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I also am unclear about what the objectives of this scheme are. Is the aim to raise money by share purchase to help with running costs, or is it to achieve significant shareholding in the hope of having a fan director on the board? Or a bit of both? In the case of the former, I fear that any cash input raised from fans would barely scratch the surface given the scale of recent losses - £16,000 a week according to the most recently available figures and the word on the street has been that the figures for 2022-23, which have to be revealed by the end of next month, may sit at average weekly losses of around £12K, although I am prepared to be pleasantly surprised on that one. As for getting a supporter on the board, I haven’t had time to look at the articles of association, but I suspect that there may be two possible routes - election at the AGM (which should happen before late July) to fill any vacancy, or cooption by the current board. I don’t think straightforward shareholding is enough. I also wonder if football sometimes loses sight of what a company’s board is meant to be. The orthodox answer is a collection of what the shareholders consider to be the best available group to run the company. But since football operates via the economics of the madhouse, boards tend here to have a significant presence of people who have been prepared to cover a club’s fundamental losses which are built up as a result of persistently paying players more than the market will stand. We therefore encounter the question - are football directors there for their skills in running companies or is their primary role simply as cash cows? The Chairman with the minimum £250 shareholding that Scotty mentioned will be Ken Mackie who, as I understood it, was a Tulloch appointee at a time when Tulloch’s £5 million injection was in full flow, but David Sutherland himself wanted to stand down. Ken, a chartered accountant, was one of the best chairmen, if not the very best that the club has had and, for instance, it was largely due to him that the club negotiated the minefield designed to keep ICT out of the SPL in 2004.

I hope this initiative goes well and I have often called for shareholders to offer their proxies to the trust in recent times which is a little different to the current call. With 10% of their own voting rights and potentially a bunch of other small shareholdings proxied to the trust on an official basis, the voting right of the trust could be significantly increased to the point where, like it or not, a fan supported rep could be elected if not amicably agreed to be added (co-opted) to the board. As alluded to above, many power brokers at the club have not had significant personal shareholdings and in one case our chairman at the time had only 250 shares under his name like many of the most basic ICTFC shareholders! HOWEVER, I do have to say - as someone who tried this before - that the proof of the pudding will be when asking people to dip their hands in their pockets regularly. You reference Falkirk and Morton above and I think others have had similar schemes in place at one time or another. In Ian Broadfoot's first book, there is reference to a scheme I tried to start many years ago which was dubbed "Pay a Player" scheme. The general idea was to fund additional budget for Steve Paterson through supporter direct debits each month that went straight to the club, and to the manager's budget in a transparent fashion. This was at a time when we were in serious danger of bankruptcy due to stadium building costs and other debts. I got great feedback from everyone concerned, fans and club alike, I got accosted for more info almost every night I was out, but when it came to filling out those DD forms ... a lot less success. The scheme never officially got started in the end as while we were trying to make sure there would be transparency and SP would get the funds directly, David Sutherland came along and squirrelled away and reorganised all the debt. In a way I am happy it did not take off as I can never be sure if it would have worked spectacularly or have been a cluster**** of epic proportions! History at this point says I tried to do something, which is preferable to it saying I failed! From the info supplied, the focus seems to be on buying shares as far as I can see ... but I am not clear from the post above if another aim is to raise a specific amount for the club, potentially on a monthly basis, and have a say in how it is used. The two aims are separate and different, and the waters seem a little muddy in that post. A lack of clear goals is a surefire way for any project to drift from its initial focus and become messy and confusing. Are you saying the aim is to raise £10K per month from fans to buy shares and the club then get that £10K to go to playing budget? If so, how can you dictate those sorts of terms? It would be more likely to go towards the next hair-brained scheme if no framework for this entire plan was in place.

I like the idea in principle and would be inclined to support it. However I would like to know the club's view on this. Would the club embrace such a proposition or would the Supporters' Trust have to force their way in? Would there be hostility between Club and Trust? If so, I can't see it working very smoothly. An announcement from the Club, if supportive would, I think, sway a lot of supporters towards this proposal.

All members of the Supporters Trust should have received details of Stronger Together by e-mail from the Trust yesterday. If you did not receive it, please let us know. The courier and Press and Journal were at Saturday's Fans Meeting, and both have covered it on line and we expect it to feature in their print editions: https://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/sport/fans-investment-initiative-looks-to-give-supporters-greater-347261/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/sport/football/inverness-caledonian-thistle/6425681/appeal-for-caley-thistle-fans-far-and-wide-to-back-trusts-new-fund/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social

All members of the Supporters Trust should have received details of Stronger Together by e-mail from the Trust yesterday. If you did not receive it, please let us know. The courier and Press and Journal were at Saturday's Fans Meeting, and both have covered it on line and we expect it to feature in their print editions: https://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/sport/fans-investment-initiative-looks-to-give-supporters-greater-347261/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/sport/football/inverness-caledonian-thistle/6425681/appeal-for-caley-thistle-fans-far-and-wide-to-back-trusts-new-fund/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social

I’m all for greater fan involvement and think it can only be a positive. Particularly for a club like ICT where engagement between the club and the support has typically been pretty poor. I’m also generally in support of the Supporters Trust fund plan (although you could have come up with a better name for it!), and applaud the efforts of the folks who have taken it on and turned things around, but I’m just feeling a bit unclear on how it’s going to work and what it’s objectives actually are. At the moment it reads to me that we’re being asked to sign up for cash donations (regular or one off) to go into a separate fund that at some indeterminate point in the future could be used for something that the supporters trust board of the time deem worthy? Be it shares, players, running costs, whatever? It just feels a bit vague, albeit I’m very open to being proved wrong. Given the club stance, for as long as I can remember, seems to be that they don’t recognise the Supporters Trust as representative of all fans due to low membership levels it would be helpful to understand what the board/CEO do consider an appropriate level if a seat on the board is the target. Is there a risk this could just become a sluice fund for offsetting running costs from mismanagement? Are there trigger points where if certain funding levels are achieved then doors start opening? Are the club engaged and supportive in this process, or just sitting back to see what happens? Perhaps the summary of the discussion will answer these points when posted. I suppose what I’m saying is that football is expensive enough already, and asking the same pool of supporters to stick another £20/30/50, or whatever, a month into another pot with with no firm target or objective feels like a challenging ask.

Different days would be better!

Are we really citing managers of teams only a few points ahead in the table with bang average results from better squads and more investment as saviours. You are being fooled by the media spin.

Don't want to be a downer, but difference between us and them is that both of those teams are very well established for going on 150 years with a large, strong fanbase passing down for generations, so a large fan investment is unsurprising. We've been about for 30 years, with an inconsistent fanbase because a large chunk of the city is either green or blue, and a decent amount still holding the grudge from '94 (for whatever reason) and people only take notice of us when we play a Prem team in the Cup or get to Hampden... It might work fine for other clubs, but when we've such a small fanbase that can be considered "loyal", I feel this may end up being a pocket of shrapnel rather than being something that can make a dent

Starting lineup and result from today.