things but it is not so easy to carry things through into actions. Sounds promising though. Very interesting comments from Robbo on various topics which are discussed in this forum. No doubt others will pick up on some of the detail in the relevant threads.

Referring to the refereeing, based on what I have read on here since the start of the season, ICT do not appear to have been given any breaks? Does the top brass of the SFA really feel that ICT are upstarts and should not be allowed to enter the ranks of the chosen ones in the Premiership? And so have been influencing their referees to take every opportunity to penalise them as much as possible? Just a thought?