Fellow Traveller

Yep. And if it happened all over again, I'd do exactly the same thing. It was up to the ones who were gagging for the merger to make sure they got what they sold out for.

We've dabbled in the murky world of club politics (some of us more guilty of it than others ). It's achieved next to nothing and pissed a lot of people off along the way. Something like this would be such a relief, Will. And a nice wee retirement project for you.

Not looking to misrepresent anything, David. I've argued in the past way too many times about how that was a bad deal for the Trust. People can make their own minds up about that. My point is simply about competence. There are serving members of the JTB who argued for that deal and voted for it. When the merger was approved, they then had the responsibility to set in stone the agreement they claimed to have made with the board on behalf of their members. 23 months later and I'm told they don't have anything in writing to support their claim, and now the Trust finds itself locked out of the boardroom with no guaranteed road back. And yet they are prepared to sit at the AGM and list this as one of their achievements. It's probably the biggest screw up in the Trust's history. So it's not about whether the merger was good or bad, whether the club board are right or wrong or which direction the Trust should be heading. It's whether the Jags Trust Board members who were there at the time and are still there now executed this in a competent fashion. I'd love to hear the argument that says they did.

I've submitted this comment to the Trust website, but just in case it doesn't pass the moderation process I'll leave a copy here: At the most recent AGM, the Trust's Board Representative stated in his outgoing report, under the heading of Trust Achievements: "1876 Merger securing the right to a place on the Club Board in perpetuity without payment of a Directorship fee" It now emerges that when you shut down the 1876 Club, you never actually got around to getting this agreement with the club in writing. Bearing in mind your current difficulties, wouldn't you accept that any board member who was on the JTB at that time should really step down now as some small gesture of atonement for the massive damage you have done to the members' interests by this gross incompetence? You'll recall that the week before the merger you voted to recommend acceptance of an offer from the club that hadn't been made in writing and which turned out to be non-existent. (That was recorded in the minutes of a meeting that somehow failed to get put up on the website until very recently.) So it's not as if you hadn't made this mistake before. To make it again after the merger is really unforgivable.

Thanks, David. That pretty much confirms my own suspicions. Bit of a flimsy achievement in that case. As I've said before, they sold out for a handful of beans and then they never even got the beans. Masterful.

David, you stepped down before you could answer the Q&A questions submitted via the forum, but maybe you could do one for old times. Kieron stated at the Trust AGM that an agreement to a free place on the board in perpetuity was one of the great achievements of the Trust, gained in return for giving up the 1876 Club. I wanted to know if that agreement was ever secured in writing and, if so, could the Trust make its wording available to the members as it obviously has a bearing on the Trust's argument now about Morag. You can't personally make it available, but you should be able to confirm whether or not it exists. Everyone's been very evasive on this one so far.

BCG Jag - could you share with us who specifically invited you on to the JTB and what reasoning they gave you as to why you should accept? (For the record, I think it was a horrible mistake, but totally accept your good motives in doing it.)

BCG Jag will no doubt confirm one way or another, but something tells me that plan might not be on the agenda now.

I rejoined only a week ago expressly to take part in whatever movement there was to clear them all out. I was in two minds about whether it was worth it because the Trust is seriously damaged goods, but you live in hope until it is finally stomped out of you. Judging by the way the topic has utterly failed to take hold on the forum and now with this ludicrous, whining and misleading statement, walking away and leaving them to it seems the best option. What their shenanigans have to do with representing the fans and finding ways of working with the club is beyond me.

No disrespect to the people who have stepped up this time around. I'm sure they'll do the very best they can under the circumstances. But we again find ourselves with a JTB made up entirely of people elected unopposed and the friends they have invited on to fill up the empty spaces. And there is a nominee for a place on the club board who didn't even stand for the post when nominations were invited. Are these people to blame for this? I don't agree with their approach to things, but no they're not. The blame lies with everyone else who has walked away in frustration (I'm in that group), or signed up but shown no interest in getting involved, or never bothered to sign up at all. Or those who say they don't understand what the Trust is about. if you can understand Championship Manager, you can definitely get your head round the Trust, it's just that you don't want to and people should be honest about that. You cannot be represented if you're not prepared to participate in the process and our fans have shown over the years that participating in the process is a bit more than they are prepared to do. So representation is impossible and complaining about the lack of quality of the representation is deluded. And every email to David Beattie that fails to come up with a way to motivate people to get involved is not talking about a fan's representative, but merely an appointee acceptable to the club. Very sad to a minority, but all the evidence is that this is what the bulk of the fans want, so maybe it's a happy outcome after all.

While we anxiously wait for word to come down from on high in David Beattie's next programme article, and the JTB form a circular firing squad, I just wondered: is anyone actually doing anything? Honved and Stolenscone are grappling with the 50/50 draw, BCG Jag is gathering names for a democratic assault on the Trust and... Well, is there anyone else doing something we can get behind?

Herald journalist with the article coming out this week has just said the club "completely refuted" this rumour. Here

It's very debatable if the Trust has any viable future at all, and I'm already wincing in anticipation of the co-opting that's about to happen, but as long as there is such a large chunk of shares held by the Trust, its fate is of some importance. It's also, as Allan suggests, a source of some embarrassment that we keep coming back to this situation, but if people don't participate and at least try to guide the direction the Trust takes, you're always going to end up here. I'll be supporting any motion of No Confidence that is tabled, but there's no point in pressing for fresh elections if there are no fresh candidates. You want the same old shit from the same old people (and I include all of us JTB veterans in that)? Really? Crossing your fingers won't get it done. And if the feeling is to just let it die, my guess is that it won't. It'll linger on, clinging to those shares, bleating about a seat in the boardroom. That's a terrible outcome. Either take it back and make it work or see that it is killed off once and for all so as to allow a fresh start.

If that's all the Trust do from now on, then I think Section 95 of the constitution is very likely to be invoked. "Performance Audit". Any organisation that holds a million shares and claims the right to a seat on the board should be properly scrutinised by members and non-members alike. As an aside, of all the many resignations we've seen, Martin seems like the person who least owes an apology to anyone for his efforts.

The Trust as it is currently set up should be more than good enough to do whatever the fans need and want from it. But at the risk of alienating most of the people on the forum and beyond, there has always been a steady trickle of folk willing to stand for election, turn up to the mind-numbingly tedious meetings, stand in the pishing rain trying to sell you tickets etc. What there hasn't been is a large enough body of fans who are prepared to be even mildly active, interested or informed members, supporting the fundraisers, turning up to open meetings, generally getting involved a bit more than ticking a box once a year. So gradually the JTB become detached and then they get criticised and so they get defensive and then they turn on each other and it all goes down the plughole. And everybody gets to use that as their exccuse for not joining in the first place. I'd suggest we've got exactly the Trust that we collectively deserve. I'd be happy to sign up to be one of that mildly active crowd for either a Trust that had woken itself up and done what needs doing to set it on the right path or a new organisation with some spark to it. Not much bothered either way, but reinventing the wheel strikes me as a bit of a waste of time and energy when time is probably not a luxury we've got. Personally, I wouldn't be remotely interested in any greater involvement, which will be a relief to some. It's really time for the silent, possibly comatose majority of fans out there to snap out of it and show some signs of life. Or do we need to wait for the bank to come calling to break us out of this sappy nostalgia for Save The Jags which was, let's face it, a long time and a lot of money ago? Edit: basically kind of what Allan said, then!

I'm glad to hear you're all still pals, Tom. Does make me wonder, though, if these were merely congenial differences among the JTB members about the future direction of the Trust, if anyone on either side - and I know this is a totally insane idea - thought about putting it to the members to decide.

It's worth just letting that paragraph sink in for a few minutes to fully appreciate the agenda of these people. It's like the parasite alien in The Thing. They will try to take over anything that lets them cling to influence for a bit longer. No principle except self-preservation, no purpose except just to be there on the inside.

I don't think the Trust lost its way when the last great burst of resignations happened. The truth is it hadn't ever really found its way. The significance of the 1876 merger vote wasn't about the money - under the 1876 scheme every penny was going to the club. Under the Centenary Fund, the same applied (less a few outrageous overheads). The 1876 was just a lightning rod around which we could try to generate some sparks of interest in the Trust as an entity. If people were winning decent prizes and the club was getting a flow of money and some JTB members were getting out there and hustling people to sign up, there was a chance of maybe getting some kind of momentum going. When all that was given away, though, and there was nothing offered in its place, not surprisingly everything just stalled. For me, naive and childlike as I am among all you cynical types, the real shock was how eager some of the JTB were to throw a wet blanket over everything. To this day, I honestly can't figure out what it is that scares them so much about a Trust that grows bigger and stronger and more confident in its own voice - except that it would mean that voice won't be their voice. Anyway, the chance was gone and another one didn't come along until the recent removal of certain directors. It wasn't something that was brought about solely by the Trust, but it's pretty certain that their stance played a crucial role in finally pulling the rug from under these guys. And what did we see? An instant upsurge of renewed interest and support for the Trust because people could clearly see the value of having intelligent, articulate spokesmen who had the balls to finally say, "Enough." And right on cue the usual suspects (with a long history of gumming up the works as mentioned by Paddy Thistle earlier in the thread) dig in their heels, spooked by the potential and mule-headed enough to wreck the whole Trust rather than step away and let it progress without them. So instead you've lost three guys that were clearly of immense value to the Trust if it was to have any chance at all of finally being useful to its members (and the club). I totally understand their frustration and know exactly how shitty and depressed they will each feel tonight, not at the loss of their personal influence, but at the waste, the terrible waste of an opportunity for all of us. I hope, and fully expect, that the board of directors will look at the dismal wreckers of the JTB and cut them dead. There's got to be something better than this.

Cheers, General. Still ranting and raving a bit in other places, but don't really have the time or the heart for this any more. Trying very hard to wean myself off it, but not having much success. It'll be a tragedy when we lose the main stand - most of my happy memories of Firhill are from over that side of the ground - but on disappointing days like today it's hard to see how we can turn things around.

You have to remember where these guys were at. They had a new blueprint for the future every 18 months and they were all duds. They'd seen their Twechar plans blow up in their faces and all we got was the bing and even more debt. Then there was the weird Keyhaven plan that they disassociated themselves from when it became public. Then I think there was another masterplan in there somewhere under the PTF Developments company they set up. (It's funny to go back and see who were the shareholders in that venture before they all fell out). Then they try Propco and it becomes clear to them that it's going to flop as well. And all the time they're running at a loss, their fundraising schemes are actually costing them money, they don't know that some mug like Melville is going to come in and pay big money for Harkins to clear that mounting tax bill (no other club was spending that summer). Even with the world economic crisis, they had created a local one in Maryhill that was going to drag us under. Probably only the rugby money and a couple of lucky draws in the cup kept us staggering on as far as we did. So you get a cut down Propco for one reason and one reason only: sheer desperation. And then he brags about how financially healthy we were when he stepped down. Cowan does a nice line in revisionist history. When he tries to make the departure of him and Hughes sound like something carefully planned since January, you can only laugh. Six or seven games into a new season is such a perfect time to hand over the chairmanship to...nobody. It was as smoothly and convincingly handled as everything else he did.

We need to put the smartest possible person with the maximum possible backing from the support (ie votes) into the boardroom. But that's for our protection, not primarily to make David Beattie's life easier. One key aspect of the fans' rep role, which has been proven necessary time and time again at clubs large and small, is to keep an eye on what the board are getting up to. Whether or not they like to hear it, or if it offends their sense of honour, the custodians of football clubs have shown themselves all too often not to be trusted and a representative of the fans is not just there to drive the business forward, but to help "keep them honest" (which is not to imply any dishonesty from any member of the PTFC board, past or present, blah blah blah). And to do that now I think we need someone with some savvy on the business and property side because that's an integral part of the club's future existence. A smart, capable fans' rep with strong backing from an energised Trust is what we should always expect/demand anyway. Other qualifications, of the type suggested in Mr Beattie's general positive message, would be a bonus, but to make them a barrier to entry is bullshit and bluster with just a hint of bullying.

Thanks very much, Graeme.

Two questions: 1 At the recent AGM when listing the achievements of the Trust over the past two years Kieron cited: “1876 Merger securing the right to a place on the Club Board in perpetuity without payment of a Directorship fee”. On the face of it, that puts the Trust in quite a strong position when dealing with the current board. Can the Trust make this agreement available on their website so everyone can see precisely how it is worded? Presumably it was tightly drafted and does not permit the board to block this place "in perpetuity" without giving a good reason for doing so. 2 A fairly important Jags Trust Board meeting took place on 8th January 2009, the Thursday evening before the CF/1876 merger vote. The minute for that meeting was approved at the next monthly meeting in February, but seems to have gone missing from the website. Can you arrange for it to be added to the record?

I wrote that blog (and was AKA Fellow Traveller on previous forums) and I totally understand that people are sick of listening to this stuff. That’s why it’s tucked away on a blog. I don’t promote it on here or ask anyone else to promote it on here. It’s not rammed down people’s throats day after day, thread after thread. If you happen to find your way there and think it’s a load of shit, you can leave a comment or simply not go there again. As to whether I’m entitled to voice a view: I’m a supporter of fan involvement, fan representation and ultimately fan ownership. The Jags Trust is only one possible vehicle for that, but if they screw things up, they can do a lot of damage to the cause as a whole, so I make no apology for passing comment from the outside. This is bigger than the Jags Trust. Whether people agree with, respect or choose to ignore my views, I’m not much bothered. But since I’m here... The Trust was wrong to merge the 1876 and Centenary Fund. They were wrong not to publicly oppose Propco. And if they decide to go into battle to force a nominee who never even stood for the post onto a club board that doesn’t want them, that will be an unenviable hat trick. I’ve only taken part in two formal discussions with David Beatie, but that would be two more than 99% of the people here have had and I’m fairly certain that if the Trust goes down this route, his response will be to conclude that you are not serious people worthy of his time and attention. This is a battle where even if you win, you lose. Your genuine influence within that boardroom will be zero and I'm sorry, but I don't see how that helps the fans or the club. Here’s a simple suggestion, though. My contempt for the 1876/CF merger decision and the motives behind it is well known. But Kieron’s outgoing report to the Trust’s AGM listed the following under Achievements: “1876 Merger securing the right to a place on the Club Board in perpetuity without payment of a Directorship fee” Well, if that’s true, the Trust will have a legally-binding agreement to that effect, which presumably doesn’t have huge loopholes in it where the Club Board can block your nominee without giving a valid reason. So produce the document and then enforce it. And if they haven’t got that cast-iron agreement in writing, maybe it’s time to hold their hands up and say they’re a bit out of their depth. And either chuck it or send someone in there this time with the the relevant skills and experience to deal with these businessmen or you will get eaten for breakfast. Again. Good luck!