Shrimpsvoices

Did it happen? Was anyone there? I've not seen or heard anything.

Yes it did

70-80

Santa won Stockton shirt

It was on Zoom if you couldn't attend

Anything interesting?

It was my mum's 80th birthday, so I was otherwise engaged!

An AGM is mainly about going over what happened the year before.
Discussion about the memorial garden which there are plans for opposite the club shop adjacent to new house entrance and managers car space, hope the future pick ups and range rovers dont run over it.
Well done Quinny for his large donation, but the cost has now pretty much doubled.

Ideas wanted for new flags around the stadium


Rod and Ben blowing the trumpet for betterment of the matchday experience.

Confirmed it's pointless fans/trust buying shares and JW can do what he wants

Good meeting. Rod and Ben were there, made good responses to questions on the ownership issue. There's a report here on Beyon Radio's website https://www.beyondradio.co.uk/news/loca ... hort-term/
There was also discussion about reviving coach travel to away games, with Rod asking for collaboration between the club and the Trust, and an excellent contribution from a wheelchair using ST member about providing accessible coaches for disabled fans.

Thanks folks!

I enjoy reading 'the doc's' assessments of each game and long may they continue BUT I can no longer read any utterings by the doc about the Trust as his ramblings have become tiresome.

Sorry doc we love your appraisal of games but enough is enough regarding the workings (or not) of the Trust.

I think we'd all like to see the Trust become more dynamic and focused on the bigger picture of the club's future.

We can see they might not have the answers or ability to make a difference to our club right now but I personally wanna know what the plan is if Bond Group engage with "Sarbjot Mk2" or Bond Group lose interest.

I'd like to ask the question, what do the Trust do, apart from organising weekly draws, arranging away travel and sending the odd letter (seemingly under duress) to the EFL, Bond Group or Sarbjot.

I'm genuinely sorry if I've painted a wrong picture of Trust activity. I'm just frustrated that we don't seem to have an objective that includes saving our club from the sharks.

Fan owned Newport County, the Trust own 79% of shares, are on the brink of selling 52% to former Swansea City owner for just £500,000 following a loss of £1.2m last year.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/66887733

To be fair, the potential new owner is a very good option for the club, so not a bad result. But are they in this position because they didn't control the finances?

Off the top of my head, Newport and Exeter are the two main fan-owned examples I can think of in our immediate leagues and of somewhat comparable size, although Exeter do unarguably have quite a bit bigger fan base.

Both the purchases of Exeter and Newport came about because the club was on its backside. Exeter were millions in debt and had the taxman chasing after them. The dire situation meant that their Trust were able to purchase the club for around £20k that they quickly managed to raise.

Newport literally folded as a club and were booted out of the Conference. They're fan owned because they're a phoenix club. Although as we've seen now, the financial demands of the industry have forced a sale.

Neither of these situations are particularly comparable to ourselves. To expect a fan takeover similar to these clubs is unrealistic.

Fan ownership would only really work if it was the same at every club. I think the government though needs to look at clubs being more accountable to their fans with some sort of representation on the board, but if a club is entirely run by fans, they are likely to struggle to compete against those that have a benefactor pumping money in. As Little Shrimp said, fan ownership comes around usually when the worst happens and eventually further outside investment is required.

Wild Bill wrote:.....if a club is entirely run by fans, they are likely to struggle to compete against those that have a benefactor pumping money in.

Unless there was continuous capital raising from selling fractional shares to cover loss making seasons.

Good governance will be the main challenge for a fan owned club.