Andy D wrote:Knightrider wrote:I would have expected the Shrimps Trust to have asked what I considered to be the most important question of the evening - Why were the players paid late and what had been put in place to prevent this from happening again. I find it remarkable that the Shrimps Trust did not
I'm sure a few of them knew the players had been warned that payments were going to be a day so probably why the never asked the question to be fair, Hoffster.
I thought about joining the trust, i was gladly making monthly payments to Fcom.
But had second thoughts because of what the Money is being spent on, i'm all for ground improvements roofing behind the home end and carwash stand etc, but im sure £1500+ was spent on training monitor thingy me bobs, call me old fashioned, players can still get fit and train with out them, could of saved that money and put it to better use IMO.
The main objective of the Shrimps Trust appears to be fund raising for the club when in my opinion its main aim and objective should be on increasing the attendance of home fans at home games and representing and empowering fans so that they get an improved customer experience and that the club is fully accountable and transparent with its finance - income, expenditure and investments.
I find it staggering that the Shrimps Trust do not appear to be concerned that there is no mention of the Trust on the club website
https://www.morecambefc.com/ and that the club have not recognised the Trusts existence on their website, despite being in existence now for some time. Hopefully thanks to Mr Williams's question at the forum this will be resolved promptly by the club/Shrimps Trust.
Lancaster City Council sold the site at Westgate to the club for 1.3 million substantially below its market value. Mr Williams has corrected what I believed was the amount- 1.5 million, by forwarding the response to his FOI request -
Subject: FOI 12/523 Morecambe FC sale of land- response
Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2013 15:08:50 +0000
From:
FOIresponse@lancaster.gov.ukTo:
Dear Mr Williams
Please see our response to your request of 18th December below.
The amount paid for by Morecambe FC to the City Council for the land at Westgate
£1.3 million
The area of the land is substantially greater than the land at Christie Park sold to Sainsbury's which I have read on this forum was purchased for 9 million pounds. Therefore this gave the club 7.7 million to pay off any debts and to create their new ground.
Prior to this in 1997 the City Council had given the club a one hundred thousand pound interest free loan to be repaid in ten years. This money was used for ground improvements at Christie Park such as the North Stand I believe.
Clearly the whole move was facilitated by the generosity of Lancaster City Council who sold the land at Westgate well below its market value. In my opinion for that area of land a high volume spec housing developer would have been prepared to pay up to 7 million pounds so how much would Sainsburys have offered for the Westgate land, more than 9 million? So LCC contributed 5.7 million by underselling the land.
As Posh stated on another thread what the board of Directors delivered was a "dogs dinner" - the Globe Arena, without a viable business plan in place to ensure the club was sustainable at the Globe Arena.
(Gnasher) personal attack on Evelyn Archer and the Winter Gardens in his posts under his previous monicker, Phoenix stating that they were useless and were not able to deliver anything is cruel and unfair. The Winter Gardens never got a chance but Morecambe FC did and they blew it by making wrong decisions and huge errors of judgment in spending the public money gifted.
At the forum Rod advised that the whole program for the move was dictated by Sainsburys who wanted their new store operating and generating income asap and there was not enough time to make considered decisions. I believe the Directors took a gamble with the public money gifted with no fallback position. Of course they would do this because it was not their own money. In my opinion the previous Club Directors, which includes Rod Taylor, acted recklessly and irresponsibly and are responsible for the current financial state of the club.
In 2016/17 the Club did an Oliver, due to their financial crisis, and went to the City Council asking for more money; the public were exempted from the cabinet meeting; thankfully for council tax payers no further funding was forthcoming.
In view of the above facts for the Shrimps Trust to be raising money for ground improvements/club operations is in my opinion outrageous and it does not surprise me that the town and its community is not prepared to make any further contributions. Its time the club gave something back to the town in return for the millions gifted. Thats the main reason why I will not be applying to join the Shrimps Trust.
