Charles Bannerman

HELLLPPP! I touched the stadium door handle earlier today!

Bill Harper was Principal Teacher of Maths at Millburn, I believe. I think he left not long before 1976 which was when I briefly joined the Millburn Maths Dept and the excellent Ruaridh MacDonald was head of department by then. On that subject, does anyone remember the execrable and self-righteous Bill Greig who styled himself "Senior Assistant Principal Teacher Of Mathematics" - because he had been appointed slightly before Bill Weeks? He was a dreadful individual who was in love with his belt, but at least I got my encounter with the most unpopular and unpleasant colleague of my career over early!

I still can't help but get the feeling that this Board - whether it is self- appointed or has simply failed to reveal the manner of its formation - simply doesn't have a clue as to how serious a situation it faces. This isn't the local Allotments Committee. It's the Board of a Limited Company and as such is subject to the provisions of the Companies Act. What we are now learning is that this Board isn't even capable of organising a meeting within a clearly specified set of rules - and worse still, its excuse for not doing so is that it doesn't have an effective system for receiving communications. I suppose all I can say to that is that, given its non-existent means of giving out communications, this is hardly surprising! Perhaps the current Board's inability to perform even the basic function of receiving communication should also be noted at the forthcoming meeting, because the sorry tale of the calling of this meeting is as unacceptable as the earlier statement that they weren't going to call one on their own initiative because they (conveniently) didn't think it would do any good. I've heard some feeble excuses for self-preservation, but I find this ongoing pantomime to be a regular learning experience.

Apologies! I just looked at a 2 month old post and replied.... never thinking that someone else had made the same post a couple of days previously. Like Admiral Nelson.... I kind of took my eye off the musket ball.

AW! What a missed opportunity, which I only spotted now on reviewing this thread, but better late than never...... As Admiral Nelson said: "Well I see no ships!!!"

I would have thought that the notice calling the meeting SHOULD have defined the business of the meeting verbatim from the communication requisitioning it. Caley D's post does seem to suggest that I am by no means the only person questioning practices and procedures relating to the calling and transaction of this meeting.

IF this, plus any other means of announcement, meet Companies House guidelines for the process of publicising General Meetings, notice was issued at around 2330 on 4th April for a meeting on 18th April. According to this:- www.shoosmiths.co.uk/client-resources/legal-updates/Clear-days-some-clarity-9061.aspx ... and in particular to this quote from it:- "All notice periods for shareholders' meetings must be notice periods of 'clear' days. This means that the notice period must exclude the day on which notice is sent as well as the day on which the meeting is to be held".... the period of notice given for this meeting appears to be 13 clear days. Does this fulfil the requirements of Companies House legislation and of the CJT Articles of Association? Also, does the wording of the notice mean that the debate on Resolution 1 will be followed by a vote on it on the night? And if that vote was to be for the removal of the current Board, what would the procedure and timescale be for the election of a new one in terms of Resolution 2?

The SPFL have just published their scale of payouts for league placing and, since it's looking like a mid to lower table Championship finish for ICT, the club can expect around £200,000. The drop down within the Premiership in particular and from league to league is pretty vast - especially between the top two divisions where the bottom Premiership side, with £1.07M, gets twice the Championship winners' £533K. Just as a sign of how days have changed, if you take 7th in the Premiership as a not atypical ICT finish in years gone by, this season, that's worth £1.36M. It's just another reflection of the financial cost of relegation.

I was a member of the Supporters' Trust but decided not to carry that on to CJT because, on reflection, membership of a supporters' organisation could constitute a conflict of interest since I have not yet quite retired from the reporting business. Furthermore - and somewhat ironically in view of recent posts - I feel that there could be a similar conflict of interest if I WAS a member of the organisation .....at a time when I may be making public and media comment on it as the jobbies get closer and closer to these rapidly spinning blades!

So firstly.... who appointed the Board then? Was a properly constituted, properly minuted and properly concluded General Meeting of the Company involved? If not, then how was the Board appointed? The manner of its appointment seems not unrelated to the current requisition for a General Meeting with a motion for it to stand down. In terms of court action, you have correctly used the conditional - "MIGHT be necessary" - which reflects what I said. I am sure you are aware of how close the Board is to being in breach of the Articles of Association and hence of the Companies Act, in terms of providing categorical arrangements for a meeting to the membership within the prescribed timescale. In terms of my interest in CJT, I'm perfectly entitled to express my views on and take an interest in anything I want without the need to be a member of it. For instance, I am not a member of any political party but still feel free to express my views on any of them. But more to the point here, I AM a shareholder in Inverness Caledonian Thistle and am hence more than entitled to express a view on a body which has a protected 10% voting right in that company - especially when the group claiming to control that body make the Masons look like the inventors of the Freedom Of Information Act. Indeed, I would suggest that your very questioning of my interest is just another reflection of the extremely defensive and restrictive attitude which has been the hallmark of this Board rom the start. Please remember that it even had to be prodded before it would reveal who it members are! If the Board are well aware of the timescale, then presumably you are equally aware of when and how you are legally obliged to provide the membership with confirmed details of the General Meeting which has been requisitioned.

Does this self-appointed "Board" not realise that they are dealing with and are subject to the serious matter of Parliamentary legislation called The Companies' Act here? The ONLY thing they have going for them in terms of their handling of this requisition for the meeting is that 6:27pm on Tuesday April 3rd to 7pm on Wednesday April 18th does, as defined above by Caley D, constitute "14 clear days". HOWEVER that is rendered totally irrelevant and redundant by the fact that, on at least two grounds, they have not yet competently issued a notice of any meeting in terms of the Articles of Association and the Companies Act. Firstly, they haven't actually called a meeting - they have only expressed an unconfirmed intention to do so. And secondly, even that unconfirmed intention has only been communicated to a single individual and not to the membership of the Company as required by the Act. On the assumption that the original requisition for the meeting is competent - and the "Board" have given no indication that they believe that it is not - then they have failed to meet the requirements of the legislation. This situation is still possibly a little short still of the need for Court action, but in that event, the "Board" would certainly find themselves having to explain why they failed to comply with an Act of Parliament and possibly also justify their claim to be the Board of CJT. On the other hand if they are NOT legally entitled to act as the Board of CJT, neither are they legally entitled to respond to a call for a General Meeting. In that event.... who is, then?

4-0 Oakley.

Quite frankly, I'd want to give a very wide berth to anything associated with Scottish football which includes the word "Loyal".

.... presumably for not showing the required degree of loyalty!

Might as well include CJT in there as well.

I'm.... I'm....I'm....I'm.... I'm....I'm....I'm.... inclined to agree that if British refereeing isn't considered great, the same might be said of that part which is Scotland. I.... I....I...I...I...I...I...really wasn't impressed by today's ref.

That was the "Ayr United" feeling I also got on watching that fightback. I was astonished when "Doran Cogan" was booked, apparently for "simulation", after what looked like a clear trip half a yard inside the Simmurn box. All credit to Mark Ridgers for a series of fine saves, including the second penalty. What a transformation there has been there from the hesitant, uncertain keeper of the opening weeks of the season.

What's so special about shining the ball that can't be dispensed with? I know it makes the thing swing a bit but why differentiate between surfaces? It almost seems as if there must be some list of things that cricketers are allowed to rub their balls on and things that they are not - banned surfaces rather than banned substances. I suppose it's a case of what's more important to the game - players getting to rub their balls or the elimination of cheating by a simple coat of a substance which, however much rubbing you do and on what, won't budge. This would also save the laundry lady (sexism alert!) a lot of work currently invested in removing red stains from white trousers.

I really don't see too much that's subtle about a game that goes on for the best part of a week and, despite one team gubbing the other out of sight, ends in a draw because it happened to rain! As for the ball tampering business, this is no different from drug taking, diving to "win" a penalty or Russians with dodgy devices on their sword tips. It's deliberate cheating.

Fierce doesn't begin to describe Kevlar, Laurence. It's used in bullet proof vests, in place of steel in tyres and in brake linings and it's especially impervious to impact so I believe could especially well deal with being knocked for six. Also, apart from eliminating ball tampering, there could be cost savings due to balls not wearing out nearly as quickly. However I'm not as sure now about Kevlar balls shortening games as I originally suggested. This was based on batsmen being able to reach targets quicker with a straighter running ball, but on the other hand it might also be more difficult for them to be got out. But then again, if Kevlar balls made it easier to score runs this would surely make the game more entertaining by reducing the frequency of batspersons stopping the ball dead before earning a round of that slow, pedantic hand clapping in response to nothing having happened.

CJT is in the queue. Tomorrow it's a combination of reflections on Saturday's cup success and how completely bogging the sponsor's product has become since AG Barr were bullied by the Nanny State into halving the sugar content because not everyone possesses the same iron self-discipline was your good self.

It could hardly be CJT's fault given that CJT has not existed in any meaningful form for a very long time, but this does show us just one possible role of a fans' organisation that actually does something. Nor is it the function of the media to take the initiative by way of transacting club business. Given also that the function of the newspaper column in question is to express opinions and not to break news, I would have thought that one or two views on the eternal soap opera which has been the perpetual dysfunctionality of CJT would be higher up the list of the columnist's priorities.

I'm not at all suggesting that CJT is the whole answer, nor even a substantial part of it, but it's far from irrelevant. One of the important functions of a fans' organisation is to keep comminications open with the board and to chivvy them if necessary if they feel information is thin or deficient. They have at least a "Tesco role" - every little helps. For instance, I am absolutely certain that someone within a properly functioning CJT would have got wind of the Danny thing a while ago and done the "What's this all about?" bit. This, remember, is a board which has never known being called to account by a fans' organisation since there has never been a functioning one during its tenure. When I heard that there had been some kind of change, I asked around and indeed I have been a bit surprised that this rearrangement - albeit apparently consistent with SPFL rules - hasn't been placed in the public domain, given that Danny's original COO appointment had been well documented.

Obviously I can only repeat what I have heard from a reliable source. Steps to make that known generally are obviously the board's. As far as I can see, Jim's role doesn't go as far as COO since it appears to be confined to day to day non-football operation and commercial activities while Danny, since he seems also to have oversight of first team activities, could possibly be said to be de facto Director of Football. It could also be suggested that if the club had a working and viable fans' organisation, one of the many benefits would certainly have been the fans being kept better informed in a number of ways. What troubles me at the moment is the desire among some fans to find, and even create, things to complain about. The old board got it, and now the new board is getting it. The old benefactors got it and now the current ones are. The old team management got it (OK, no real problem with that ) and the new management is getting it as well. What makes that whole sentiment especially difficult to swallow is that some reactions to difficulties seem almost to extend to schadenfreude. It's possibly not what has gone wrong of late that is the remarkable thing, but that it took so long to do so and also the length of time that things went very right in the face of a raft of fundamental adversities.