Supporters Direct Annual Conference June 30

[maimie]

Supporters Direct, the umbrella organisation for the Supporters Trust movement are holding their annual conference on Saturday June 30 in Glasgow. 

the board of the ICT Trust wants to extend an invitation to any 'central belter' ICT Trust members to attend this year's conference.  As yet the programme for the day has not been released but these meetings are generally very informative as to what is happening within the football world, the trust movement and is a great opportunity to learn what other trusts throughout Scotland are doing.

if anyone 'down south' is interested in attending please pm me.

maybe admin could make this a sticky??  thanks 

[clacher_holiday2]

id be interested, but my pm box doesnt seem to work with firefox today

[maimie]

grand clacher

give me a call or txt on 07720 433660 and i'll let you know the details

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

clacher feckin representing us at a National conference - were fecked.  :rotflmao:

[maimie]

grand clacher

give me a call or txt on 07720 433660 and i'll let you know the details

hellooooo!

you still interested Clacher???  please let us know.......

[clacher_holiday2]

phone issues have just been resolved thanks to ebay.  whats the latest i can call tonight?

[maimie]

more or less anytime.... pref before about 12.30

if it's tomorrow then you can get me during the day till 5 or after 8

if you'd rather you can txt me and i'll get back to you

[clacher_holiday2]

id rather give you a call.  ill leave it tonight and give you a ring from my mobile in the morning (pending new phone charger actually working)

otherwise ill call you from work, itll either randomly come up with an 01389 or an 0845/0870 number between 9 and 5, just so youre expecting it!  (and if i have to join the ict supporters trust for access ill be far more than happy to do so)

and ihe im only interested in whats going to be said! ive got to work until about 11am checking if a grown adult can read.  its in kilpatrick so not too far into town.  ill be at a loose end and seen as i work with somebody who is involved with the falkirk franchise of the trust movement itd be interesting to go, though he'll be there independantly with his crew

[CaleyD]

If this is the same meeting as I attended last year (or was it the year before???) then it is very informative and well worth the effort to attend in order to get an idea of what Supporters Direct and the member Trusts are/should be about.  Before I attended I had the vision of the Supporters Trust as being nothing more than a glorified Supporters Club but that is far from the case and although a Trust can incorporate all the functions of a Supports Club it's actual remit spreads far beyond that.

Their were some great ideas shared as well as information on the stumbling points faced by some of the Trusts which should be useful to others to help them avoid the same issues.

Supporters Direct also produce a regular publication which is worth a read by anyone if you can get your hands on a copy - perhaps someone at the Trust could lay their hands on some for those who want them?

BTW, the buffet was pretty good as well  :001:

[clacher_holiday2]

sorry, i wouldve said if id taken note of your number mrs m but i wont be joining you this weekend as duty calls.  im sure everything thats said will be online within about 48 hours anyway.

im mainly interested to hear if anybody has an opinion on the true monetary value of yer average scottish football club why the trusts (around the uk as a whole) arent exercising a bit of common sense and a little more caution when dealing with clubs who are for the most part one bad season away from financial ruin

maybe next year ill have a day off

[maimie]

be pushing it clacher to get something on here or even the trust website in 48 hours given my work/social schedule over the next week or so!

these meetings usually take the form of being together as a large group in the first instance then breaking up in to workshops for other parts of the day and coming together at the end for a plenary session.

the problem we find is that we never have enough people to attend all the workshops and report back.  as a result, once the programme comes out (i don't have a copy yet...) we have to carefully pick which workshops we go to.

anyway - that's the logistics...  as for the other part of your question....

i suspect that the majority of the feelings would be that clubs are not of great monitory value at all.  i think we're all aware that there have been (and still are) some dodgy characters who own or are directors of football clubs for whatever reasons...  supporters groups recognised this and also recognised that in some instances clubs were not being run properly (or in the best interests of the club and fans) by these people and as a result the beginings of the trust movement were born.  the trust movement initially started out at northampton and sort of grew from there.  trusts (as opposed to supporters clubs) are properly constituted organisations with limited liability.  it was felt that the nature of the trust meant that they could be a 'conscience' of the football club.  the idea is not that the trusts throw money at the football clubs in order that it goes into a big black hole but that we have some kind of influence in how the money is spent and by building up influence within the club by buying shares before the clubs end up in dire straights.

i know this is a pretty condensed version of things clacher, but there is actually nothing written down about how the movement started...

there may be something somewhere about the value of clubs and i'll try to find out but at the end of the day they hold little value at all...

here's a link to the supporters direct website where you can find some information and a copy of the publilcations

http://www.supporters-direct.org/

[CaleyD]

My tuppence worth  :001:

It's a pity you can't make the conference as you may actually be surprised by just how much action Trusts are trying to take with regard to the financial situation of their clubs.  Many are slowly increasing share holdings in clubs in order to get a larger say and many are actually giving substantial sums of money to clubs with a clause on how it is spent.  Some Trusts have all but taken over the Youth and Community Development at their respective clubs to remove part of the financial burden.

The difficulty for Trusts as I see it is that when they invest cash in their clubs they have 2 options.  They ask for shares in return and then have little say over how the money is spent as it then comes under the control of the Directors (until such time as they have a shareholding that gives them a true voice at the club) or they donate the money on the understanding it is spent in a specific way, which means they can't demand shares in return.  Some clubs are far more co-operative on this front than others and are giving Trusts the best of both worlds by allowing them to finance for a specific issue and get shares.

The Trust movement is gaining a lot of influence within football - some clubs are embracing this, some of them are fearful of it and seem to be fighting it to a certain extent.  The one thing I am confident of, and that is that Trusts are a positive move for football, not just for it's fans but for the clubs and sport as a whole.

The above is a pretty broad overview, but you have clubs on all levels of the scale.  From the likes of Dundee who would have gone to the wall had it not been for their Trust - to ICT who are (at present) in the fortunate position of having formed a Trust at a time when the need for financial support of the club is practically non-existent.

Morton is probably the best example off the top of my head of a Trust which, from what I can gather, has all but taken over the Youth and Community Development.  Not only have they continued the efforts of the club in that regard but they have expanded it greatly.

More info is available on the Supporters Direct website at

http://www.supporters-direct.org/

The Magazines I mentioned in my earlier post can be downloaded at

http://www.supporters-direct.org/englandwa...htm#newsletters

They also have a blog at

http://supportersdirect.blogspot.com/