Charles Bannerman

It seems to me almost to be part of football that clubs in general show a lot less urgency about publicising cup crowds than in the league.

Caman has to be commended for the thought and his concern, but I'm afraid I tend to echo Kingsmills' reservations. These are large premises so would come with a large rental after the capital cost of fitting out. It would therefore be very difficult to achieve the kind of turnover to make such an enterprise a going concern, and that's before you consider that this is located in the city centre which currently seems to have some kind of retailing bubonic plague. Furthermore, the location is in one of the less affluent and less central parts of the city centre. Indeed I always suspected that Farmfoods located there so their bargain basement pricing policy could attract a less affluent passing trade - many of whom in that neck of the woods will be Clachers who may not feel all that well disposed towards buying merchandise from "the city's only senior football team". There is no doubt that the current club shop is woefully inadequate, but I also suspect that its current turnover is so far short of what it would take to make the Farmfoods suggestion viable that even a major transformation would still, unfortunately, make this a non-starter.

I have now flicked on to this thread on several occasions since it was started, and every time, just for a split second, I misread the title as "The Iain Vigurs Enema"!

Stan, you are way out of date. I doubt if I've been in the Heathmount five times in as many years and couldn't even tell you if ICT illuminati still frequent the place. The Caley Club, where prices are hugely lower and profits go to the football club, has been a far more attractive proposition for years.?

I'll emphasise again, there may well - as Yngwie has also suggested - be nothing to this at all but, at the very minimum, it would be helpful to receive some clarification with respect to an increasing number of "internally consistent circumstantial factors".

It certainly doesn't, but a combination of the two motions does create the potential for that to happen - or for any correspondingly smaller sum(s) to be put in. Then there's the already stated conjecture that money may already recently have been put in for cash flow etc reasons and now needs converted into shares. The extra, total £1.1M of "callable up" share capital would represent 22% of the new maximum of 5M shares. Currently, the biggest holding is 729,000 with the ICT Trust (that's 15% of the revised total and much of it, I understand, began life as the Tullochs' stake). Next is 573,950 (11.5%), attributed by Companies House as of March 1st to the Highland Hospice but for all we know, these may have moved on since. They were donated by the Catto family to the Hospice and over 300,000 of them began life with the late Ian Fraser (Coffin John) who bought them in the 1996 share issue and subsequently sold them to Sandy Catto, although for exactly how much remains a matter of conjecture. Next come Alan Savage/Orion who have 275,000 (5.5%) which were a quid pro quo for bankrolling Marius Niculae's wages and Roddy Ross has 170,000. One or two of the club's "figures from the past" also still have significant five figure holdings, so a few people have a foothold at least.

!2th man - I've been a shareholder since the very first share issue in 1996 and attend more or less every AGM. When I was doing quite a lot of work as a journalist, this was something that I didn't want to say too much about, but now that I am steadily winding down towards complete retirement, I'm not all that fussy. On the pies and free entry thing, I have never made any apology whatsoever and am quite unrepentant about a pie and a cup of tea at a match which I am attending as a journalist being simply part of the job. I therefore don't even need to raise the book I wrote for free for the club in 1997 and which realised a £5K+ profit in order to salve my conscience with respect to a few pies. To digress about journalists, I have often wished that the club would take more advantage of journalists' interest in it rather than retreat into a cocoon of secrecy. Social media are fine for getting some things out quickly to those who spend their lives across them. But, although their devotees think that social media are the ultimate canine testicles, social media are also limited and superficial as well as incapable of conveying the kind of depth and nuance which are often required. As a result, conventional print and broadcast media remain the mainstream means of conveying information of substance. Unfortunately, though, ICT have consistently declined to take advantage of the goodwill which could be there towards the club among the conventional media. Your second sentence there is fortunately briefer and much more intelligible than the second sentence of the Notice of Meeting, which does appear to seek permission for existing shareholders' rights of a first shout at any new share issue to be waived. When you ask to create £1.1M in potential new share capital and to remove preferential treatment for existing shareholders, AND when that is also consistent with intensifying background chit-chat... well, I'm not going to make any dogmatic assertions, but questions must definitely be asked.

A couple of weeks ago, someone on here went off on one when I referred obliquely to the latest rumour which had been circulating. At that point I was unprepared to say more than that since it might still have simply been the next episode of idle speculation, to which I have an aversion. On the other hand, I did have a gut feeling, so compromised by putting down that modest marker. The calling of this EGM and its stated business, are, I have to say, now consistent with the original rumour in that they have the potential to facilitate what it suggested might happen. Subsequent comments on here also appear to support the suspicion that some form of money may soon be coming into the club - or indeed this may already have happened in the face of disappointing financial numbers and this needs converted into shares (or a bit of both). Since my original, much maligned ice-breaker on here, a fair bit of extra smoke appears to have been generated, posing the question of how much fire accompanies it?

Last Saturday I received, as an ICT shareholder, notice of an Extraordinary General Meeting of the company on August 3rd. Three doses of paracetamol and four cups of strong coffee later, I concluded that the twin 200-odd word sentences of compressed legalese defining the agenda meant that 1) The Board wants to increase potential share capital to £5M. (According to the latest accounts, it is £3.9M, so that would imply asking permission for the release of 1.1M shares to the market); and 2) They are asking the current shareholders to waive their rights of pre-emption (ie "first shout") on any subsequent allotment (which appears to mean that they could then be sold to anyone the Board chooses). I have been surprised at how little public reaction there has been to this, especially on here. I do know of a friend who has also received the same communication and it's clear from one of his earlier posts that Caleyboy has as well. On the other hand, this seems to have generated virtually no "talk of the steamie" and indeed as of this morning (Thur) I have become aware of a number of shareholders who apparently have no knowledge of this meeting. (Admittedly, the legalese is so intense that anyone could perhaps be forgiven for not realising what they had received!!) Clearly this begs the question "Why?". Is the "major investor" that people have been speculating about for years now waiting in the wings, and these combined resolutions would clear the way for a major uptake? Or is this, despite the Manager having already made several signings, for team building, as the Chairman's covering letter appears to hint at? Or is there any link to the "conspiracy theory" which has been circulating that there was a considerable deficit from last season, which now may need covered retrospectively? Or is it to finance getting rid of the puddles in the pie queue?

Kudos to QoS for a civilised and sociable initiative.

Any idea what they've actually been doing in that department OCG?

I would certainly have a fat chance of getting a wage from anyone if my spelling, punctuation etc. were as bad as yours!

There are just so many rumours flying about just now. I heard another one this morning, but because it's no more than a rumour and a well tried one at that, I'm not going to propagate it. Rumours tend to be like new manager predictions - 90%+ of them are wrong.

I think 12th man is trying to suggest that there's every chance that there's a perfectly non-sinister explanation for this.

On the other hand, you may be attributing the SFA with a completely undeserved degree of common sense! For all any of us knows, if a director stands down and then returns, maybe the whole process has to be gone through again.... just in case the individual concerned has become an unfit and improper person in the interim!

That's a very fair point about King in a scenario where the SFA could presumably constrain clubs with respect to which names they can forward to Companies House until appropriate, although obviously with no powers over Companies' House itself.

I see what you're saying but, much as the SFA might like to believe the contrary, I wouldn't imagine Companies House waits for the SFA to tell them who they can and cannot list as the director of a registered UK company.

Despite fairly heavy hints from both Kingsmills and RandBC, I don't think Garrincha quite gets it yet!

That is too polite! The original comment about Kevin McNaughton is complete and unconsidered nonsense, as Kingsmills points out in the second part of his own.

Charter a plane to the former RAF Edzell and get a taxi from there?

In that case there appears to be a severe inconsistency between the report in question and this link first posted by Scotty. http://ictfc.com/news/club-news/1940-duncan-steps-down-with-the-club-s-thanks

He's already got his £200 brief for the Jail End.

Maybe people are taking the lead from Beaut House and are "reflecting" on whether to take this thread "off the table". Irrespective of its fate, apart from this post, I have no plans to return to it "within a generation". As I stated some time ago, I decided to withdraw because the unfortunately divisive nature of this subject was causing too many fractious exchanges with people whom I value and for whose CTO contributions I also have regard. Part of that may well have been my naturally satirical take on things and I certainly avoided the temptation of some kind of triumphalist return post-election. Instead, it has been far more fun winding up some of the complete numpties, Freedom-bellowers, out and out Cybernats and UDI-demanders you get on The National and The SNP Facebook pages. Although a bit like shooting fish in a barrel, that is genuine entertainment and it avoids confrontation with far more esteemed fellow contributors to CTO.

Kenny can take NO responsibility for the ST price decision, the complete bungling of the crucially important announcement of that controversial move or the more or less total information blackout there has otherwise been since relegation and his departure. That has all been under the new watch. The lack of information, communication or even acknowledgement that the fans and the public exist, cannot be laid at the door of the departure of CaleyD (although there was a rumour that he may not remain departed.) It's not rocket science putting stuff out to the media or on social media and I'm sure plenty people could have done this - if asked to do so from boardroom level. Ross County, for instance, issued three press releases today alone - and all directly to newsdesks, avoiding the complete nuisance of constantly checking the cybersphere. So we now know that Roy MacGregor will have another face to face with the fans at a Supporters' Open Meeting, that County have appointed Emily Wilson as their new General Manager and that NEW sales of the £200 Jail End STs have risen to 300. And that's just today's ration. This is all information which it's in the club's interest to volunteer, but I am enough of a conspiracy theorist also to note that, for instance, today's three releases show that County are 1) Communicating with their fans, including directly via the Chairman. 2) Are dealing with and publicising major appointments quickly and efficiently and 3) Are (OK with more than a little apparent help from a benefactor) attempting to increase their market share, especially in the face of the open goal which has voluntarily materialised in Inverness. Quite clearly County are specifically seeking to exploit ICT's weaknesses to their own advantage and who can blame them? It's called competition. Meanwhile on this side there's been a complete clampdown with everything remaining in the dark - to ICT's huge peril and disadvantage. I'm mystified as to why the new Chairman, as one of his first priorities, didn't set up and publicise a face to face open meeting with the Inverness fans. I certainly know very little about him apart from an unconfirmed anecdote that he lives in Edinburgh. But even if there was really quite little to say, the gesture and being seen to have made it, would have addressed at least some of the mounting dissatisfaction we are seeing. If Roy MacGregor can do this as a matter of course, surely it's far more urgent at a critical moment for Caley Thistle? Having observed the development of this club since before it was even born, I am quite dismayed that the critical, indeed potentially fatal, issue of obvious supporter disillusionment has now been ignored over the 23 vital days since relegation - which will best be remembered for a complete car crash of an announcement about season ticket prices. (By the way at the time of the last relegation, George Fraser was the Chairman.)

Sorry Yngwie, I didn't make that very clear. The inferior product I meant was Championship football compared with Premiership. I meant how that would affect next season's sales at the same price. This is the slightly anomalous thing. It's not a classical elasticity of demand situation. The price isn't changing (unless you rate a reduction from 19 to 18 games as a 5.6% increase) but product quality is decreasing. My favoured analogy is changing your underwear suppliers from Harrods to Primark but paying the same for a multipack of Y-fronts but with one fewer pair in it.