CaleyD

Information on that was suppose to follow the notice, but I've not seen anything. This is the information lifted from the society rules.... 52. A proxy may be appointed and the appointment may instruct the proxy to vote in a particular way or as he or she thinks fit. A proxy is to be appointed as follows: 52.1 in writing; 52.2 in any usual form or any other form which the Society Board may approve; 52.3 under the hand of the appointor or of their attorney duly authorised in writing; and 52.4 by depositing the appointment document at the registered office of the Society or at such other place within the United Kingdom as the Society shall specify not less than two clear days before the day fixed for the meeting at which the proxy is authorised to vote. Where the appointment document is exercised by an attorney on behalf of the appoint or the authority under which it is executed or a copy of such authority certified notarially or in some other way approved by the Society Board is to be lodged with the appointment document. 52.5 If this procedure is not followed the appointment of the proxy will be invalid.

Thanks ?

Mods, any chance this topic can remain pinned until after the meeting next week? It's a handy reminder that it's coming up and we need as many people there as possible. Thanks.

Cool...even if just hand scanners and not full entry system it's a step forward. Don't start with rumoured announcements, you'll have Charlie Bannerman stalking you ?

Ross County have the cards without the scanable entry system (expensive install)...you just show it to the person in the turnstile. That's all good until you start getting people passing the cards back out for someone else to use as there's no system to record multiple uses. It's why cards hadn't been phased in previously at our place and hopefully we've got the scanners or the scam covered off.

To be honest, I actually think the idea is a total non-starter as far as having any kind of structured policy/arrangement in place. Clubs with philanthropic owners tend only to assist with topping up wages by way of a "second job" for players while on the club books. There's a joke goes around about a certain club not being very generous to players and the owner having to give all their wives cleaning jobs just so they could make ends meet! Clubs already have a duty of care in ensuring that young players have access to education/training, but beyond that it should fall to the player to ensure they are prepared for life beyond football. ICTFC has assisted many players over the years with doing coaching badges and as that feeds back into the game, then all for it. When it comes to providing employment opportunities outwith football, I'd far rather see the club doing what it has already done on a number of occasions over the years. That is offer, support and promote routes into work for people who've taken a stumble in life or who, for other reasons, have struggled.. I get that you are looking for ways to encourage players to the area, but I'm not sure the opportunity of a job on the checkout at Tesco when they retire is going to swing it. As a community/club we do not owe footballers a living beyond what they provide as a player, just as football doesn't owe anyone else a living....even though some, in certain professions, seem to think they do!

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Believe videographer is/was ill.

Well done @The_Sponge, do you have friends at RandomPicker.com? ?

Not sure you would get too many companies that would commit to giving a 3 year contract to someone at some unknown point in the future.

Partick Thistle are not short of someone to throw money at them either with the Weirs.

You're channelling Stephen Hawking!? ?

Surely, by their very nature, ghosts can't be "live"!!

Nah...they are a train operator.

Graham Rae has said (to me and others) that he was in favour of the idea of a fans representative on the board. I'm not aware of whether or not anyone ever took up any discussions with him on that matter, though.

Appreciate that, but people have to realise that it IS a business...more precisely, it's a Limited Company with an Industrial and Provident Society designation...and that comes with legal responsibilities - https://www.gov.uk/running-a-limited-company - that will seem a little daunting to some. It is a community benefit organisation and in order to qualify for the benefits that come with that (special tax status etc) then it has some hoops to jump through...and rightly so. The time needed to fulfil their duties is a bit of a "how long is a piece of string" question. A couple of hours a month would suffice to take care of the "must do" items and anything beyond that depends on how active the society wishes to be with things like events, research and other duties it may want to adopt. Not everything has to be done by board members either and they can form committees and delegate powers/responsibilities to them....e.g. you could have an events committee and/or other committees to fulfil other specific function....thus spreading the load. It is a bit chicken and egg at the moment as people are being asked to consider joining a board, but don't know for sure what shape that board will take. If it's a clean slate, then the big plus point is that they get to have a say/hand in shaping that.

There's been widespread chat about him setting up for a withdrawal....he's as good as said so himself. He's essentially been writing off large loans the last few years which have been for stadium development work and when interviewed on it said it's all about getting the clubs infrastructure in good shape for passing it on to whoever runs things after him. I'm not sure he could do that off the back of a relegation, but it's not beyond the realms of possibility.

You are correct Charles, I didn't mention the £422k. It's a total Red Herring for two reasons.... 1. It is of zero relevance to the discussion in hand. An operating loss does not equate to debt, so whilst the club may have lost money in the last financial year, that does not mean that there was a negative sum in the bank which needed to be met/cancelled out by money coming in for this financial year. In fact, a quick look back through the accounts showed that cash in hand was about the 4th or 5th highest it had been throughout the clubs entire existence. If we're pulling relevant figures from last years accounts, that is the only one and I would say it was way beyond expectation. 2.. As you know, having been sat in the same AGM as me, a large portion of that loss will be offset by accounting adjustments at the next year end...as confirmed by the account's auditors who didn't disagree when it was suggested the real loss should have been more in the region of £200k. I wouldn't disagree with your comments about the relative successes achieved since day one...all things considered. Time will tell on whether the current board can be included in that. Pretty much every Chairman has (quite rightly) come under scrutiny from one or other of us at some point in time....other than the current Chairman who seems to be beyond any scrutineering on your part. That is your choice and I'm not going to berate you or your character for taking that stance. It was entirely my decision, despite requests to remain and comments the contrary, to remove my day to day services from the club. Since then, however, I have stepped in to assist on several occasions. Bringing it all back to the topic of "Robbo Must Stay".....none of what's going on in the above discussion/exchange on the club finances would suggest that he should do otherwise. I just hope, as I have done with every manager, that he is allowed to succeed (or otherwise) by his own hand and that he doesn't have that hand unnecessarily tied behind his back.

It's a fairly well accepted fact that the club has worked with "margin of hope" equating to around £150k to £250k for some time....the hope being that something happens (cup run, player sale, investment, asset sale) would fill the gap as and when needed. I would be very surprised if the pay-off period for either Yogi or Richie was any more than a year as the norm for all but the top teams is to have a dismount period (as opposed to a fixed pay-off sum) of 6, 8 or 12 months....regardless of term left on contract. TV Money is tied in with league money (for the most part) and the estimated hit on that was said to be around £1.2 Million. Attendance is down by about 40% this season and there appears to have been a sizeable drop in season ticket holders. Drop in attendance can be partly attributable to the drop in visitor numbers and the last time it happened we only dropped about 20%...but actually had an increase in season ticket holder numbers. Flipping those numbers into cash value is a bit of a shot in the dark as we don't know the breakdown on ticket categories, but I'd be comfortable putting the cost somewhere in the region of £300k. By my reckoning, the additional investment would have at least cancelled out the drop in league/TV money. You can draw your own conclusions as to why attendance has dropped so much more this time and why we've seen a sizeable drop in season ticket holders. Shot in the dark on cuts to player wages across the board.....if we were 70% turnover on player/coach costs and there was a 20% cut across the board on relegation, then that's between £500k and £600k saving without the need to do anything else. that offsets the drop in gate receipts, and some. Overall, we should be about "cost neutral" (probably better than that) without having had to make any other cuts.....but we've been told that players had to go and cheaper players brought in etc. because of a need to save money. If that's the case, then as I asked already, why? where has the money been spent instead? We're either not being told where the money is getting spent or we're being told that cuts were made that weren't. There's a third option...and that is we're sitting on a mountain of cash...but that's highly unlikely given the Chairman's statement about a need for money to secure the club's immediate future. Given how good season 2014/15 was then it's not surprising that the club would have shown a bit of surplus, but the costs of Europe etc would have swallowed a large chunk of that and shown in the following years accounts. There may have been some increased player costs, but I doubt very much it was a "spree".

You might want to ask that before you invest your millions ?

Maybe the wider economy and community should have learned a lesson from the last time we were relegated and they were all crying about the impact....when many had done little to support the club themselves over the years to and since that point. Amazing how people seldom appreciate what they have....until it's gone.

With the parachute payment, money from Celtics euro success, the £450k* additional investment (that we know of) and rent waiver the current regime have had circa £1 Million extra to use....which is on a par with what was invested to make the promotion push last time. There are factors which hindered Robbo at the start of the season...lower league, short time to bring in players, even being a little rusty...and that is a symptom of what came before. However, if his budget was cut to the extent we've been told it was....then what have we been spending the money on? Where's all the investment listed above been, well, invested? *The lions share of which was provided by the "previous regime".

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the roles and responsibilities as broadly laid out in the society's purpose and objects as it's pretty straight forward.... 3. COMMUNITY BENEFIT PURPOSE The Society’s purpose is to be the vehicle through which a healthy, balanced and constructive relationship between the Club and its supporters and the communities it serves is encouraged and developed. The business of the Society is to be conducted for the benefit of the community served by the Club and not for the profit of its members. 4. OBJECTS The Society’s objects are to benefit the community by: 4.1 being the democratic and representative voice of the supporters of the Club and strengthening the bonds between the Club and the communities which it serves; 4.2 achieving the greatest possible supporter and community influence in the running and ownership of the Club; 4.3 promoting responsible and constructive community engagement by present and future members of the communities served by the Club and encouraging the Club to do the same; 4.4 operating democratically, fairly, sustainably, transparently and with financial responsibility and encouraging the Club to do the same; 4.5 being a positive, inclusive and representative organisation, open and accessible to all supporters of the Club regardless of their age, income, ethnicity, gender, disability, sexuality or religious or moral belief. How that is done is for the board to decide and they should take their lead from feedback sought/gathered from members and the wider fanbase. Obviously resources are required to action the society objects and, as such, fundraising becomes a central role. Again, it falls to the board to decide how they go about that.

Fair question...and the answer is "No". Resolution one was set by the requisitioners because of uncertainties over the way some board members were appointed. They feel that the best route forward is to clear the slate and elect a board from scratch. At that point there could be no doubt or uncertainty over anyone's appointment. If existing board members want to re-stand, that is fine, as nobody is calling for them to be banned from doing so. As the board is short on members and has spaces to fill it was agreed by everyone around the table at the pre-meeting that an election would need to take place regardless. The mechanics of trying to have the election on the same night as the SGM made it a complicated proposition and could/would have set the SGM back a number of weeks. Resolution 2 was left in to ensure a date was set and reduce the risk of it running on longer than necessary. Personally, I wasn't up for that to start with, but it makes sense on more than just a practical level. I imagine (in fact, I know) there are good people who would love to be involved that are taking one look just now and thinking "fork that". Getting through the SGM and then being able to leave all that business behind allows the society and the members to move towards the election in a positive manner and maybe, just maybe, we can get some much needed fresh faces involved.

What's needed now is for as many members as possible to attend the meeting, or if you can't attend, to ensure you submit your vote by proxy. Without a successful SGM (and I'm not measuring success on which direction the vote goes) then the move towards an election and ultimately getting the society back to where it needs to be, operationally, will be delayed. The wording of resolution 2 changed (and was done so in agreement by everyone at the meeting) to reflect an acceptance that there are justified uncertainties over the mechanisms used to appoint some of the board members* and the fact that an election will be needed to bring the board numbers above the minimum required...and hopefully more towards to the maximum...regardless. There's no need for tin hats or flak jackets. The pre-meeting was amicable and everyone was in agreement on what was needed to move forward and an open dialogue has continued since then. The SGM can go one of three ways... members vote in favour of resolution one. members vote down resolution one. the board step down voluntarily and there's no need for a vote. Regardless of which of those things happen, the current board will remain in place until the election is held...that has been agreed and is 100% in the best interests of the society getting to an election without any further unnecessary delay. Whilst there will/should be opportunity for the board to present their view and the requisitioners to present theirs...I don't imagine that will (and nor should it) become a long drawn out affair. *this is a matter which is still being looked at in conjunction with Supporters Direct who provided advice, but has no direct impact on moving things forward.