Woodstock Jag

I think the £600k Jim is talking about is the shortfall in the Club's finances in the 2018-19 season, and a budget set in early summer 2019 for the 2019-20 season. Not the shortfall experienced in the 2022-23 season.

What I think Jim is saying here is that there was no legal mechanism by which 3BC were compelled to transfer the shares to any fan owned group. On that front, transparently, he is absolutely correct. Whilst it is understood that Colin Weir’s wishes for the shares were set out in a side letter to his will (which unlike the will itself is not in the public domain) the sale of shares from Beattie, Allan et al was not done with any legal guarantees of the shares going anywhere beyond 3BC. What there was, however, was a clear promise, presentationally, at least, that a suitable vehicle would be developed to do that. That vehicle grew out of Thistle For Ever, first as the Working Group and then as TJF. Thistle For Ever did of course start up as an attempt to fly the fan ownership flag (but, bluntly, it didn’t have several million pounds to buy the shares, let alone PropCo’s assets). So it quickly found itself having to find someone who was prepared to pony up and give, at least, warm homilies towards the fan ownership direction.

I’m not sure there’s very much value in butterfly-effecting the last 4-5 years of Thistle history. The Conway-Lee deal was always a bit of a non-starter because of the very obvious conflicts of interest. I was highly sceptical of it and said so at the time. I’m much more interested in the situation we are actually in, and how we improve that.

The distinction we draw is that the basis for appointments at the moment is not what we expect the arrangements to be in the longer term. The point is not about personnel but how appointments are made. A board consisting of ad hoc appointments, about half of which were, after all, made during a period of urgency and considerable instability mid-season, is not an enduring arrangement. One with a clear skills-based appointments mechanism and democratic fan representation, along the lines we see at other fan owned clubs, would be.

Three points worth making here: (a) the current Club Board is an interim club board. (b) the individual trustees are expected to step away from their trustee roles once the corporate trustee model has properly bedded in. TJF and The Jags Trust are set to become corporate trustees very soon (wet signature is imminent) (c) TJF has made no secret of our wishes for longer-term Club Board appointments to be made on the basis of skills appraisal and democratic representation I should also stress that, whilst TJF had no shortage of disagreements with the trustees in the past, there is now a strong working relationship with them. And the stronger that relationship is, the sooner we get to the end point of a PTFC Trust run solely by its fan-controlled corporate trustees. And with it a permanent, gold standard, fan ownership set-up.

There are lots of ways you could facilitate investment in a football club without diluting the voting rights of existing shareholders.

I can neither confirm nor deny that TJF has held hostage the ghost John Lambie tickets from the Ayr first leg.

If it provides you with any comfort here, we took extensive advice from a VAT specialist earlier this year specifically with a view to ensuring our structure was as well protected as possible against VAT registration. VAT registration would have a negative impact on the revenue TJF could raise (since 20% of our VATtable transactions would be owed in VAT). However, as East Kent Jag correctly points out, we would also be able to recover VAT on any VATtable goods and services we buy (e.g. Thistle Pins acquisition, VAT on hire of venues for events etc). It is extremely unlikely that either (a) entirely voluntary donations given by members to members organisations or (b) entirely voluntary donations from limited companies to other limited companies will come to be regarded as VATtable transactions any time soon. Such changes would utterly decimate the voluntary and charitable sector, and probably wouldn't raise the Treasury much additional money.

Short answer is no. GDPR prevents this, as consent given to contact season ticket holders in relation to their purchase of a season ticket doesn't then transfer to consent to be contacted by third parties, without separate consent.

So the numbers are (mostly) automated. Whenever someone completes the sign-up form, it allocates a new number. By default, it doesn't re-use a number of a lapsed member. Sometimes there are bugs which cause numbers to be skipped too. If someone lapses and rejoins, we reactivate their original membership number, but that then leaves their new number vacant. So essentially, your number doesn't tell you very much about how many members we have. The highest membership number right now is 1805, but we have only 1567 active members. Either way, monthly revenue now exceeds our fundraising target, but we also need a buffer to cover operating expenses and to enable us to do things over and above the Club pledge (like hosting members events, working capital for Thistle Pins, sponsoring the women's team, helping Jags For Good/PT Charitable Trust etc. We also want to be able to provide more support to the Club around the time of the transfer windows, but that will depend on building a prudent buffer first. The more folk pledge, the easier that is to do.

As I say, there are literally thousands of membership organisations that operate on this model for VAT purposes, and have done so for decades.

There's a few things in here. Firstly, we aren't going to become the owners of the Club (at least not directly). Instead, we will be a corporate trustee of the majority shareholder, and our members will become beneficiaries of the PTFC Trust. But that's actually all irrelevant. Donations aren't trading income, so they don't count towards the VAT threshold. We've consulted with VAT experts about the membership subscription treatment for VAT purposes (technically a membership is £1 per month of VATable services - our basic membership rate - plus a supplementary donation). Lots of other membership organisations have this structure for the same purposes. Over and above that, the only type of income TJF has at the moment that counts towards the VAT limit is the sale of Thistle Pins. Individuals donating directly to the Club obviously also don't count towards its trading income, and if people really want to do that, that's fine. But if they're wanting to purchase goods and services from the Club, those will be VATttable transactions, unless otherwise exempt.

In the interests of being really boring: 1563 members 999 paying at least £10 per month (some quite a bit more) 240 paying the concessionary rate (£5 per month plus) 226 paying the minimum (£1 per month or less than £5 per month) 96 Junior members (£10 per year) 3 Life members (substantial benefactors) The priority of the TJF budget is meeting the pledge (£10kpm to the Club). This is met after operating costs (eg each £10 payment has transaction fees of about 50p, true of any online payment platform and we have other operating costs holding fan events and the like). Because TJF’s trading income is well below the VAT threshold, there is a tax advantage to fundraising and donating through TJF versus spending money directly on Club services (though those who are able should, we urge, do both). More importantly, community activity mobilises fundraising. This is why fan ownership vehicles are preferable to simply direct donations, as they emphasise the importance of how people react to the commitment of others. We are bringing people into the Thistle community who would not be gifting at all.

Some absolutely hysterical nonsense in here. I’m going to guess that not a single poster in this thread knows what amount of money was offered by Thistle and by other Clubs for players like Docherty, Holt and Turner, or how much it differs from what they were on last season. I’m going to guess that the same number of posters knows how different the deals signed by Bannigan, Muirhead and Sneddon are in money terms compared to their previous deals too. Its blatantly obvious that Thistle aren’t going to just sit there with three keepers in the first team squad, having one of them doing absolutely nothing all year. Away and have a lie down and by all means start expressing concerns about the strength and depth of the squad once we actually have even the faintest idea what it looks like.

More to follow on this very soon.

As other TJF board members can attest, Andrew is robust and evidence-based in his approach with far more modest requests for TJF spend, so I have every confidence a Club board with him on it will be equally robust with the Club's budget!

To put this in context... In my Secretary's update to the TJF board about a month ago, I reported that monthly recurring pledges sat at about £7.6k. Once you took into account Thistle Pins sales and our running costs, that shook out to about £8k per month gross profit. In the last fortnight, we have seen monthly recurring pledges rise to about £13.7k. We are also anticipating that Thistle Pins sales will rise further. Some of our other costs will also rise, such as platform charges, with the increased volume of transactions. But on conservative estimates, we are now raising in excess of £10k per month. We are very confident, even allowing for the hosting of members' events, supporting community causes, and with general running expenses, that TJF can now sustainably contribute £10kpm to the Club for the foreseeable future. Before making the up-front £50k donation earlier this month, we had built-up cash reserves well in excess of that (thanks, in part, to a couple of significant one-off donations from members). That meant we could commit the £50k without eliminating our margin of safety (remember that, anyone?) and have enough cash reserves to operate and mobilise regular activities. In the longer-term, the Club, frankly, would really like to see fan fundraising jump beyond £120kpa. We had suggested to them, when discussing this, that £150k would be a difficult if achievable target (based on the fundraising capability of other fan-owned clubs and our then membership levels). With our new pledges baseline, that figure is extremely achievable. But there is no complacency at all. The Club will be looking to maximise revenue from other sources too, and in the longer-term it should not be dependent on fan fundraising to balance the budget (it should be a bonus if the Club is commercially well run). In the shorter-term, it is unavoidably part of the solution.

For obvious reasons, I can't endorse anyone as the returning officer... But I will say, as a member, it has been very satisfying to see six candidates, each of which would bring something important to the table. We will see in the next year or so that there are lots of ways to be involved with and driving forward the TJF mission. Being a director is just one of them.

AGM Notice TJF has given official notice of its 2023 Annual General Meeting. This will take place at Maryhill Burgh Halls at 7:45pm on Thursday 15th June. More details here: https://thejagsfoundation.co.uk/notice-of-tjf-agm-2023/ TJF Director Elections This morning, e-ballots were sent out to enable members to vote in the TJF director elections. If you were an active member at the start of the election period (i.e. as at Thursday 18th May) you will have the right to vote for up to three candidates out of the six who have put themselves forward. If you cannot find the email from ChoiceVoting with the link to your e-ballot, get in touch at [email protected] and I'll investigate. Members have until 10pm on Wednesday 14th June to cast their vote, and the results will be announced at the AGM. Conference League Survey 373 members have already responded to the TJF Conference League survey. This closes tonight so use the link on Monday evening's reminder email to complete it if you haven't already. We understand that the Club will be considering the formal proposal later this week, so we will make the results available to them as a matter of priority.

This is interesting. I notice the annual amount being made available each year is quite low, and there is likely to be no shortage of competition for smaller amounts. I'm not sure how this scheme would work for a situation like Thistle, where more than 80% of the shares in the Club are already held by (ostensibly) fan controlled entities. It also looks as though whether any loan would be interest free depends very much on the individual circumstances.

Oh, and members have until Wednesday 24th May (inclusive!) to submit their candidacy for the TJF elections! If you can't find the nomination form, get in touch ([email protected]).

A few updates from us in recent weeks worth just reminding folk here: Members' Update on Fan Ownership legals process All is progressing smoothly. We expect the PTFC Trust to hold a non-binding ballot of beneficiaries ahead of implementing the new Trust deed (which TJF board members have been working to support the drafting of). TJF will circulate proposed changes to our own Articles of Association (to enable corporate trusteeship to work properly) at the end of May, for approval by members at our AGM on Thursday 15th June. All going well, this should mean TJF formally becomes a corporate trustee in the summer. This will form the basis of proper fan ownership, and will allow us to work more closely on revamping the Trust-Club relationship to one that is fit for purpose. U16 Memberships TJF is launching, subject to member approval, non-voting junior memberships of the Foundation. We think this is a great way to get the next generation of Jags fans involved in the fan ownership journey. This requires member approval via changes to our Articles, so will be voted on at the AGM as part of the new package. All going well, these will be launched later in June. Ticketing and Crowd Management Issues A lot of members got in touch after Friday's game to express concerns about the ticketing arrangements and the events that took place shortly before the second-half. We issued an update on this on Saturday. We have been talking directly with Club Board members about this, communicated our concerns, and the Club has (in fairness to it) apologised for the ticketing side of this. It is currently investigating what went wrong and the stewarding/policing issues with a view to avoiding any repeat. Conference League We've received a lot of correspondence from members about the proposed Conference League, which would impose a new league consisting primarily of B-teams above the Highland and Lowland Leagues. Our initial view as a group, discussed last night at a TJF board meeting, is that the proposal should not proceed. We have various concerns about this, which you can read about here. However, we are also a members' organisation, and the Club should act in any vote taking into account the wider views of our members and the fans. We're therefore launching a members' survey on the Conference League this evening. We will collate the responses, anonymise them, and provide a summary to the Club, to inform any decision that it might be asked by the SPFL to take in the coming weeks and months. Thistle Pins Check out our Twitter and Facebook later today for a teaser of the May Thistle Pin! Design to be revealed on Wednesday and on sale Thursday! There's some knobbly knees involved!

We had a very poor second quarter, and we conceded too often in the first two thirds of the season. The most remarkable figures in Doolan's tenure so far has been the defensive record. Goals scored is roughly steady across the season, but the defence has been very strong in the last third of the season. The last two league games stick out like a sore thumb by comparison!

So that one game can be televised (this can't happen at 3pm on a Saturday because laws) and to avoid the Disgrace of Gijon.

Not according to the SPFL website https://spfl.co.uk/news/spfl-play-offs-202223 “Please note: In the event Inverness Caledonian Thistle reach both the Scottish Cup final and the cinch Premiership play-off final, the play-off final ties will take place on Tuesday June 6 and Friday June 9.”