Us and Them?

[Scotty]

Darren does have the backing of me, and I dare say most people too. The catering issue is new, and up in the air, and indeed will remain to be seen. I am optimistic about what Darren will do given time.

I am giving him a thumbs up for now. within a few weeks (days actually) of taking on new responsibilities, and having input and/or control over those duties he has done two simple things that can be viewed positively.

He has ordered stock that fans have been asking for from our suppliers for ages. Goalie Tops, Training tops etc .... Its not his fault that the suppliers seems to use pack elephants over the Alps to get them to us, and as a single act it wont transform the club but he gets an 'A' for effort and for listening.

He has also delved into the perennial pie issue. Again, this is something fans have been harping on about for years and no-one has ever been visibly shown to have done anything about. We now have a new vendor and by the sound of it the club also have more say in it as previously we rented out the space to a 3rd party but now we are in partnership with the new ones ..... teething troubles this weekend meant there were a few grumbles but hopefully he will read this, bring it to the vendors and over the space of a few home games a lot of the wrinkles will be ironed out. Again, its high marks for listening to the problem and trying to do something about it.

What I would lile to see is CTO, the Supporters Trust, and ICT working in partnership, within reason given that the Supporters Trust and CTO are volunteers and as was pointed out by CaleyD, cannot be expected to fix things overnight.

So, I guess the bottom line is this: Improved communication is essential to ensure a strong, consistent, healthy operation of the club, now and for the future. It is imperative that there is a much bigger effort made by ICT, which I believ will go a long way to making sure attendance numbers do not drop. My fear is that without this, the effects will be seen at the start of next season, and that there is no time for indecisive action from the club on this. They will reap what they sow, so to speak.

A simple marketing example: There are 20 odd social media outlets such as Facebook, Bebo, MySpace, Twitter, Wordpress, blogspot, Flickr, You Tube, Google GEO, Digg, and many more. Now, im sure most clubs aren't on these, but that doesn't mean it's acceptable. My point here is that the club are well aware that communication is a sorepoint, and it is simple to fix it overnight. So, we will see if they either react in the positive, or in the opposite by doing nothing.

We are always happy to work with anyone if it is for the benefit of ICT or its fans. Even when some channels were blocked because this person or that person was upset with us (or in one case told staff not to talk to us at all) we always had some form of back-channel that we could use.

There are some things where CTO is perhaps not the best entity to be involved directly and where the Supporters Trust or someone else should take the lead and I am happy to see that they are getting more and more active as time goes by. We are always here to assist where we can, whether that be by providing ideas or tech solutions or whether it is simply by advertising events or promotions that the club ask us to.

With regards to the social media, I would agree with you. On our main pages, every story has a set of icons at the bottom that allows users to send the story to Digg, StumbleUpon, Facebook etc and they should perhaps look at that. When we upgrade this forum (no timescale yet) we will also be able to do the same sort of thing with forum threads and you will (or maybe "should" is a better expression) even be able to login via your facebook account or use a gravatar ! We have suggested to the club that they can make use of our Twitter feed during the week to provide little snippets of info and that offer remains open to them as our main use of it is for live match updates on a game day.

The big point for me in all of this is that Darren, like a few of his counterparts prior to our SPL days, KNOWS that the fans are vital and wants to do all he can to make things better for them or at least to keep them up to speed. At the end of the day, he too has bosses who might regulate how far he can go, but so far he is definitely trying to do what he can to get everyone onside.

(My Christmas travel plans have been destroyed as of 50 minutes ago via BA Cabin Crew, so apologies for any harshness in tone). As always, my great thanks to all at CTO who regularly provide an amzing service to fans through their own selflessness. I am not being sycophantic, it is just that it goes unsaid too often.

B.A. Humbug for sure !!! Thats a real nightmare. I havent flown BA for years and cant see this endearing them to many. I am not heading for Scotland this Xmas but at least I am lucky to have about a dozen different choices of airline if I were.

[latviaman]

Dread to think what might happen if we went on strike in Latvia ( are the salt mines still open!!)

Edited December 15, 2009 by Scotty
removed the huge quote as you werent referencing anything in it !

[Scotty]

Just a quick pointer for reference ..... I have noticed a lot of people are posting HUGE quotes in this thread and in other threads. This is fine if you are talking about whats actually in the quoted portion but if you are not referencing anything in them they are a waste of page space ! ..... perhaps its because there is a bit of confusion over the reply buttons ???

To reply and quote the previous post, use the REPLY button at the bottom of the last post (coloured orange in the screenshot below). To reply WITHOUT quoting the last post, click the ADD REPLY (or FAST REPLY) button farther down (highlighted green in the screenshot).

[TtotheOtotheM]

I think the club have adopted the "cross that bridge when it comes" attitude, for example. Short contracts, silly campaigns (one year promotion). Whats going to happen next year or even next month when a number of players' contracts are up? Hayes is an SPL player and won't want to hang around here for long, especially with all the great performances he's put in lately. I never though we would be promoted this year and it was silly to advertise that, as im sure the club realised it was impossible. I think the fans have been surprised by the quality of the league which is why people are disappointed by how poor our start has been.

[caleykid1994]

I think the club have adopted the "cross that bridge when it comes" attitude, for example. Short contracts, silly campaigns (one year promotion). Whats going to happen next year or even next month when a number of players' contracts are up? Hayes is an SPL player and won't want to hang around here for long, especially with all the great performances he's put in lately. I never though we would be promoted this year and it was silly to advertise that, as im sure the club realised it was impossible. I think the fans have been surprised by the quality of the league which is why people are disappointed by how poor our start has been.

I dont think the fans have been surprised as we all knew that the bottom 6 of the SPL and the Top 6 of the 1st Division were pretty evenly ranked. Considering that the club managed to keep most of its top players and have what was supposed to be a "top manager" in charge has led us all to believe that winning this league would be a walk in the park.

The reality is that the players TB brought in have only begun now to show what they are capable of and he has made some good signings like Hayes and in one game so far Duff(who the club should maybe get on loan til the end of the season) and i still think that we will finish 4th come the end of the season and hopefully for next season we can hit the ground running.

[+HawkeyeTheGnu]

I think the club have adopted the "cross that bridge when it comes" attitude, for example. Short contracts, silly campaigns (one year promotion). Whats going to happen next year or even next month when a number of players' contracts are up?

I assume (dangerous, I know) that the one year promotion campaign was born out of the parachutre money - the club could sign players on one-year deals knowing that if promotion wasn't achieved then they could re-budget without having the burden of expensive contracts. What should happen is that the financial position is reviewed and the club offers contracts to a value it can afford. If we get promoted then that puts us in a different place, financially speaking, than if we are not. Regarding the January contracts, it may be that a degree of mid-season budgeting takes place.

I never though we would be promoted this year and it was silly to advertise that, as im sure the club realised it was impossible. I think the fans have been surprised by the quality of the league which is why people are disappointed by how poor our start has been.

Anyone paying attention to Scottish football would know that the first division is a nightmare to get back out of. Even if you'd only been following ICT since they joined the SPL, a quick thought about what has happened to the teams that have been relegated during our time would tell you that.

I don't think is was silly to advertise a quick return, and I'm sure our aim is/was to get promoted this season, but that is true of at least six other teams. To settle for a fwew years in div 1 would have been really sad and unambitious, and this is the season when we would have the money to create a strong squad. I can accept the club gambling money they have on a return to the SPL. I would be less happy about them gambling money they don't have.