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MONEY (An Editorial)


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Very good article, highlighting a lot of issues, however if we need as much money as you say we do to get the basics then why are we even considering spending TIK money on safe standing?  

As someone who contributes to TIK, for example I would rather we spent the money raised via this source, on getting a grass pitch again.  

 

Edited by Pelesboots
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6 minutes ago, Pelesboots said:

Very good article, highlighting a lot of issues, however if we need as much money as you say we do to get the basics then why are we even considering spending TIK money on safe standing?  

As someone who contributes to TIK, for example I would rather we spent the money raised via this source, on getting a grass pitch again. 

It is being considered because its what some fans want and we have to take on board everyone's opinions and make decisions democratically...and if you think about it laterally attracting more fans to games still helps in the long term. When it comes to deciding how the money is spent everyone will have their say. These decision will not be made lightly and the full picture will be looked at, not just certain elements in isolation.

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"Many fans are expecting the club to lift the artificial pitch and replace it next season when we get a new training facility, which is fine apart from the fact we can’t afford a new training facility. The current surface is nearing the end of its shelf life and it would cost an absolute fortune to rip it up and put in a proper grass, never mind a hybrid, pitch. The truth of the matter is that we will be stretched even paying a couple of hundred grand for a direct replacement. There are going to be a lot of disappointed fans out there when they realise that idealism comes with a hefty price tag."

 

Am I missing something here?  Should the club have pitched for Project Brave status if the directors couldn't crunch the numbers to comply with the requirements?

As for the pitch, did they think that it would last indefinitely (don't answer that - I fear I know the answer)?

These are not things which TiK raising £100k a year is going to solve. I'm reluctant to enter into McLean mode but the response to TiK has been fairly abysmal. That not everyone can afford to contribute is understood; particularly galling is those who can but "just don't like the idea of the Trust", or "will rally round when the club's threatened with administration". Phooey!

What's happening about new investment (rhetorical question)? Where are all the syndicates who were ready to invest, "if only Michael Johnston would step down"?

Do we have any idea as to what will happen if his shares are eligible for sale next year?  

Has the club considered a rights issue? If supporters won't contribute to TiK, maybe they will be tempted by owning a share certificate.

Nobody said that running a football club is easy or cheap. I'm just surprised that there doesn't seem to be any plan as to how the club can afford these substantial capital investments to which it is committed.

 

 

Edited by skygod
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You might have missed this?

"despite the fact we are allegedly only one contract away from meeting the criteria…one too many if you ask me."

Maybe that's why the club pitched for Project Brave, if technically they are only one contract away from it, I'd assume that would be a contract with somewhere like Toryglen to use their indoor pitch, I can't see anywhere that the facilities all need to be in one place. It would be an expensive contract all the same, especially if it was for us to train there full time. It also says that odds are in favour of the criteria changing so hence they put their hat in the ring.

Billy Bowie will be swapping his hotel shares for club shares in 2019 and then buying the hotel back from Johnston. This will save them having to offer other shareholders the same deal just like they did with the debt write off when Johnston dodged capital gains tax on the asset he accrued. He won't dodge it this time when he sells the hotel but at least, from his point of view, he's not had to pay it twice. Whether Mr Bowie has a fixed price arranged or not I don't know, if his lawyers have any sense they would have been ambiguous about that as the asset value will have depreciated, but that's really none of our business any more, they made sure of that the first time around.

There will be no further issue of shares, there are already millions freely available that were not bought up before and are available to be bought right now, but no one has and are unlikely to either as it offers them no control. The best we can hope for is another few wealthy business people putting in another few hundred thousand pounds for a seat on the board or Mrs McLeish persuading hubby that building the Alan McLeish Training Facility and renting it back to us at a nominal cost would be a great legacy for his family - now there's an idea!

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I think the whole point is that we need to attract more people across the board. More season-ticket holders, more walk-ups, more Trust members, more TiK subscribers. Otherwise it is just that same relatively small number of people contributing to the Trust and attending home games. The same small number of people deciding which projects TiK should support. For whatever reason TiK hasn't caught on, if it doesn't attract significantly more numbers for popular projects like safe standing or returning to a grass pitch, I don't know what will increase the number of subscribers. 

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 I bet Baz hoped people would come on and say, "you're right Baz, we all need to play our part and I'm going to contribute to TiK and play mine". But no, just "ah but this and ah but that" and expecting well off people to plough their money in so they we don't have to. Watch as the thread degenerates into a mush of mind numbing p1sh detail. Anything that will muddy the original message. If we can't step up to the plate now, we never will.

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1 minute ago, Scooby_Doo said:

I didn’t say the effort wasn't being put in Baz, far from it. 

However, it doesn't seem to be resonating, in particular TiK. Hopefully the next push will get it going. 

I appreciate what you are saying, I'm just pointing out what we do in the hope that someone will miraculously come up with something that we don't do which might work! Always willing to take advice and try something new.

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Brilliant post Baz. However, something I think we have all learned over the years on this forum when we felt things were wrong: bizarrely we don’t represent the views of our core home support! 

To explain, using the apathy for protest in the MJ days, and as you and Hippo experienced, the abuse from your own fans when trying to effect change, we seem to have quite an elderly and at times parochial support. 

Therefore, nearly all the things you mentioned, forums, social media, functions etc. don’t have any impact on those fans and never will. Now I’m not saying those fans have no place, of course they do, they’ve put the years in, and probably introduced others. 

But when people focus on the 4500 home supports, look around where we sit and think how many of them are likely to be even the slightest bit interested in any modern approach, paying extra cash? Very few.

So the market is small, it could be better, but the focus can’t be on the majority of our home support, it has to be on the younger generation, the 1600 at st.mirren, those who get it, those who thrive on momentum, those who shell out thousands a season getting pissed at away games, who do have a spare £10 or £15. For whatever reason they haven’t got involved.....yet.

Realise I’ve just wrote that and gave no solution, but I know the efforts that go into this and just think the demographic needs to be taken into account when progress is assessed.

 

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12 hours ago, KevM said:

Brilliant post Baz. However, something I think we have all learned over the years on this forum when we felt things were wrong: bizarrely we don’t represent the views of our core home support! 

To explain, using the apathy for protest in the MJ days, and as you and Hippo experienced, the abuse from your own fans when trying to effect change, we seem to have quite an elderly and at times parochial support. 

Therefore, nearly all the things you mentioned, forums, social media, functions etc. don’t have any impact on those fans and never will. Now I’m not saying those fans have no place, of course they do, they’ve put the years in, and probably introduced others. 

But when people focus on the 4500 home supports, look around where we sit and think how many of them are likely to be even the slightest bit interested in any modern approach, paying extra cash? Very few.

So the market is small, it could be better, but the focus can’t be on the majority of our home support, it has to be on the younger generation, the 1600 at st.mirren, those who get it, those who thrive on momentum, those who shell out thousands a season getting pissed at away games, who do have a spare £10 or £15. For whatever reason they haven’t got involved.....yet.

Realise I’ve just wrote that and gave no solution, but I know the efforts that go into this and just think the demographic needs to be taken into account when progress is assessed.

 

That's nonsense. The younger generation who don't have any money are going to finance change, I don't think so. I am heading towards seventy at a great rate of knots and I use social media each and every day, most of the fans of similar age round about me do as well. At the St. Mirren game the lady sitting beside me had lost her husband and she said that going to the games gave her an interest after he had passed away. She sang and cheered throughout the game as much as the young team did that day. Don't give me this ageist nonsense that we are being held back because we have older supporters. Presumably St. Mirren and Motherwell are doing ten times better at funding "Back the Buds" and the "Well Society" because they don't have any older fans. We had an example on Sunday of two representatives of completely opposite age groups who had one thing in common, they were both Killie fans. TiK isn't getting through to our fans, young, middle-aged, and elderly, it is up to us all to remedy that situation.

Edited by Wrangodog
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7 hours ago, KevM said:

Brilliant post Baz. However, something I think we have all learned over the years on this forum when we felt things were wrong: bizarrely we don’t represent the views of our core home support! 

To explain, using the apathy for protest in the MJ days, and as you and Hippo experienced, the abuse from your own fans when trying to effect change, we seem to have quite an elderly and at times parochial support. 

Therefore, nearly all the things you mentioned, forums, social media, functions etc. don’t have any impact on those fans and never will. Now I’m not saying those fans have no place, of course they do, they’ve put the years in, and probably introduced others. 

But when people focus on the 4500 home supports, look around where we sit and think how many of them are likely to be even the slightest bit interested in any modern approach, paying extra cash? Very few.

So the market is small, it could be better, but the focus can’t be on the majority of our home support, it has to be on the younger generation, the 1600 at st.mirren, those who get it, those who thrive on momentum, those who shell out thousands a season getting pissed at away games, who do have a spare £10 or £15. For whatever reason they haven’t got involved.....yet.

Realise I’ve just wrote that and gave no solution, but I know the efforts that go into this and just think the demographic needs to be taken into account when progress is assessed.

You make some fair points but I feel you are a bit quick to write off some of our elders Kev! Trust Chairman Jim Thomson is retired and I handed the baton to him purely on the basis of I've never seen someone pack so much into a day or show as much enthusiasm for the cause, one of my best decisions ever was to stand down and let Jim run with it. I appreciate that he's not exactly ancient (well so he thinks, ageing rocker and all that) but there are a lot like him around and we have it on our agenda to target retired people to help out because they have a lot to offer and in some cases, time on their hands to do it, just don't tell my old dear I said that! This is a problem that has to be tackled on all fronts and at all age levels...because you are 100% right, these are the people who we struggle to engage with in bulk and people in the main don't like change, we are still seen by some as the new kids on the block and to be watched!

That doesn't mean to say we can't also focus on the "younger generation" and try and find a way to reach more of them as well. It's been really helpful having some of the guys involved with running the 20/20 bus being clued up as to what the Trust is all about and the big picture; they are no shrinking violets by any manner of means and they probably don't realise the influence they have on a lot of fans coming through. But, some of the other 'weel kent faces' seem to be reticent in getting involved and equally they don't realise the influence they have and that can have a negative effect. I have no doubt that they mean no harm, and appreciate that we all want the same things, but its frustrating when they choose not to get involved...even if its just to show support for the ideals.

I get the feeling that some people will never forgive the likes of myself for the level of involvement in trying to oust our former Club Chairman, which is there prerogative of course, but that was calculated risk on my part. The end justified the means and to be honest I think few would argue different now, but I take no pleasure in the "told you so" attitude and would prefer to consign the whole episode to history and concentrate on moving forward, and I mean everyone no matter who they agreed with at the time. We have discussed if my leaving the Board would have a positive knock on effect on membership...but record high figures (still not high enough) would suggest that I'm just not that important in the grand scheme of things...and Jim T likes having a lackey who knows the ropes by now.

All that might be about to change as our print shop in Riccarton is shutting down in a few weeks and as of today, my 31 years in pre-press is coming to an end. The reality of the situation is that I'll now have to find another job and I can't see me getting one that will accommodate the hours I put into the Trust every week and my family has to come first...so change in some form is coming whether we want it or not. Hence the advert for Trust Board members last week and us trying to bolster the ranks for the Phase Two onslaught to come. I'll still do what I can when I can, but unless we do a Hearts/Motherwell and find funding for a paid employee (not happening any time soon) then we're in the unenviable position of having to ask others to do more, which is not exactly in the spirit of spreading the burden unless we can get more fans involved.

So less of the sob story from me and more about the editorial...the idea behind it was to forewarn fans that we have an opportunity to do something here and we have to more proactive and less reactive in our attitude/approach. The Trust have always struggled because we were ahead of our time and sought to avoid the situation where we were rattling buckets to stop us going out of business...but we've grown and established ourselves nonetheless and it is time for the wider body of fans to literally take the initiative and be a part of the solution. The discussion here is welcome and everything will be seriously considered, not only by the Trust Board but by the Club Board as well...which I am delighted to be able to say. Despite everything the Trust has proved it can achieve its goals and I'm incredibly proud of everyone who has helped make that happen. We have created a foundation that can be built on to help the Club Board run the club sustainably for future generations and achieve greater things...being "Killie 'til I die" should be a statement of intent, not just clichéd rhetoric.

It's been an interesting morning so far...look out for some generous odds on the Ladbrokes coupons at the weekend and a buy an ex-Ritchies worker a pint with your winnings!

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1 hour ago, baz said:

You make some fair points but I feel you are a bit quick to write off some of our elders Kev! Trust Chairman Jim Thomson is retired and I handed the baton to him purely on the basis of I've never seen someone pack so much into a day or show as much enthusiasm for the cause, one of my best decisions ever was to stand down and let Jim run with it. I appreciate that he's not exactly ancient (well so he thinks, ageing rocker and all that) but there are a lot like him around and we have it on our agenda to target retired people to help out because they have a lot to offer and in some cases, time on their hands to do it, just don't tell my old dear I said that! This is a problem that has to be tackled on all fronts and at all age levels...because you are 100% right, these are the people who we struggle to engage with in bulk and people in the main don't like change, we are still seen by some as the new kids on the block and to be watched!

That doesn't mean to say we can't also focus on the "younger generation" and try and find a way to reach more of them as well. It's been really helpful having some of the guys involved with running the 20/20 bus being clued up as to what the Trust is all about and the big picture; they are no shrinking violets by any manner of means and they probably don't realise the influence they have on a lot of fans coming through. But, some of the other 'weel kent faces' seem to be reticent in getting involved and equally they don't realise the influence they have and that can have a negative effect. I have no doubt that they mean no harm, and appreciate that we all want the same things, but its frustrating when they choose not to get involved...even if its just to show support for the ideals.

I get the feeling that some people will never forgive the likes of myself for the level of involvement in trying to oust our former Club Chairman, which is there prerogative of course, but that was calculated risk on my part. The end justified the means and to be honest I think few would argue different now, but I take no pleasure in the "told you so" attitude and would prefer to consign the whole episode to history and concentrate on moving forward, and I mean everyone no matter who they agreed with at the time. We have discussed if my leaving the Board would have a positive knock on effect on membership...but record high figures (still not high enough) would suggest that I'm just not that important in the grand scheme of things...and Jim T likes having a lackey who knows the ropes by now.

All that might be about to change as our print shop in Riccarton is shutting down in a few weeks and as of today, my 31 years in pre-press is coming to an end. The reality of the situation is that I'll now have to find another job and I can't see me getting one that will accommodate the hours I put into the Trust every week and my family has to come first...so change in some form is coming whether we want it or not. Hence the advert for Trust Board members last week and us trying to bolster the ranks for the Phase Two onslaught to come. I'll still do what I can when I can, but unless we do a Hearts/Motherwell and find funding for a paid employee (not happening any time soon) then we're in the unenviable position of having to ask others to do more, which is not exactly in the spirit of spreading the burden unless we can get more fans involved.

So less of the sob story from me and more about the editorial...the idea behind it was to forewarn fans that we have an opportunity to do something here and we have to more proactive and less reactive in our attitude/approach. The Trust have always struggled because we were ahead of our time and sought to avoid the situation where we were rattling buckets to stop us going out of business...but we've grown and established ourselves nonetheless and it is time for the wider body of fans to literally take the initiative and be a part of the solution. The discussion here is welcome and everything will be seriously considered, not only by the Trust Board but by the Club Board as well...which I am delighted to be able to say. Despite everything the Trust has proved it can achieve its goals and I'm incredibly proud of everyone who has helped make that happen. We have created a foundation that can be built on to help the Club Board run the club sustainably for future generations and achieve greater things...being "Killie 'til I die" should be a statement of intent, not just clichéd rhetoric.

It's been an interesting morning so far...look out for some generous odds on the Ladbrokes coupons at the weekend and a buy an ex-Ritchies worker a pint with your winnings!

Great post mate a and good luck on the job hunt.

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I’m well aware of the talents of elders and retirees, take John Kiltie as an example and obviously Jim T, but what I actually wrote was “elderly and at times parochial”.  Nobody would ever suggest these types of people are parochial.

I didn’t give any ageist nonsense about being held back I inferred that we shouldn’t be down about not being able to access a part of society that is notoriously hard to reach in this day and age, and like most marketing strategies we should target an area of possible greater success! Do they put Christmas toy adverts on after the watershed?

When I look around where I sit and see very elderly people shouting stuff like “he’ll no dae, get biydy oan” (after a single misplaced flick on from Greg Stewart) then sorry if I don’t think that person will have the foresight to join TiK.

It’s a generational thing, you will always get those who break the mould and also the professionally offended, but I was only saying don’t be too concerned about achieving unrealistic goals, I would think probably 1000 would be your max potential right now and any focus should reflect that.

Good luck with the job hunt Baz.

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15 hours ago, Scooby_Doo said:

Right, I'll say it. 

If I wasn't on this board, I wouldn't know a thing about the Trust, let alone TiK. 

Anyone I've spoken to who doesn't use this board, doesn't know anything about it. 

That doesn't mean that the Trust folks aren't working hard, or doing good things, but the message isn't as widespread as you might think outside killiefc.com. 

Being based down south now, I don't get to Killie much (although I pay the £25 pm to TiK). I don't understand that people who go to the games don't know about the Trust or TiK? A simple mention at half-time on the pitch would correct that, and I'm sure that's been done.

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Some people just don't want to know about the Trust and as Baz has already said, him and Hippo are viewed with suspicion by some due to their 'high profile' campaigns and media appearances in the past.

Do we hand out flyers as folk go through the turnstiles in order to highlight the successes that the Trust have had in the past and some of the targets for the future?

Does it need a 'relaunch' as such? ... I'm as bad as anyone in that I only know what they are doing through this forum ... I haven't been on the Trust website in years.

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TIK is something I'd be looking to sign up for soon.

I have intended on doing it but have been lazy at times and also prioritised other things as you do.

I think there are many other fans like me who could easily spare a tenner a month or whatever to TIK. 

It is a difficult task The Trust have to ask people to give money every month without "seeing" much in return. I totally understand it's a long term goal but I think some people will be put off by that. Rightly or wrongly. 

I think certainly that fan ownership is the future of football. Germany have various clubs who are owned predominantly by supporters. In my opinion it's the best league in the world and is extremely well run. 

Cannot believe we have St Mirren and Motherwell doing better than us.

 Now the trust has a board member it's possibly more appealing now than before to non members?

The club is doing well and we are flying at the moment. Perfect time as been said to line the pockets of the club for years to come. 

TIK Should have an away game this season like Aberdeen or so where you invite people who would usually go to games at Rugby park/ away on Saturdays  who aren't attending Pittodrie to donate 20£ or so to the trust on that day and market it well beforehand. I know it isn't the consistent monthly payment you are looking for but it would potentially be a good amount if done properly. Also may unite the fans behind TIK more..

If they back the club even when we are away from home and unable to attend it would be fantastic. A one off payment initially and advertise the importance of the trust for the future of the club in the long term.

 

Good luck. Hopefully TIK can capitalise on this form and build on what you have at the moment.

Edited by Souleycouley93
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It would be helpful if there could be more Club buy in. It's been better since Cathy came on board and they are retweeting the odd TIK post here and there but what we really need it a joint venture of sorts between the club/ TIK. Have the club actively ask for members of TIK or trust, put the pitch or training facility, or safe standing or even the player budget as targets. Somehow get players or management staff to sign up. I believe Motherwell players have joined theirs. I think the TIK subscriptions would take a jump if Steve Clarke, Boyd or whoever was holding a sign saying Im in. 

 

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