Scotty

It's similar over here ... our land border with USA is officially closed but flights are still coming in from all over the place, including USA because Canadian citizens and permanent residents have a right to return (obviously). The problem is how returns/movements are handled. We had a trip planned in March and decided to go ahead with it as the locations we were travelling to/from were largely unaffected at the time, the virus seemed localised to certain spots, and we were also travelling with others ... long story short but things went batsh*t crazy in the rest of the world during our trip and we managed to get home (just) However, it was clear on that return journey that Canada and USA were only paying lip service to precautions whereas other, smaller nations, were not. In Seychelles and Kenya they were doing thermal imaging on arrival/departure as well as temperature checks and quarantining people for 14 days in defined locations if they showed any symptoms. When we landed back at JFK in New York - with a hospital ship on its way there to deal with the exponentially increasing COVID numbers - it was 'hey how you doing? Have a nice day' and back in Toronto airport later that same day, it was 'please take this leaflet and consider following protocols' .... We self-quarantined for 14 days on return, did not set food over the threshold until clear, and relied on neighbours/friends to drop a few essentials on our doorstep. Some others do not seem to take it seriously and didn't/do not bother with quarantine. 9 months later, we are back in the 'grey' zone in the city of Toronto which is basically a full lockdown (Tier 5 stuff). Even now the premier of Ontario is complaining to the PM that the federal government (who have control over immigration and airports etc) are still not being more forceful in enforcing the mandatory quarantine on travellers. Meanwhile - back in some of those places we were, which still have comparatively low caseloads, if you choose to land in the airport, you go to a quarantine location for 14 days - at your own cost - and then and only then are you allowed to go about your daily life... and daily life, for the most part in those places is COVID free. On the one hand a 14 day quarantine and lockdown could be viewed as draconian and oppressive but those people who flaunt the rules have ensured that our family have essentially had to quarantine for the last 9 months because I am in a higher risk group due to medical history. I know (knew) a couple of people who have died from COVID and the idea of lying on my front in a hospital bed while connected to a ventilator scares the sh*t out of me. On December 26th, they are putting the entire province in lockdown due to higher numbers, but like Scotland there are very few checks on movement and people are understandably jaded with it all. Some provinces out east did start pulling over cars with out of province license plates and issuing fines if there was not an essential need for them to cross provincial borders, but it's rare. I know we all want to get back to normal, but if we need to endure a little more short-term 'pain' to achieve the long-term gain then perhaps we need to suck-it-up! Bringing it back on topic ... I still don't agree with the Highlands being moved up to the top tier, but this may be some of that short-term pain I am talking about, and in the absence of any real control, or desire to control, movement of non-residents of the area then perhaps it has to be endured. I am really hoping that one or more of these vaccines do knock this thing down. It will never go away completely, but if it can be controlled or minimised with a vaccine we can hopefully get back to some semblance of our new normal next year.

If you dont already, reading @Charles Bannerman figures on Facebook might be right up your alley. He has been saying much the same thing for a while and as an ex-teacher he seems to have an endless supply of graph paper to do things old-school! Very interesting reading and analysis. Overnight, Canada has just banned flights from UK for next 72 hours with a review after that due to the super-strain in the south of England and we ourselves are going back into full lockdown across the province of Ontario at the end of the week (already in lockdown here within Toronto city limits) due to surging numbers that are higher than March but nowhere near the apocalyptic numbers of our neighbours to the south. Is Sturgeon taking lessons from the PM of New Zealand? She got a huge amount of pushback when she shut that country down at the start of the pandemic but look at them now .... one of the few countries to have it eliminated (or technically almost eliminated as there are still a handful of live cases). She won a landslide re-election victory recently, so I guess despite the hardships, the Kiwis know she is doing an excellent job compared to other world leaders.

It's a great appointment for them, and for him too. He did great for ICT, will always be a legend, the guy who took us to our highest league position, who masterminded our first Scottish Cup win, who got us into Europe, and who spoke his mind ... I think he just might keep County up. At ICT, the simple fact is that financially we were not on the same page and drifted apart. What we could afford (and had agreed) for team budgets, and what he wanted were miles apart and that more than anything led to the breakdown at the TCS I believe. Kenny Cameron got a lot of flak for some of the contracts handed out but even he had his limits. Yogi had the highest budget of all our managers, as we were doing so well, but by all accounts wanted more. Part of me cant fault him for that, it shows desire, but as a club we have for the most part tried to stay fiscally responsible and it was not sustainable. If Uncle Roy is happy to continue throwing money around in Dingwall then Yogi may do well. He is typically very good initially and in his first full season or two. It's only after that the wheels start to fall off. Uncle Roy's money may keep those wheels on for a little longer. ... on the bright side, if Deek was even in the frame, he will once again be seething 🙂

And still made it back with 10 minutes to spare 😉

indeed. Ian is one of those who tirelessly worked in the background since the club was formed. His stats are second to none and he still keeps them up to date, long after his official retiral. A completely deserved honour.

Short memories indeed - maybe there was a delay in getting the vote to let him in to the boardroom because someone changed their mind halfway through. ... and as for filming, it's the home club who have rights and if Dee fans wanted it, they could PPV it ... I am sure they would not let us film at Dens in the same situation (obviously won't now anyway - but i doubt they would have in the first place). There is a word for folk like him ... starts TW and ends AT

That's us reached the target so going to close it off in the site store now. Many thanks to those who participated. I think we got there in record time this year. If there are a bunch of people who still want to participate please let me know in this thread and we may look to do an additional item. We haven't had that for a few years but can look into it if we get another 10-15 interested people.

any more for any more ??? Many thanks to all those who already subscribed. Just bumping this up because we have 6 spots left and a few folk in the poll who said they would take part that haven't yet.

A shame ... great player, but like many great players, flawed and susceptible to outside influences that cut short career and life. Off to add star power to the George Best XI now. RIP. We all love the 'hand of Maradona' goal from '86 but his second in that game has to have been one of the greatest individual goals ever scored at a World Cup (after Archie Gemmill of course). Also found this 50 best skill moments video that have some amazing moves in it. Wow. What a player and what a shame.

Pretty poor show whoever was trying to get the club in trouble for this. They did their best, and it sounds like they did what they could in the circumstances to get some people back in the ground and they did so by following the protocols in place. There are plenty of things we can ream the club about - communication, crappy automated camera work, all sorts of things but trying to be able to get bums back on seats to watch the footie should not be one of them. Like someone else mentioned I also think it may not have been someone at the actual game, instead, I think it might be someone with an axe to grind for some reason. If it was someone who was at the game, then they should quite simply give themselves a good shake! and perhaps not attend any future games even when COVID is over. COVID is here, COVID is real and FFS if you must wait 15-20 minutes to get in so that rudimentary health checks can take place then that's the cost of being able to get to a game in person! I have also waited longer over here in a lineup to get into a supermarket! We also obviously have contracts in place for security and such like and if the security company need to go to a wider pool to get staff then, provided they are also following protocols, then so be it. Local would be best, but it's not always possible. I would love to have been able to see TFC this season, but not only can they not play in front of any fans in Toronto right now, (especially since we are back in lockdown since Monday) but they can't even play in Canada because our borders to the USA are closed, so they had to move to there for the season! Their first game in the playoffs is tonight and it should be here in Toronto - instead, its in Hartford CT in an empty stadium and only a TV audience.

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Its time for Player Sponsorship for the 2020/2021 season. PLAYER TO BE SPONSORED: We have decided to continue sponsorship of CAMERON HARPER's Home Top. If we reach additional milestones, we will look to add sponsorship for other players for 'lesser' items.: COST Home Shirt - £450 inc vat HOW TO TAKE PART To take part in this sponsorship you will need to upgrade your site membership and join the "Player Sponsor" group. We in turn will use the money received from these memberships (minus PayPal fees) to purchase player sponsorships from the club. We will set all memberships - regardless of when ordered - to end on June 1st of each year. This allows us time each year to gauge the interest in continuing for the following season. The cost to join this group is £16.00 (this amounts to £15.00 joining fee plus £1 to cover the PayPal fees). You may purchase multiple memberships if you wish, just amend the total in your shopping cart and add a note when placing the order if it is to cover family members who may not officially be site members!!! ALL MEMBERS: To join the group simply go to this page http://caleythistleonline.com/store/ or access the CTO Store from the main menu at the top (under shop). All our site membership upgrades are handled securely via PayPal's platform which will accept direct payment from most credit/debit cards so it should be easy enough to upgrade your membership whether you live in Sneck or somewhere thousands of miles from there. CASH MEMBERSHIPS: We do NOT take cash payments. Everything needs to go through Paypal. Once we know how many members have joined the group, we will decide on what gets sponsored. The first item will be the selected player's Home Kit ... but the more members who upgrade to "Player Sponsor" membership, the more we can sponsor. At the end of the season, members of our sponsor group will be selected at random to receive any gifts we may receive from the club. For any events that occur during the season (like sponsors nights or meet and greets etc.) we will offer first refusal to members of the sponsor group to attend as our representative. Eligibility will also depend on any COVID restrictions in place at the time. If you are interested, please add your name to this thread or go ahead and join the sponsor group. You will be marked as once we confirm payment received via membership upgrade .... EDIT: As questions are raised in the thread, we will clarify any that need a response below: Technically the payment is listed as a 'subscription' when you pay, but that is internal to this site only and is done this way so that in a year's time it will generate an invoice on here allowing existing members to renew (if they wish) or to let it expire. Renewal (or not) is at the user's discretion and as far as paypal is concerned it's a one-off payment and there will be no automatic re-billing from their side.

Try googling 'caleythistleonline'. Apparently I have 33 employees and a turnover of $2.8m per year ... I would sure love to know where it all goes!

Cameras on west can definitely be used for streaming. Not sure about bandwidth etc but that can be increased if needed. No idea about contractual arrangements - but the reply from SPFL said something about "if the club choose to continue with the current system" so that tends to suggest they can ditch it or at worst have a get out clause due to technical inadequacy of the system. Agree about the work that Andy (and others) do. Theres an old cliche that if something isn't broke why fix it and that's how I feel about the streaming versus pixxelot.

I will just leave this one here for a second ..... and come back to it. So based on the response from Luca ... there was an issue with poor tracking initially and now an issue (albeit unforeseen) with the streaming technology but now that they have done some testing that they are "almost there". I am sorry but testing and QA come before production use of any product - or should, and we have repeatedly been told our club were slow off the mark because of extensive testing. So which is it? I agree with your assessment that the system has been flawed from the outset and quite frankly I am not sure why the club persevere with this obviously flawed product, or why they installed it in the first place - at what cost? - when they already had a viable solution in place from our last time in the Premiership. It is telling that the highlights seem to come from the other side of the pitch where CaleyJags TV is filming the action and not getting caught out by baldy heads, streaming issues, or the next issue that will crop up soon which will be the low sun setting in the west in winter time .... Once again we seem to have spent money we dont have for something we dont need because we already have a solution in place.

I keep that for special occasions 🙂 We flew back to Canada from Aberdeen on our last visit and had to make a few stops in Speyside on the way to our hotel in Dyce the day before. The Winter Storm and another bottle we picked up havent been opened yet. Got a nice Highland Park waiting to be cracked open too. Glendalough was nice ... also partial to Canadian Forty Creek ... but a wee peedie of Highland Park is the best 🙂

To 'celebrate' Toronto going back into lockdown on Monday we cracked open a bottle of Glendalough this evening. Taken a bit of a liking to the Irish stuff since we went there last year and visited Bushmills and Glendalough amongst other places.

not missed it yet 🙂 .. looks like folks are still up for it so will create the thread and sponsorship product next week.

A quick poll for Player Sponsorship before I go to the trouble of organising the thread and setting things up in the admin area. Player sponsorship for this (shortened) season would be same as before £450 inc VAT. Whilst the shortened season for sponsorship and the lack of fans in the ground to see your sponsorship may piss off a few businesses it has no real impact on us as we are just trying to do a group player sponsorship, so advertising doesn't really come into play. The benefits will be the same as before - someone will get to go to whatever sponsors' events are held and someone will win the player shirt (Cammy Harper) at the end of the season. We have struggled to reach the total required in each of the last couple of years I am considering asking those participating for £15 instead of £10 (+PayPal fee) so we can reach our target, but I don't want to price anyone out of participating. Several people already take multiple shares so if the price is too high then someone who normally takes three might drop to two and that doesn't help us reach the target, especially if others decide £15 is too high and don't participate at all. Can you please vote to let me know if we are in the right ballpark and leave any comments below?

That all makes sense ....

congratulations ...

Yes, the stream had a cast option on the window but it said to me that my TV did not support it. I was using Chrome on a Surface tablet running Win10 and the TV is LG so pretty standard equipment. I ended up using an HDMI adapter in the display port and plugged in one of the HDMI cables already coming out of the TV. Worked perfectly.

overall a decent product today. Camera work much better than previous efforts according to those that paid for it .. lesson learned should be to have an operator for future games. Commentary a little flat in places as I said earlier BUT he was doing his best and had obviously done some research and had lots of factoids written down. I enjoyed the commentary, especially as it became obvious he is an ICT fan and got excited when we were doing well. As I said earlier I think it’s difficult to do and especially on your own. A partner to help out, to get a bit of banter going, and to share the load would improve things a lot. Well done to all involved. It was a nothing game but great to be able to watch ICT over this side of the pond this morning.

and now he just announced the details of the next fixture to an empty ground.

Watching the feed right now and hearing the stadium announcer reading out the other scores ... I find myself wondering why? and for who? they did the same over here in MLS when they were playing in empty stadiums. Is it habit? Or a requirement?