After Mr Bowden’s uninvited appearance at the last Trust meeting, the Trust board wrote to him (and hand-delivered the letter to the club) asking that if he or any other club board member intended to attend future meetings that they notify the Trust in advance so that adequate time could be allotted for them in the agenda. So we were very surprised to get an apology for absence from Mr Bowden. Giving him the benefit of the doubt that he had somehow not been given the previous letter, it was decided that we will deliver another copy of the letter to the club.
Approval of minutes from previous meeting
The minutes of the previous meeting were made available for members to inspect, although most had already read them online. It was noted that while no formal complaint had been made regarding the accuracy of those minutes, an individual who had attended the meeting had made known his view that the minutes did not adequately record his contribution. No Trust members have complained about this, formally or informally. The minutes were unanimously approved.
Officers Updates
AGM to be scheduled for April, pending final details from the auditors and a Chairman’s report.
Membership currently stands at 928, with 48 renewal letters having been sent out this week and renewals are already coming in which is very encouraging.
The Trust are seeking advice as to whether we can publish the CVA proposal document put to creditors on the Trust web site as there appear to be several discrepancies between what is set out in the document and the situation described by persons connected to the club. Publishing the document in this way would allow fans to be able to see for themselves in the interests of transparency.
Supporters Direct Regional Meeting
Last week TrustSTFC hosted the South West regional meeting of Supporters Direct, with representatives of other Trusts in attendance. The meeting was extremely positive and proved what could be achieved by Trusts working in harmony with boards of football clubs.
A question from the floor asked for clarification on the relationship between Trevor Watkins and the Bournemouth FC Trust, and it was agreed as an action point that this relationship needed investigating further.
It was also agreed that it would be beneficial for a representative of SD to attend a future Trust meeting to explain what can and has been achieved where clubs are prepared to work with Trusts. There was also some discussion as to whether this would prove enlightening to our current board and whether this would perhaps be a meeting Mr Bowden might be invited to.
Fans’ Consortium Update
Mike Wilks introduced both himself and Phil Emmell, Bill Power’s business partner, and went on to describe recent events, especially recent discussions between the club’s lawyers and lawyers acting on behalf of the Fans’ Consortium.
A meeting was arranged between the two sets of lawyers with the following items for discussion
- The repayment of BP/PE’s original investment of £1.2m
- Clarification of the situation surrounding the alleged shareholding in the club/holding company which was originally discussed in relation to this investment
- The potential takeover of the football club by the Fans’ Consortium
Neither Mike Wilks or Mike Diamandis attended this meeting. Mike W explained that given the very hostile statements from the club directed at him personally in the run-up to the meeting, it was felt it would not have been helpful for him to attend.
At this meeting it was agreed that an agreed statement would be issued to the media within 24hrs, also an answer to the proposal would be forthcoming within 7 working days.
At this present time neither has been achieved, although PE did state that lawyers had been in contact today to state that a response would be issued before the weekend, hopefully Thursday
MW stressed that the Fans’ Consortium is solid and still 100% committed to taking over the club. PE reiterated the comments made by Bill Power in Saturday’s Swindon Advertiser that the Fans’ Consortium was very much a joint effort between himself, Bill Power, Mike Wilks and the Trust.
CVA
A question was asked around the validity of any attempt to restructure the CVA, whilst there is new money on the table to satisfy creditors, and whether HMRC was aware of this fact. There was also some discussion as to whether the administrator of the CVA has worked within its terms.
It was stated that advice is currently being sought from an independent insolvency practitioner and legal advice will also be sought with regard to certain clauses within the CVA before any formal approach is made to the administrator.
It was noted that the CVA structure was based on a three-year business plan which projected profits of
| Year 1 | 100 k profit |
| Year 2 | 200 k profit |
| Year 3 | 200 k profit |
The CVA proposal does warn that football is a risky business and so these projections may not be in fact achievable, however in fact from what we have been told at AGMs, the club has run at an 800k operating loss in its best performing years since then. The opinion was put that if this was how the board had managed the "three-year plan" which the CVA was based on, it didn't inspire confidence in the current supposed "five-year plan". The CVA proposal also explicitly states that payments are not dependant on a ground redevelopment.
It was agreed that questions need to be asked of the administrator if as is widely expected he attends the fans forum.
A question was raised about the solvency of the club and MW stated that technically (without any evidence to the contrary) the club could be said to be insolvent, as it has negligible assets which are far outweighed by extremely large (alleged) liabilities to the extent that if those liabilities were to be called in they could not be satisfied by the assets. It is however difficult to judge the scale of this problem as the accounts are badly behind and those accounts that have been issued have all been qualified by the auditors. The club has not managed to issue unqualified accounts for the last 5 years.
Mike Diamandis/DTI
This item was deferred from the last meeting, where it was put to the floor if we should ask for MD to step aside from his role within the club pending the outcome of any investigation. At that meeting a motion was carried to wait until after the fans forum. Considering the forum date had been moved a vote was carried to again defer this item until after this weeks forum.
Protests
In recent weeks, many fans have become exasperated with the stance the club has taken re the Fans’ Consortium and a widely held opinion that the club was deliberately stalling on serious talks to even get to the first stage of any proposed take-over. Many fans have therefore begun to actively discuss the need for more active protests, going beyond the "visual protest" of the "Orange Revolution".
PD explained that the board of the Trust have not formally discussed a stance on whether the Trust should back such protests (e.g. whether the Trust should call for peaceful protests after games) as it was felt that this is a decision that should be taken by the Trust members, as the Trust board is there to represent the wishes of it’s members.
Several members from the floor asked for the views of both MW and PE as to how the Trust becoming involved in any such protests might impact on any ongoing discussions.
MW and PE stated that the situation is very liquid at the moment and that the next 48-72hr period is critical. Both felt that as things stood at the moment, it may be damaging for the Trust to become involved in such protests, although they respected that individual fans would make their own decisions.
It was noted from the floor that it was felt that the Orange revolution had had a major impact and that discussions at the fans forum would have a bearing on the way forward with this issue.
The feeling from the floor was that the Trust could and should continue with "visual protests", in particular calling on fans to keep supporting the "orange revolution" but that any decision to step that up to Trust involvement in a more active protest should be suspended pending the progress of talks over the next week. A suggestion was made that the Trust board, in consultation with Bill Power, Phil Emmell and Mike Wilks, would take a view as to whether such talks were being seriously pursued. If the board felt that talks had collapsed or were not being seriously pursued, the board would then call an emergency meeting of Trust members to discuss the issue again.
Members voted on the following 3 issues;
Vote 1
To issue leaflets before this Saturday’s game calling for protests behind the Arkells Stand after the game.
Outcome : Defeated
Vote 2
That the Trust board be mandated to keep a "watching brief" on the progress of talks between the club's solicitors and the Fans' Consortium's solicitors and that should the Trust board, after consultation with Mike Wilks, Bill Power and Phil Emmell, judge that those talks had broken down or were being blocked, then they would call an emergency meeting (and carry out an email vote of Trust members) to reconsider the question of whether the Trust should engage in more active protest.
Outcome Carried
Vote 3
To produce a leaflet for distribution this Saturday giving a positive pro-consortium rather than anti-board message and highlighting why the Fans’ consortium take over would be in the best of interests of the club.
Outcome Carried
It was agreed that the Trust should make it clear to the media that while we understand fans may wish to protest, any protests should be peaceful and within the bounds of the law.
A.O.B
It was asked if we were aware of the identity of the potential new investor, to which the answer basically is no. However simply putting new money into the existing structure of the club would not resolve the fundamental underlying issues as to how "off-the-pitch" matters at the club are run – the Fans’ Consortium is about more than just getting money into the club, it is about having a better-run club.
The next Trust quiz night is February 28th, at the Dolphin pub, hosted by Phil King. The entry fee is £12.00 per team, maximum six per team.
The meeting finished with a unanimous vote of thanks to PE for his attendance.
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