DoofersDad

The Supporters Trust will be holding an open meeting at the Caley Club on this coming Saturday at 12 noon. There is no agenda for this meeting, it is simply an opportunity for members and non-members alike to find out a bit more about the Trust, get to know who the Trust Board members are and to have a chat about whatever issues you think the Trust should be discussing with the Club. The Trust is keen to understand the concerns of all sections of the Club's support and to represent those concerns to the club. Trust Board members will also be present at the Trust's desk in the Sports Bar prior to the Cove game. We hope to be present at the desk for the majority, if not all of the homes games this season. This is an opportunity to discuss any issue you have a view about or just to come up and say "hello". Or perhaps to discuss something on an individual basis if you would rather not raise the issue in a meeting setting. We look forward to meeting as many of you as possible on Saturday. If you haven't yet visited our new website, please take a look at www.ictsupporterstrust.org which will give you some useful background about the Trust.

It is great news that the Club's Board is stating publicly that a strong and active Supporters Trust is good for the club, and that they are supporting the Trust's Board in its campaign to increase membership numbers in order to better support both the Club and its supporters. For ease of reference, I have copied the Club's statement below. Please note that the Trust are holding an open meeting at the Caley Club at 12noon this coming Saturday. Board members will be present and will be happy to answer any questions you may have about the Trust as well as listen to your views of what you think the Trust should be discussing with the Club. We expect the meeting will go on for about an hour giving folk plenty of time to get something to eat and drink before heading off to the Cove game. Representatives of the Trust will also be at the Supporters Trust desk in the Sports Bar prior to the game, so please come along and say hello. We hope to have a regular presence at the desk prior to games in the future. The Board of Directors of Inverness Caledonian Thistle are happy to support a fresh bid by the Supporters’ Trust to increase its membership and play a key role in enhancing the match day experience of fans, through fund-raising activities. Gordon Fyfe, a club director and Supporters’ Liaison Officer, said: “The Board of Directors recognise fully the importance of our loyal support. The Supporters’ Trust has a 10 per cent voting stake in the club and therefore has a ready-made platform for representing the voice of fans. “To play a more meaningful role in the development of the club and become truly representative of our fans, the Trust needs to engage with the wide base of our support, including our enthusiastic and growing band of younger supporters and those who provide terrific vocal support at away games. “We are happy to support the Supporters’ Trust in their efforts to boost not only their Board but the wider membership and wish them well in their campaign. A strong and active Trust can only be good for the club.” New Trust Chair Jennifer Aitchison said: “An active Supporters’ Trust can do so much to help the Club in providing a better matchday experience for fans and in raising funds for specific projects. We want fans to join the Trust to help us support the Club and to better represent the views of you, the supporters, of our great club.” Anyone wishing to join the Trust should visit www.ictsupporterstrust.org. Annual membership is just £5 for adults and £1 for U16s.

Our unbeaten start to the season continues!

Thanks Don.. That's very helpful.

Having worked in the NHS all my working life, I am no expert on how corporate businesses operate so, I'm sure someone will correct me if I am wrong, but but my understanding is this. The Board of directors have the power to invite people onto the Board if they feel they have something to enhance the workings of the Board to the benefit of the club. But ultimately the power lies with the shareholders. Directors serve on the Board for a term of office and at the AGM there are always resolutions proposing that one or more of the Directors be re-elected to serve on the Board. Many, but not all of the Directors have a significant shareholding in the Club. They will be on the Board not just because they have demonstrated a willingness to "invest" in the club, but because of their business acumen. I think we have been fortunate in this club that virtually all of the Directors we have had have always had the best interests of the club at heart. We are also fortunate that no shareholder, or group of 2 or 3 shareholders have a majority shareholding and therefore the club is largely protected from going down a path that benefits those directors rather than the Club. It is all hypothetical at the moment, and whilst there are no guarantees here, I see no reason why the current Board of Directors would not welcome an elected representative of the fans onto the Board. Indeed I seem to recall that the current Chairman, Ross Morrison, said as much a while back when he was interviewed on the Wyness Shuffle. But whilst the usual route onto the Board is by invitation, I don't think there is anything to stop any shareholder putting forward a resolution at the AGM proposing that a supporter representative be elected onto the Board. In practice, I think the current Board would welcome the idea provided the Trust could be seen to be genuinely representative and actively working in the best interests of the Club. If supporters think that having a supporters' representative on the Club Board would be a good thing, then they need to join the Trust in numbers, several people need to volunteer to help out with the work and a few people need to put themselves forward to join the Board of the Trust. Collectively as supporters, we have a lot of power to make our voice heard. The question is, do you want the supporters' voice to be heard?

You can find a full list of 541 shareholders and their share holding on the Filings page on Companies House website here. It is the latest Confirmation Statement. It lists the Supporters Trust as having 13658 Ordinary shares. That may sound a lot but the nominal price of each share is £1 and the Club accounts identify £4.9million of called up share capital, so the Trust's holding is probably substantially less than 1% of the total. The Trust's shareholding should not be confused with its 10% voting right. This voting right stems from voting rights granted on behalf of supporters which were incorporated into the Memorandum and Articles of Association when the club was formed. I'm not sure what you mean about having a voice. We have a voice at the club, but how loud that voice is and how effective it is, has got little to do with our shareholding or voting right. What matters most is how representative the Trust is. Whilst membership is growing, it is still a small minority of the supporters of the club who are members of the Trust. The simple message is that if you want the Supporters Trust to have a louder voice - join it! If you mean why does the Trust not have a voice on the Club Board, the answer is simply that we have never been invited to have a representative of the fans on the Club Board. Several clubs do, and we believe that having a democratically elected representative of the fans on the Board can only be a good thing. But for that ever to happen, we would need to be seen to be truly representative with a membership in the region of the number of season ticket holders at least. We are a long way from that.

We could easily have been 2 up after 5 minutes but then Queens took control and were the better side for the bulk of the 1st half. We were better in the 2nd. Whilst we do need to be stronger in 50/50 tackles, the positive thing is that with both MacKay and MacGregor in the side we created several clear cut chances. Unfortunately, our finishing let us down and we need to improve on that. Queens look to be a strong addition to the Championship and look to be capable of taking points off anyone. Our defence will be more solid when the Devine/Deas pairing is restored. It was disappointing not to start the campaign with a win, but there are signs that we have every chance of being there or thereabouts at the end of the season.

Funnily enough, being a born and bred Invernessian is not a requirement for being on the Board of the Supporters Trust. What is a requirement is a willingness to work with the Club for the mutual benefit of the Club and its fan base. None of the Board Members are anonymous. There are just the 5 of us. We would dearly like there to be more so that we could do much more for the club and its fans, but nobody else in a position to help has come forward. For supporters who do have a genuine interest in ICTFC and being involved in collaborative working between between the Club and its representative supporters body, nomination papers for election to the Trust Board will be sent out to members early in October prior to the AGM in December. There is therefore time for anyone who is not currently a member of the Trust but who would like to do something constructive to help the Club and our fellow supporters, to join the Trust prior to the issue of nomination papers. Of course the success or otherwise of the Trust is dependent not just on active members but on the size of the membership. Imagine what a powerful voice for the supporters body the Trust would be if its membership was similar in numbers to the number of season ticket holders. You can help make the Trust's voice more effective by joining here.

I didn't say it in my post but I absolutely agree with you that the Directors who took the risk in setting up the Concert Company should be applauded. But I don't understand why you disagreed with my post as in your post you seem to be agreeing with what I said. You say "If losses are as big as is suggested it is highly unlikely that the directors would take the risk again." Again, I agree with you, but the consequence of that is as I stated, that the club would not then benefit from the income streams the Concert Company was set up to provide. I also don't understand why you say this thread has nothing to do with the club when you yourself acknowledge that the Concert Company was set up to generate income for the Club. I agree that the original post with its unsubstantiated, speculative claim is not helpful, but topic of the success or otherwise of the concerts is an important one and is very much relevant to the club.

This topic has a great deal to do with the Club. My understanding is that the Concert Company was set up as a separate company so that the profit from concerts would be channelled into the Club, but the Club would not be liable for any losses. If the concerts have made a loss, this impacts on the Club in 2 ways. Firstly, the Club would not receive the income boost hoped for. Secondly, unless they have taken out some hefty insurance premium to cover potential losses, the Directors of the Concert Company will be liable for any losses, and given there is overlap between the Directors of the Club and the Concert Company, these Directors would not be in a position to put the amount of money into the Club that they otherwise would. The financial outcome of the concerts is therefore of very considerable relevance to the Football Club. Whether the concerts made a profit or a loss, I don't know. What is clear is that there were a lot of empty seats on both nights and particularly for the Duran Duran concert. I think it safe to say that the concerts will not be providing the level of income the Club Board were hoping for. The Concert Company was set up with the idea of holding concerts on an annual basis. Large concerts with well known performers require long term planning; bear in mind that tickets for the recent Bocelli concert went on sale last June. Whilst the full accounts for the Concert Company won't be available for a long time yet, there will be some real urgency behind the scenes in assessing provisional figures and organisational problems before confirming plans for next year. If the outcome of this assessment is that concerts can take place next year in the expectation of making a profit, then we can reasonably expect an announcement of who will be performing within the next 2 or 3 months. We are also still awaiting a date for the Club AGM when we can expect to hear an update on the situation. Last year the AGM was in September so we should get some indication of how successful the concerts were in a financial sense before too much longer. On a more upbeat topic, it is good to see the announcement of a new sponsorship deal with Footasylum.

Your ticket won't get you in on Friday, Robert. The game's on Saturday!

The game definitely had an early season feel to it and the scoreline flattered us somewhat. After a bright start and a good early goal it looked as though some players thought it would be easy. We were slack on and off the ball and as a result Rovers had a lot of possession and some decent chances in the first half. Better teams would have punished us for that slackness and we could have found ourselves behind at half time. As it was, we went in the break comfortable at 2-0 courtesy of a great Harper free kick following excellent work on the right by Samuels. If that didn't knock the stuffing out of Rovers, the 3rd goal just after the break surely did. A 4th followed soon after together with a number of substitutions. Plus points are the 4 well taken goals, Allardice looking sharp and commanding, Doran involved in some quality link up play and the involvement of so many Academy graduates. The negative points are the slackness at the back and a couple of players who looked like they didn't really want to be there. It is early days yet but there is no real sign that any of the new signings will be regular first team picks. It would be good to see a couple of the new signings start against Cove on Saturday to get a bit more of an idea of what they can bring to the team.

Four members! That sounds great. Thanks very much. Sorry you are experiencing a problem but someone is on the case and will be in touch with you.

Thanks for the comments STFU. I can assure you, that one thing the Supporters Trust is not going to be is compliant to the wishes of the CEO! Of course, by definition, supporters support the club and the club needs its supporters and therefore the interests of club and supporters will often be the same. The relationship between club and Trust needs to be one of constructive partnership where we can ensure the views of supporters are properly taken account of when decisions affecting supporters are made. The Trust has told the club that we would be happy to lead a fundraising campaign for a covering for the West Stand, but repeated requests for a meeting to discuss this went unanswered. Initiatives like this need constructive engagement with various sections of our support so that when fundraising starts, people will know exactly what we are fundraising for and that it has the backing of the various groups of supporters impacted by it. You mention our disabled followers. This group has always been a priority for us and a few years ago colleagues put in a significant amount of work identifying external funding and making proposals to improve the facilities for disabled fans. I wasn't personally involved in this and I don't know the details, but unfortunately these proposals weren't pursued at the time. It has been suggested that a project to put a roof on the West Stand could be combined with improved facilities there for our disabled supporters. However, our soundings are that many disabled supporters would much rather be integrated with friends and family in the Main and North stands than have a separate (albeit very functional) designated area. This just illustrates how crucial it is to have engagement with the people impacted by proposals. There are lots of things the Trust would like to do, but to be effective, the Trust needs to be seen to be much more representative than we currently are. The Trust can't properly represent supporters if supporters don't join the Trust. It is only £5 a year and £1 for U16s. We are most grateful for those supporters who have recently joined the Trust but we urgently need far more to follow their lead.

The Board of the ICT Supporters Trust is delighted to announce the launch of its new website. With Covid restrictions all but over and a new season nearly upon us, now is the time for the Trust to show a new public face as it strives to better represent the fan base. The new website is bright, dynamic and welcoming. It gives details of the role and goals of the Trust; of the Board members and what the Trust is up to and it provides links to other websites in the ICT family. Moving forward, it will be giving details of fundraising and other events and a members only section will allow the Board to seek the views of members on specific issues we will be discussing with the club. And, of course, it details reasons why folk should join the Trust and how. Please check it out here use the feedback options to let us know what you think. The launch of the website coincides not only with the new season but also with the new membership year. Membership renewals from existing members are coming in steadily but we desperately need new members if we are going to achieve our goals and provide the type of role we have sometimes been criticised for not providing. Communication with the club has not been easy these last few years and the main reason stated by the club is that the Trust is not sufficiently representative. Unfortunately, there is little the Trust Board can do about that other than encourage people to join the Trust and help to give the fans a stronger voice through the Trust. The Cub's Board of Directors has recently confirmed to us that they agree a good working relationship between the Club and the Supporters Trust is important both for the Club and the supporters of the Club. We are currently finalising a date to meet with the SLO in order to get a good working relationship back on track. There is so much we want to discuss with them and we are keen to get back on the fundraising trail again following the success of "Milestones and Memories". We are also finalising a date and venue for an open meeting for fans which will help to explain to folk what it is we want to achieve and why we so urgently need new members. It will also be an opportunity for fans to tell us about the things you want us to raise with the club. The new website is a marker for a new and dynamic chapter in the history of the Supporters Trust. Under the leadership of our Chair, Jennifer Aitchison, the Trust is now in a position to deliver on behalf of the fans and club alike. Key to this is increased membership. The Trust will only succeed if supporters of the club join the Trust to make it properly representative of the fan base. Please click through to the new website and join us.

Hardly headline grabbing signings, but our club does have a knack of identifying players who have not realised their potential at other clubs and then bringing them on well. Time will tell if these lads come good too.

Thanks for posting that and congratulations on writing such a good objection to the Council. I don't know how these development plans work, but I assume that this is not saying that the land will be used for these purposes, rather, it is saying that should the owner wish to develop the sites then these are the kind of developments that would be allowed. It might be better though to state that whilst the ground remains where it is, the land can only be used primarily as a car park. If there was any concern about this plan impacting on the club in the near to medium term, I would have expected the Club to have made a noise about this and to have urged all in the ICT community to pile in with objections. Nevertheless, it is, perhaps one which could be raised at the clubs next AGM.

Speaking as an Englishman, I didn't enjoy that at all. Biggest home defeat since 1928 and just such a turgid and uninspired performance. It was so bad it makes you wonder whether England have recruited John Hughes to advise on tactics. I enjoyed the cricket though.

It is an interesting article. It would obviously be nice if the club could operate without a significant operating loss, but it is very encouraging the losses are much less than they were. The strategy of diversification appears to be paying off and there has been a huge amount of effort behind the scenes to establish a more stable financial base to support the club moving forwards. One area where the club has not done so well is in terms of communication and supporter engagement. This needs to change. The Supporters Trust has recently written formally to the club to get a commitment from the Board to work constructively with the Trust and are pleased that the Board agree that it is in the mutual interest of club and supporters to have constructive engagement with the Trust. We have followed this up with a suggestion for an agenda which would include a discussion around the Trust's recently agreed goals and, specifically, picking up on our earlier offer to lead a fundraising campaign to raise money towards a cover for the West Stand. If the club can, once again, be seen to be engaging constructively with the Supporters Trust, then hopefully more supporters will join the Trust and help to give it the manpower and the credibility it needs to be successful. I hope to be able to give some positive news about the Supporter's Trust in a couple of weeks.

It will be very interesting to see how the concert venture works out. The idea of setting up their own production company was so that a 3rd party doesn't cream off the profits. But making profits requires strong ticket sales. I've no idea how many tickets have been sold or how many need to be sold to make a profit, but Scot Gardiner said in his statement last Friday that there is still availability in all levels for both concerts. If people from further afield were thinking about coming to Inverness for the weekend they might find that costs of overnight accommodation will make them change their mind. According to booking.com, a couple of nights (Friday to Sunday) in a basic Holiday Inn Express room will knock you back £582 whilst the Glen Mhor is charging £1,040 with breakfast extra! In his statement, Scot also said that the date of the Club's AGM would be announced this week. Hopefully it will be happening before the start of the next season so that the financial position and on-going plans will be a bit clearer before the next campaign starts.

That's a really informative and timely statement from Scot Gardiner.

Good post. I'm not a fan of flares myself but they are commonplace on the continent and rarely cause a problem. Problems happen when we get too restrictive on what folk can do and and what you can't. Flares can cause injury if thrown and can disrupt games if thrown onto the pitch. If you ban flares, then when people defy the ban by lighting flares then they are more likely to also throw them - it minimises the chance of them being caught literally red handed. Rather than ban flares, far better to allow them in specific areas of the ground on the understanding that they won't be thrown. I like the idea of mixed family areas as a first step to having mixed crowds as they do in other sports. As many rugby fans will tell you, the craic with fans of the opposing team can add significantly to the enjoyment of the occasion. We are all different and like different ways of watching the game. Grounds should cater to that, but with the best will in the world, clubs are constrained by the legislation. Obviously the Hillsborough tragedy was awful and avoiding any chance of a repetition was a priority, but I think the legislative response has been OTT. It has resulted in a one size fits all type of accommodation which has far less appeal to youngsters than the large open terracing of old. Football at our level needs to attract the younger generation if it is to survive. Mixed family area would be a great way to introduce the younger children to the game. Open terracing would allow the older children to move about a bit and have a bit of fun and socialising meaning they would enjoy the occasion even when the game was rubbish. I'd go for the open terracing myself as long as I had a safety railing to lean against and a roof over my head. That can all be done and be done safely. It is well beyond time that the powers that be listened to what the fans want and got the legislation changed.

So when do the lads have to report for pre-season training? It's not much of a break for them and even less for the management team.

We can be really proud of the team. For a club with our budget to get so close to promotion is a fantastic achievement. At one point in the season it looked as though we might even slip into the play-offs at the wrong end of the table, so the turnaround must give us hope for next season. The turnaround has also brought in new supporters and hopefully the excitement of the latter part of the season will persuade them to attend regularly next year or become season ticket holders. We will be saying goodbye to several of the squad, but one thing this season has demonstrated yet again, is how good the club is in finding new players down on their luck who come up here and do really well. I have every confidence that next season will see some new faces who will become key players in the push for promotion. Obviously there will be a feeling of great disappointment tonight, but as i say, we can be really proud of the team and can look forward to next season with optimism.

Sadly I can't be there tonight, but it is just fantastic to see such a large number heading down the road. Hopefully folk will be heading back in jubilant mood. If we should lose, it certainly won't be due to a lack of effort from the lads on the park or a lack of support. Win or lose, let's hope the enthusiasm for supporting the team will be carried over into next season.