Thetownend.com

http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/15158582.Supporters__Trust_consider_bid_for___1_1m_County_Ground/

For more info come to the Trust AGM tonight at the Goddard Arms

http://truststfc.tv/agm/

I believe James Phipps is part of the trust....

Thankyou.

Wish I could head down but wouldn't be able to get there on time.

Look forward to the updates

Good luck to them. I'd be interested to hear how this is intended to work if Power continues to own the club. I've finally reached the point that I'm convinced we need new owners.

Fair play to them if they can come to an agreement with the council and then the club over rental.

Hopefully then the ground facilities can then be brought up to league 2 standard.

The problem may arrise if the present or future owners of the club decide to eventually move to a new ground, thats a large investement with that sporting covenant hanging over their heads meaning the land cannot be sold for anything other than sporting use rendering it almost valuless if that did happen in time unless the covenant can be changed.

Great idea. Struggling to see any downside to this.

A very good plan - in principle!  Can never see it happening sadly but it would be good for the town in general if it could happen but let us not forget that although SBC appear to be supportive of the principal there is an awful lot of work to do before any conclusion.  SBC also offered the club some land on which to build a new stadium some years ago and quickly withdrew that offer after ONE councillor raised objections!!

I'll chip in a 5er

Would be great if it came off, and if the Club are paying c.200k PA for it that's an 18% yield on the investment which is unheard of, although I do wonder whether the members will go for such a beneficial deal to the Trust which is not great value for the tax payer, especially as the idea that it will include a club museum, sport-themed hotel and gym, and a ‘Legends Way’ suggests its more than the footprint of the ground?

The next step would be raising the money to actually tidy the place up a bit, whilst the Trust would not be looking to take a profit c.£200k per year is not a lot of money to bring up to standards so we shall see. Plus I am sorry to say whenever I read the word 'investors' in terms of buying any football ground my ears prick up and my bum gets squeaky.

At least a bit of bright news....

Which it can, it can be bought out from the Goddard estate. We go over this every time the covenant is discussed!

Indeed but at even greater cost to the Trust/Investors?

Well, yes, but it's an exit route in the scenario that PV posited - not suggesting it's easy/desirable, but buying the ground doesn't have to mean you're locked into a dead elephant (mixed metaphor intentional!) in the event that a future owner moved to a different ground. It's an excellent scheme IMO

Forgive my ignorance but i don't see why this is such a good idea?

If the club wishes for any future beyond being a 4th division club then it requires either complete ground redevelopment or a new ground. Either scenario being required for the club to generate income beyond the 23 home days in a season. Now given this is the only way to potentially make money from the club why is the trust owning this a good idea when its the only thing that a new owner/investor would really want with the club? Especially given the trust i assume would not be able to sell this to an investor and the council would have a buy back clause.

It seems to me something that could help the club in the short term possibly but given the only real future for the club requires us to make the leap 2/3rds of the football league already has i'm not sure how it solves the bigger problem here.

Maybe it's the first step to STFC being a trust-owned club. Maybe there is someone in the background willing to step in and revamp the ground as long as it's not council owned.

It's about the only bright spot in a shite couple of seasons.

My concern is what Lee Power has planned. Would buying the ground safeguard us from administration once he decides to walk away, presumably after he's cashed in on Vigs? It might sound like a stupid question but I genuinely want to know.

Indeed it is and I admit I am being unduly cynical when I see the suggestion that 'Investors' are involved?

If they buy the ground for say £1.1m, club decides to bugger off after 4 years (so they could have recouped say c.£1m in rent and remember that the club have to maintain the ground as part of the lease so outgoings could be minimal), then spend say £1m getting the covenant removed, they are still only £1m down and have a piece of prime central Swindon real estate to do with what they choose, and I don't believe for one second that the Council would have the ability or appetite to enforce any buy back clause.

I will emphasise again that I think as it stands its a great idea (although I would echo the post above about being unsure how it benefits the long term sustainability of the club - unless it is phase 1 of a wider plan to ultimately buy the club and unite club and ground), however my cynic alarm keeps going off with the same question - how would people react if Power and 'investors' were looking to complete the same process.

I have probably missed it, but can you point me to the credible source that suggests that Power is planning to sell Vigorous and walk away? If that were the case would he not be playing players like Evans who have ability and thus a likely value to get rid of them also in the summer - of even just for compensation fee?

my thoughts:
  - roof on stratton bank = stupid waste of money
 - this = good

Jesus how much do you think Vigs is worth?!

I did say presumably so wasn't stating it as fact. I'd be very surprised to see Vigs here next season. You could say he does see the value in players like Evans and Smith which is why he's sent them to Waterford. I believe Smith at least, is out of contract in the summer so Waterford could snap him up on a free. He could sell him from them in the future and make money. I have no idea what is in the guy's head but I do fear for the future of the club. I just don't see the point in owning the ground if Power effs off and leave us in admin, unless its part of an overall plan to buy the club in such an event.

Then you have my apologies as I have never read anything on here previously about the covenant and have not contributed to any thread that mentioned it, I shall now shut up.

Just crossed my mind when replying to another thread, where does this sit with the money we owe Black if the ground is developed, could this be a way of circumventing that if the redevelopment is undertaken by the Trust (but possibly funded by A.N. Other?

 This is definitely a knock down price.... it may well be a case that if the Trust don't get it then the sharks will.  SBC are covering their political arse, by offering the Trust first dibs.

If it doesn't work out then they can sell to a Consortium of Terry Brady, Mike Diamandis, Danny Donegan, Jim Little, Rufus Brevitt, Ian Blatchley, Jed, Callum Rice, Tommy Agombar and Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all.

Vigs is just one player of many who Power has sold over his time here. I'm not suggesting Vigs is worth 5 million ffs, but a few hundred thousand which still goes towards what Power feels he is owed. We don't know how much he has made from other sales, perhaps he has made enough to recoup his money already or a little more. I'm sure someone here will do the sums and correct me. I am aware money doesn't always get transferred in a lump sum and does come in instalments or with add ons so it can take some time, so he may not have reached the figure he feels acceptable yet. Obviously he would want to make a profit but who's to say once he's made enough he won't just say 'thanks I'm off' and leave us in the shit?

Sorry PV didn't mean to come across as snippy with you but this, along with the legend of the bloke on Shrivenham Rd that blocked planning permission for redeveloping the Stratton Bank (he didn't, there was no such bloke, the club got planning permission but didn't use it), really does have to be one of the hoariest old chestnuts about ground redevelopment and it comes up every single time it's discussed.

What is? Not seen a price attached to this?

It says £1.1m in the Advertiser piece?

I need to learn to read things better :)

Dpon't they have to offer it to the Trust first, the whole ACV first dibs to the community malarky?

You need to read my posts better as well, bitch  ;) as I mentioned the price above and the yield they could turn on it, Christ an 18% yield just to rent to the club is easy money for the Trust and their backers, if the Trust opened it out to members to invest and avoided any large investors I would pile in, its 4-5 times what you would get in the Building Society at the moment!  :hmmm:

Not a problem but I genuinely had not heard that before and also I have not heard that version of the "old man with the sun been blocked in his garden" story, when I worked at the club that was always the line the hierarchy told the employees. This is the first time I have heard a different version.

It did always strike me at the time that it didn't sound right and we were told back in the late 80s that he was also in his 70s or 80s so would not be an issue now as he would have moved on probably.

Yes, so in effect the Trust has to put up or shut up.  Failure would then mean a sale to the sharks and the lucre going towards the new art gallery. SBC need to find 5 mill. Not an easy sell whennyou've just raised Council Tax by 10%, but easier to swing by using funds from selling assets.

Whilst on paper owning the ground would be good this also has catastrophic potential for the clubs future. If the Trust don't 'put up' then in all likelihood we are going to be left without a ground as other parties are bound to be interested at such a knock down price.

It Power (the club) don't come to the table during these discussions then even I will start to question his intentions as would suggest he has other plans or doesn't really where we play.

I'd be more concerned if he did, some of his previous involvements in clubs where the ground has been in play, or the involvement of his partners in other clubs, are a big part of why I was initially very dubious about him being owner. Albeit they were a long time ago and he wasn't the main player in the property aspects. But none of them went well for the clubs concerned.

I get what you are saying but you would expect the club to show some interest in a potential change in ground ownership as it will have a significant impact on them.

Doesn't the club own the DR Stand or something as well which I'm sure would need to factor into discussions.

Just a plea to anyone within the hierarchy of the Trust, can you please sort your website and SEO out, if you google Truststfc you get .co.uk, .com and .tv, now I think its the .tv which is the up to date version but all the others still have live websites, could they not just automatically link to the most up to date URL?

A  decent non league club could easily operate out of a slightly upgraded Supermarine ground.... the likes of Burton and Fleetwood have shown a capacity of about 6,000 isn't necessarily a problem.

Doesn't the piece suggest that Sangita has had some involvement with the Trust and these meetings?

Not with regards to the ground purchase it says Power has shown little interest.

Well done Reg. Yesterday you had us relegated already from League 2 to the conference and now you have cut our core support to half of what it is at the moment only needing a capacity of 6k.

Burton and Fleetwood are both newish league clubs with not much history and very small crowds, Fleetwood averaging just over 3k and Burton averaging just under 5k in the Championship.

Both those clubs have several other large clubs around them vying for support whereas we don't, our fanbase is quite comfortably 2 or 3 times the size of both those teams.

If we were in Fleetwoods position in the table we would (and have) average 10k home crowds and possibly 12k if we were in the Championship as Burton are.

I'm merely responding to Theakston's assertion that
The lack of any proper effort to stave off relegation this season, does raise valid questions of intent The acquisition of Waterford, does suggest Power is more interested in club collecting than being too bothered about the status of the club...increasingly it looks like a non league STFC wouldn't cause him much loss of sleep.

Sorry but I might have missed it, but are we looking at a similar option to Chelsea Pitch Owners Ltd? Can we buy the naming rights as well?

This is exactly the sort of thing the Trust should be looking to do, stage one of a long term plan to secure the club.  With the possible yield on investment I would have a guess that funding would not be an issue here, at least externally that is.  The key will be to ensure a balance between loaning capital and obtaining member investments as well.

Given the Trust does not need to make a profit themselves, they can clearly divert efforts into developing the property and supporting the leaseholder as needed, so I think this actually does benefit the club longer term.  Given the trend in recent years it has confused me as to why nobody has sought to purchase the ground, the Council would sell their own office chairs right now.

PaulD - might need to go dust off that 2007 proposal :-)  Ad the Oasis is still looking unlikely to ever get developed................

Spot on, on all points Rob. Exactly what the Trust should be doing. That and sorting out their 48,000 websites as horlock said.

The current incumbents should still have copies. It's a sad indictment on the lack of progress in the Town over the past decade that much of that proposal and the surrounding arguments would still be directly relevant today.

Here's the AGM downloadable pack...

http://truststfc.tv/trust-stfc-agm-the-full-downloadable-information-pack/

There's your elephant in the room.  SBC are minded to cash in on this asset, but must give the community first dibs before flogging to a developer.

This begs the question....does the fan base have sufficient fight to keep whatever remains of the club at the CG.  My own gut feeling is no it doesn't.

Probably not, but I guess that would be our own fault. These things are not a spectator sport

Which presupposes that someone's looking to move it? Of which there is precisely no indication whatever is there?

SBC are getting rid of the assets owned in a sense by the people of Swindon. Selling the family silver.

Now if as appears to be the case the decision to sell the CG has been taken, if the Trust doesn't buy it sharks will. Then the club is fucked, it's as straightforward as that. At least we have an option, which has not been the case at a number of clubs.

Completely agree with all that. The Trust has to buy it, or we are wide open to asset strippers of a kind that will make Jed look benign

Which was precisely my point earlier, if the Trust doesn't 'step up' then I can't help but feel we could be in all kinds of trouble.

Rogers on current squad: "I think we all hope we're going to stay up but we know we're not going to"

Don, in case anyone else did the same as me and presumed Anton had bizarrely shown up to the Trust AGM.

Not sure I understand this "spend £1.1m then rent out for £200k and make 18%"

Is this assuming that Power will pay £200k plus all the running costs, council tax, insurance, stewarding, policing, maintenance etc.? 

Well, he does now. A change of landlord makes no difference.

Danger would be that Power plays the Trust off against the fans. e.g. I'm not buying players because the Trust won't reduce their rent. Potential conflicts need to be considered carefully.

I also wouldn't trust him not to screw us over in the future on training ground rent in return...something he'll probably do anyway for years to come, long after he's gone.

Looking at the tweets from last night, I would say the trust don't trust Power and reckon this whole saga could get messy.

I found the tweets a bit hard to get the gist of tone wise.

It seemed to me the Trust were saying give Power the chance to sort things out. Here is what we, the fan backed trust, would like to happen... (e.g. transparency on accounts, etc).

In the meantime here is what we'd like to do regardless....(atmosphere, CG ground purchase, etc).
---
Anyone go care to comment?

At first I thought there was going to be a bit more of an aggressive stance taken. But given the lack of information out the club I guess it would have been a foolish opening stance really, why knacker any potential future relationship before its had a chance.

Ball is in Power's court and I suspect a lack of engagement will follow.
-----

We will see what unfolds.

If Power is the bad man in all of this, then surely he would also make a bid for the CG? That is a very valuable source of income.

That'd be Rodgers

Sent from my SM-G930F

I went along.  You are pretty much spot on, really.

The Trust's line was to try to engage with Power (no direct contact thus far) and to encourage him to improve communication with the fan base (more transparency, publish full accounts, etc).  All good sensible stuff but communication is a two-way thing and, if Power won't engage, nothing much is going to happen IMO.  The Trust seem serious about trying to buy the CG but not much detail given about how the money would be raised.  They have put a lot of info on their website but I haven't had time to look for it yet. [Edit - Here's a link to it: http://truststfc.tv/trust-stfc-agm-the-full-downloadable-information-pack/ ]

Probably around 60 - 70 people there.  So unlikely to cause Power any sleepless nights.  Trust needs to grow in size and strength.  

Hence the ACV designation giving the Trust first dibs, I assume that if they can raise the money to meet the Councils valuation then Power will be erm.... Powerless to stop them buying it.

In terms of the wider outcomes should the Trust proceed and buy the ground the issue almost becomes one of Mutually Assured Destruction, if the Trust own the ground they need the clubs rent to get their money back, however likewise if the fans have clubbed together to buy the ground it would be commercial suicide for Power to fuck them around whilst his core consumer base have their hard earned tied up in the ground as that would almost guarantee the fans walking away? It nothing else it will force Power to the table one way or the other.

I still think that its a good idea, dependent upon the Trust managing to get enough fans to contribute to get a broad investment in the project, if it transpires that most of the money comes from a few individuals that would concern me greatly as they would essentially control our destiny to a degree (and investors tend to either want interest or the money back) and never underestimate the ability of voluntary organisations to start a fight in an empty room, especially once money and MBE chasing is involved.

The info pack is an interesting read, some good ideas in there on how the money could be raised.

And I may have missed something, but Sir Andrew Black???

Talking of Black have any of the Twitterati on here asked him directly what the situation is with regards to the money owed to him & how it becomes payable? It seems to be a bit of a grey area on here as I've seen a few different scenarios that have been talked of. I'm wondering how forthcoming he would be with a response as he's long since out of here & may well wish to divulge the answer if somebody were to ask the question.

In my opinion it's absolutely key that the club is on board and engaged if the Trust does proceed with buying the ground otherwise it could end being a pointless exercise. If the club shows no interest then we could easily end up in Coventry playing at Northampton situation where the club just go elsewhere as one thing Power is is stubborn and I don't think he'd have any hesitation ditching the County Ground if he pushed into a corner.
If the club engage then I would happily donate but a the risk of a ground without a club wouldn't be something I would put any money towards.

Read the PDF, seems quite clear the trust don't see any benefit in turning power into the enemy, but acknowledge his faults and show a willingness and need to work together for the benefit of the club. I've just signed up and donating more than I probably can afford, because it seems like something
Worthwhile. I can only hope other fans see it the same way

I'd agree with that. I've generally supported the aims of the Trust in the past without really getting involved, didn't contribute the Stratton Bank fund because I couldn't really see the point covering an empty stand, but buying the CG is a genuinely excellent idea and, if the council are to sell, the Trust are better owners than anyone else who would bid. I'll be contributing.

Its all a bit of a grey area, as the thing we don't know is how much notice the club have to give the ground owners that they wish to terminate the lease?

Likewise giving it a bit more thought its entirely in Powers interest to remain ambivalent about the whole thing for now, as that would place doubts in the Trusts mind, allow the ACV created period to lapse and then he could step in and buy it?

The point I was making is a) if fans have put their hands in their pockets and Power decides to sod off its going to immediately alienate the fanbase even more as they will have a direct financial interest and I suspect depart the club in droves? and b) the Trust would only need the club to occupy for 4ish years and the money is made back, remembering that the club are on a full repairing lease so the Trust don't actually need to spend a penny in that time without commitment from the club? Could the club either find somewhere to play locally in that period or secondly find some land, design a stadium, get planning permission, raise the finance and then build the ground in that period?


+1

They're currently on a monthly rolling lease but, presumably, if the Trust (or whoever) were to take ownership of the CG, they would want to negotiate a longer lease with sensible 'get out' clauses.

Currently, Power's options for taking the Club elsewhere are quite limited aren't they?

Horlock, you are assuming the Trust would seek to keep the contract the same. They could for example reduce the rent and not look for much ROI. Depends who end up funding it I suppose

(apologies if they said this was the case in the info)

They might well do that and it would make sense with a co-operative tenant, I would expect they would want the club signed up for a period of time to make such a commitment.

That's where my concern starts however is that if the purchase ends up being funded by a few wealthy individuals it rather ceases to be a 'fans initiative'?

 

Possibly so, although with the way we are playing at the moment the local rec could suffice in a few years time?

Don't I remember a club like Brentford's ground was fan owned or something and the owner basically forced through a sale.

I'm surprised the council are willing, as £1m straight up compared to a regular £200k income a year -but then this is SBC and as someone else has said they would sell their granny if they thought they could get a few quid.

I would hope that any purchase will include covenants so if x person put's up 40% but is happy for it to be trust owned they are unable to call in debt and thus become the new majority owner and force a sale.   Would want to see TrustSTFC hold a 50% + 1 share so they are majority holders and cant be forced to do anything members do not agree on

,

Yes.  If Reg's doom-mongering is to be believed, it won't take long.  :)

I think Griffin Park was fan owned, but I think the club own it now? I only know this as I had some (very limited) involvement on behalf of a 3rd party regarding the planning application for their new ground, which includes a shed load of new housing and some rather wide ranging assumptions to support the land assembly process for the site.

Chelsea is a better example of where we could be, the freehold of Stamford Bridge and the naming rights of "Chelsea FC" is held by the fans via Chelsea Pitch Owners. The fans then lease this back to the club at a peppercorn rent. The club obviously is in very lucrative real prime estate territory which could have been simply sold off for development.

However the fans' arrangement has prevented a multi-billionaire Russian from relocating the club away from the Bridge.

if Power wants to soil OUR (i'm gonna invest) pitch with his toilet set up he can ruddy well pay double the rent :)

The terms of any SBC deal will be critical to the value.

A brief period of SBC vulnerability may be presenting an opportunity.

I fear that STFC (read Power at present) could blackmail the Trust into reducing / foresaking rent by threatening to liquidate the club (and thereby securing the club owners' own profits or debts).  Nevertheless the Club would be unlikely to have a Ground meeting League standards (if we remain in the League) available elsewhere so would have some sort of commercial tie to the CG.

Nevertheless it would put the Trust in the picture as long as STFC was based at the CG.  It would prevent either the Club's owners or a new Third party being able to mess STFC about.  It may even allow a share of a future planning gain (if related to a ground move)  to be rolled over.  My suspicion is that any future "buyback" by SBC would involve it retaining a hefty planning gain for itself ("overage") but would that be 100% of a planning gain and what other terms would apply such as an option for SBC to re-purchase.  One million might either be cheap or expensive depending on terms.

The Goddard Estate may in theory be capable of releasing the covenant affecting the CG if there were an opportunity to share in a planning gain but others are far more knowledgeable on those arrangements.  Any potential gain vesting in the Trust would on the face of it be very re-assuring.

Are the more detailed proposed terms of any SBC/Trust deal out there?

I'll be honest, I've not read all the posts on this thread, some but not all.

I see the CG, ownership thereof and it's future development in a similar vein as the mechanics institute. It is and always will be a white elephant. The council own it but cannot afford to or want to spend money on it. The football club operate from it but like a house tenant, council or private, makes no difference, maintain its upkeep to keep the owners off their backs.

No one in their right mind would pump a penny into it without full ownership and having carte blanch to do what they wish, within planning laws & regs of course. Then there is the sporting covenant to muddy the waters.

If there was an individual or company with enough money to buy from the council the CG, car park, cricket club and sports field behind the bank, develop the whole site to include the football stadium and other things to make the site viable 24/7- 365 then the future would look decidedly rosey. Then you wake up and find out we're in the fourth division.

Summer of 69. When is the media push with regards to this going to begin? Has there been much interest in terms of fan investment yet? Has the crowdfunding website been launched or is due to be?

i asked earlier:

@batch_2001 The vehicle for the purchase will be community shares, funds and backing needed now to reflect support. Details to follow soon.

TBF, they've had huge chunks of the Adver for two days last week, and it's been all over social media and BBC. Think the media push has already begun.

As horlock pointed out though, it might also help if the Trust could work out which of the 3 truststfc websites we're supposed to look at - .com, .co.uk, .tv all currently have different content, some more current than others. At least get the old ones to redirect to the current one?

Which is literally a two minute job for each domain.

Do we still have the Loud and Proud Lovelies on the website?

to be honest the trust website is a bit confusing. dipped in earlier (using mobile)  and find it a bit hard to a) find all the membership package options and b) work out which funding money goes where..e.g. assumed RAF would be used for ground purchase but it isn't and I've no interest in contributing to a stratton bank roof.

i get that people have jobs and it's not easy to spend time on it, just a bit of feedback.

So have you sent the critical feed back to the trust?

For anyone else who is interested, the.tv website has two clear links at the top of the home page which direct you to details of the Red Army Fund and the projects (in addition to the Stratton Bank Roof) that contributions currently go towards. 

I would include a screenshot but I don't know how to upload one here.   :-[

not yet, will do later from home

I live in Wales so don't read the Adver & I'm not on FB/Twitter so rely on this site more than anything these days. Just thought this thread was strangely quiet. Was expecting daily dialogue on here to be honest. A running total would be nice as time progresses so we can see how much has been raised & perhaps gauge how realistic a process this whole thing is.

So it's not so much a media campaign as a TEF-specific hype campaign you were looking for? :)

Shouldn't that be a Taff specific hype campaign?

Pretty much yeah  :D

I think it's quiet as it's a bit difficult to get excited about. We've been told the Trust have been in talks on this for 2 years, with SBC and some contact from the club.

Very definition of between a rock and a hard place.

A formal offer was apparently turned down. 2 years of negotiating is quite a long time...apparently about the time the Tory Brexiteers, will have negotiated England and Wales' out of the EU.

Just to rub salt into the wounds I saw on the south news that an ex chairman of Disney is in talks to buy Portsmouth.

Why couldn't he have chosen us! :cry:

We are twinned with Disneyland after all.

Takes the Mickey.

What happens if the trust get to own the ground then Mr Power decides not to pay the rent,STFC apocalypse.

That was a one year deal, long since ended.  Was with Disneyworld, involved a small plaque in Epcot dedicated to Swindon.

Swindon's better anyway.
I bet Disneyworld doesn't have 5 Greggs or pop up brothels.

Swindon 1
Disneyworld 0

I do feel that the Trust kind of need to start a fresh here.

The whole thing kind of seems all over the place to me at the moment.  When you click on the links it takes you to pages to either build a roof  or clean up the stratton bank etc. This should be a clear vision of what is needed no confusion.

On a separate note was a bit miffed when at the meeting last week how when someone suggested these meetings could be held at the CG hotel after a game they turned their noses up at this.

I know it was a while back but the Trust gained alot of new numbers back in the orange hat days by holding these meetings at places like the CG and the Moonies

I think this is all perhaps down to the plethora of websites and stories, if you are not aware that they are the same group its like the Judea Peoples Front.

I wonder did the Adver writing about this catch them off their guard a bit as it seems to have got quite big without any coherent plan to move forward in terms of fundraising or supporter engagement?

I do agree with DRS to a point, I've signed up for membership to show support but I'd contribute more to a clearer, specialised fund to buy the CG. Not, with the best will make the world, to fund some more streamers next time we play Oxford (presumably in the cup...)

You are spot on.  The document they provided suffered from this as well, lots of different areas they want to focus on, which is fine for the wider group, but they really have a chance with CG of having a key project that nearly everyone could get behind.

They should carry on in committee doing the other stuff and make this the single central plank they work on externally now.  Ideas/proposals for future development are great a getting interest, so maybe more than on option being discussed here, but the main thrust has to simply be Fan based ownership of the CG, full stop.  Each meeting is then about how to progress that plan.  What is the target for funding? what means are available, assess them and target the chosen methodology, by what timeline, how do we propose to negotiate with the Council, initial 1-2 year plan post purchase and so on.

Even at this stage either a) having a sign up on the website that if you are interested in becoming involved/contributing to the CG purchase project give us an email address and we will be in touch with a prospectus when launched. or b) a stand alone campaign/website (under the Trust banner and after sorting out the other web addresses) that details the project. I assume that if the ground were bought it would be under a subsidiary of the Trust to limit liability so that could provide the umbrella for all that?

Yep they did. Lunchtime meetings before games on a Saturday as well. When people will most likely be able to come along and then head straight to the game afterwards. Makes sense really.

I haven't signed up to anything at the moment. I like the idea but for me there still isn't enough information. Also it needs a lot of support. At the moment I'm not seeing a lot of people getting involved. Seems like a bit of a pointless investment if the numbers aren't going to be there. If it's promoted well and clear visions are made i can see there being a lot more support for it though.

I know what you mean, but all you can do is sign up yourself and hope that we gain momentum. You can always cancel if nothing comes of it.

The advert is available online and on an app. That's what I do to keep up with what is happening in my town 🖒

Sent from my SM-G935F

Dean you are right, I went to a couple of Trust meetings and although the people running it come over as well educated and looking for the best I came away with the feeling that they looked down on the ordinary Joe on the street!  Just my opinion on how it came across to me!

Seems like a lot of people have found reasons not to sign up to the Trust, which is a shame. A club our size should have a lot more than a couple of hundred paying members. As the Trust has said, Grimsby managed to raise £400k from supporters. I think we're pretty lucky to have such an engaged and proactive Trust. We're not going anywhere if apathy is what defines our fanbase.

Not sure you can blame the fans.It isn't apathy it's not knowing what is going on.An example is this, i was at the last meeting and in the space of 2 hours we discussed donating to the following

Red Army Fund
JayBoxes flags and banners
The Supporters Club

What i am saying is come out with a plan. Tell us what the money is for 

Sounds like a lack of focus. Agree with whoever it was who said if the Trust are serious about the ground buyout, they should just focus on that.

Doesn't sound too unclear to me. These are three different organisations. Fund who you like. The Trust is happy to promote the others, but they also produced a very clear manifesto in the AGM pack - did you read that?

I think withholding any investment until they've met everyone's very high standards just seems like a clever way of expressing apathy. Pay up, speak up and/or get involved if you don't like what they're doing. I think they're getting better and better.

Ok simple question. I pay £20 right now into the red army fund, what is it going towards?

Exactly my point from earlier. I had to tweet Trust/Steve M to find out if this was what would now be used towards the ground purchase  - it isn't.

As far as I can see it still goes towards the Stratton Bank and other non-descript improvements. I don't want to contribute to a Stratton Bank roof. I think its pointless. That doesn't mean I am not in on the ground purchase.

I've not (re)joined the trust because I couldn't find the page that told me the membership options and costs. I think its hidden behind the free associate member signup.

In fact, the ground purchase info isn't obvious at all -even as a "watch this space", so any goodwill of the soft launch is going to be lost if not addressed soon.
=============
Its criticism, but not of the nasty kind. Just pointing it out so it can be worked on. The Trust must monitor social media and report back on things?

The Trust have set themselves a hugely ambitious target (and it's a really good one and I hope everyone gets behind it). They need to do all they can to engage as many people as possible. If a lack of clarity around their aims is a stumbling block for some who would otherwise be genuinely well disposed towards this venture, they need to work out how to remove those impediments. DRS isn't apathetic, and he's not one to make excuses for the sake of it and he's not the only one to comment on a lack of clarity - the 3 different websites doesn't help for a start.

I would happily join and part ways with money for the CG, good money too, but all I can see from the RAF site is to build the bank roof.

Come on Trust fellas!! We want to help!

The last couple of pages alone of thjs thread are enough to convince me that the trust shouldn't be allowed to own the county ground.
That's without going into the ridiculously low price for the site that would be cheating the non football fans of the town.

Because two or three people aren't clear about the initial stages of the launch? Bit sweeping?

It's not just that though is it?
If it was then yes it would be a " Bit sweeping"

I dunno, you were the one that thought that something in the past couple of pages was so damning that the Trust should not be allowed to buy the CG. All I could see over the past couple of pages was some (quite reasonable) complaints about a lack of clarity in the initial launch. What is it then that the Trust have done that is so wrong?

I mentioned about a singular focus.

I think the pack handed out was a glowing example of the problem they'll face - a lot of good stuff, rambled on a bit with opinion (which most would agree with) but the thrust of the CG gets lost in that.

If this was the launch of an initiative for the CG, then I would say they NEED to take a decisions swiftly to pause everything else.  For no other reason than trying to spin that many plates will create very real delays with this significant and worthy effort.  Arriba could be right - if they try and do everything, eventually they'll lose focus on the CG and tricky obstacles will be magnified (because they will happen).  Anything that shows people on the fence that they can't handle the wider "manifesto" will be reason enough that it shouldn't be them taking on this great cause.

That means pushing some worthy causes to the back for a while, but it must be done.  Pretty significant business people with their main focus directed on a ground purchase and following development have failed miserably.  How a volunteer group can hope to improve on that without dedicating all their free time to this would be beyond me.  You'd have to be a crazy egomaniac to think you could do it all without dropping some plates.

The Trust could probably do with two websites in total, one for their general well being and one for the CG purchase.  The former should, for now, push heavily towards the latter as well.

Think you're spot on there Rob

All just looks like typical forum carping to me. Moan at the board, moan at the team, moan at the Trust. But do anything about it? Me?

Who was making these points at the meeting? Rob T apparently. Anyone else? Lots of the reasons for not backing the Trust look like minor quibbles, rather than actively opposing it. It will fold quickly enough if the fans don't care about it.

I didn't manage to make the meeting, 4,000 miles and the Atlantic ocean got a little in the way.

The Trust's most successful period was when everyone rallied around a single cause - get Diamandis Out!  I joined as a result, also helping come up with a budget and fixit proposal for a CG development to try and show the club what could be achieved.

They won't succeed if they try it all.

I want them to succeed.

Getting Diamandis out probably worked, but wasn't really a positive campaign.  Buying the ground, beyond buying the club, is the single biggest and most positive action they could ever take.

 I just don't think the fans' heart is in it any longer.  

SBC are clearly offering first dibs on the sale of the CG to the Trust as they have to, much like the running of Lydiard.

If the Trust can't come up with the lucre then it will be offered out to developers. The club only has a short lease agreement, and Power could operate any rump STFC in non league at Supermarine, with a bit of an upgrade.

Wow!

The trust haven't done anything wrong as such, it's just that i don't think they've done enough right to justify being gifted the county ground at the current time. It's a huge responsibility and i think they have some way to go yet.

I also worry that even if they secured​ the ground there inevitably would be in fighting within the trust committee at some point. There would be major issues between the trust and the owner of the club too. I can't see it working harmoniously but i am a pessimist by nature.

Fair enough, all valid concerns. But if the council are looking to sell the CG, then the alternatives to the Trust are considerably less appealing - asset strippers or only ever being one forced sale away from asset strippers. If the club (or separately it's owners) had owned the CG under Diamandis or when Black threw his toys out of the pram into the grateful lap of Jed, there wouldn't be a County Ground now. And probably not a club, either. So while your misgivings are understandable, if it's going anywhere I'd far rather it went to the Trust. The alternatives make Reg look cheerful :)

I agree with Reg.
The facilities at Webbs Wood stadium are better than the CG.

I've signed up and hope that many more do as well. Agree that things could be clearer with websites etc but purchasing the ground would be fantastic.

In order to be acceptable for the Conference, the capacity would need to be brought up to about 4,500 minimum. The DRS which will need to come down for any development could be re-cycled or perhaps a bit of Nene Park might be more suitable.

Agree with that.

Signed up this morning.

Signed up to what, membership to the trust?

Well done, PlymRed.  Me too (I think my membership had lapsed).

As Paul effectively says, an acquisition of the CG by the Trust will always be "better than the alternative".

IMO,  it is the only way in which the Trust can make a difference of real significance.

TEF is great for the fun, the information and the Happy Clapper v Robinmoaner debates (in short, the bollocks) but 5 minutes and GBP 12.00 p.a. to become a member at this point seems good value to even the surliest or the most wavering of fans.

http://www.redarmyfund.co.uk/donate/?nk=884-092d31aa3c

I am being grumpy again here, but that's another bloody website.... and if you click on projects ground purchase is not even mentioned and the last news story is 2015?

Come on Trust, you have a half decent journalist on board  ;), you are obviously good at designing websites yet over a week after it became public there appears to be nothing on any of the plethora of sites detailing what fans should do - a press release, a flyer anything?

I will renew my membership but if I didn't red on here I would know nothing and be very confused?

 

What I do like on that link though is the cryptic line "Mug items displayed below have been replaced by boxed metal pens" which surely must be a reaction to Sweary Tim's rant - no fackin' mugs!

The Trust should market mugs with the SY avatar of Squires' work on it. Could be a winner.

It would have to be sold as a "Fackin Mug". I'd buy one. Although clearly they should actually be sold in twos, so there's a spare for when you throw one across the kitchen in homage to Tim's inspiring half-time team talks.

You could get the full STFC afternoon tea set - four facking mugs and a "we go again" cake stand (collapsable, obviously. Not always at the desired time)

That deserves a "You're Alright" Nemo. Very good

Yep, silver membership. We need as many people as possible to sign up and help. The more members the trust has, the bigger the voice and the more power it has.

Nene Park is already being demolished (see below); there won't be anything left soon.

http://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/argyle-memories-of-playing-at-the-demolished-nene-park/story-30173156-detail/story.html

I'm holding off until I understand what money goes where
(yes I have contacted them).

Is the money being raised towards the purchasing of the CG being ring fenced so it cannot be used on anything else (like it was when TrustSTFC used the RAF for player wages) ?

If the Trust do not managed to buy the CG what will happen to the money that was raised ?

Is there a total the Trust want to raise over how longer period, and if they do not get there, what happens, will they be willing to go into 'partnership' and perhaps form a consortium to own the CG with some wealthy individuals who are trust sympathizers.

Can fan's 'pledge' substantial donations (thinking over 3 figures) to be put in if x amount is raised

Sorry, I expected after their initial launch for this to be splashed everywhere, these are the sort of questions I'd expect to be put somewhere in the public domain with answer next to them so people can go direct to a particular site maybe and get these sort of answers (apologies if they have been answered and I've not seen it).

Maybe they have not worked everyone out yet, I'm hoping they have and just not had time to get all the info out there fully as this needs to be a success.

To be honest I have just go for the £1 a month option for now until some answers are provided.

yeah, that a reasonable no-risk option :)

This is largely where I am. If i donate I only want it going towards the ground project, I've no interest in donating to Jaybox's flags and streamers. And it'll surely have to be done on a pledge basis or ring fenced with a legal guarentee to return peoples money if it doesn't go ahead....

And that concept is totally possible - Bath City used it for their bid for the club, where pledges were made on line and were not debited until it was successful (or not)

tbf I don't think there's any suggestion money would be going to Jay's flags and streamers, that only came into the discussion as it was apparently plugged at the Trust meeting last week under the heading of "Other Town-related good causes you might like to give money to". But there does seem to be genuine confusion as to whether any money donated now would go to buying the CG or the "Roof on the Bank" project or both?

Doesn't most crowdfunding operate on that basis anyway, if you use one of the many sites that facilitate such a process?

Agreed. Give us a targetted fund to donate to, and I'm in.

as i said, not the RAF as i already asked:

@batch_2001 The vehicle for the purchase will be community shares, funds and backing needed now to reflect support. Details to follow soon.

That makes as little sense/is as vague as the 472 websites?

Is the Trust a registered charity? If so, there are organisations set up specifically to fund charities. Some for sport, some for large projects, some for Swindon and Wiltshire and some for anything! I think Awards for All gives money for causes with little restriction on how it's spent (obviously in line with what you told them it would be!).

As I understand it, the Oxford display was part-funded by the Red Army Fund. That may be wrong, but I'm fairly sure the Trust report said as much...

Not a charity they are an IPS - Independent Provident Society if memory serves me correct

Sounds to me as if they need to issue some clarifications - some of the guys must read this forum

Oxford banner was part funded by the Trust and Supporters' Club - http://greatwesternreds.com/blog/2017/our-derby-day-tifo

Not saying that's neccessarily wrong (it was a very decent banner in fairness) but it's clearly a concern that it's not totally clear where the money goes.

I have signed up for bronze membership by the way, just would increase my contribution a lot for the sole purpose of buying the CG.

Ok, that will probably narrow down options, but there are still organisations to apply to.

I do not know the status of the Trust but if there is to be a serious attempt to buy the CG by the Trust there will be significant legal and other fees to be incurred just to attempt this.

The question as to what happens to monies oversubscribed (or more likely undersubscribed ) is highly technical and can put the trustees in a nightmare situation of having to refund people who have died, gone away etc and the Trust will wish to avoid this risk from the start, including perhaps a review of its very own constitution - or the vehicle to be adopted for the CG acquisition.  In practice, I would doubt that casual public subscribers and non-members of the Trust would be refunded anything.

There is a failed crowd funding project for a certain D. Bowie to build a "Ziggy" memorial in Brixton which needed GBP 900,000 and reached only GBP 50,000 in the 4 weeks allowed.  Lambeth BC would have permitted the memorial.  I think the trustees are planning seeing what they can do for GBP 50,000 - but perhaps not what the donors bought into and the terms of the Trust and any Public Appeal will be pertinent.

Anyway I'm sure the famous Swindon Town wouldn't struggle like this D. Bowie person's fans and the "Ziggy" thingummy.

We plebs will probably have to be prepared to risk donations just on legals and other admin which would be non- refundable, naturally.

Then there is the Hunt v McLaren case of 2006 which dealt with exactly who owned the surplus funds when Horley Town Football Club (a stone's throw away from the irreproachable Crawley Town), sold land it had been gifted in trust in order to buy replacement land and build better facilities.  It turned out that only full members rather than associate members benefited financially.  Anyone contributing more than a match ticket or two is likely to want to have answers to the CG future windfall surplus allocation question.

The Trust really would have to up its game fifty fold in my view with legal, financial and accounting advice as well as PR and marketing.

I cannot recall the Eady Will Trust financial situation but that would be about the only outside body in whom I would have much confidence to contribute fairly.  Can serious funds be raised however without playing with sharks? 

If people didn't buy season tickets and instead invested in the Trust and went to a few ad hoc games instead that would raise the million!
 

I listened to the latest podcast and Steve Mytton gave a bit more clarity.

The Red Army Fund is about showing the council the Trust are serious through regular contributions and has the backing of the supporters demonstrating political will.

There is more to come on the funding which will include the community shares. They also have backing of wealthy individuals to show they are serious.

Steve mentioned the need to involve professionals in their bid and it would cost money.

One thought I had does the Trust need to achieve a 100% ownership. Would a 50/50 share with the council work so the Trust's share of the rent is ploughed back into the ground and facilities?

A lot of work to be done to get over inertia from our supporters who don't worry about these aspects and are more concerned with performances on the pitch (and the burgers)

Sent from my HTC One M9

with ownership comes responsibilities - I wonder what they are?

And no doubt take account of the 20 or so loud voices that dominate it.

😱 Heresy

Now call me naive..... I have a level of intelligence but here goes...

Just an example, feel free to shoot me down if you like. If people seriously don't feel putting their trust in the Trust to mount a successful CG bid, why not think outside the box and set up an independent community based consortium of fans and actually put yourself in the frame to purchase the CG? We can go all day about viability but if people really feel the Trust aren't up to it/don't have the clarity the want and are worried about sharks taking control, then surely the next best thing is to mount your own bid as an independent consortium?

I understand this is EXACTLY what the Trust are kind of about but if people are disillusioned/confused about the Trusts true direction then my suggestion is; done properly and the right way, surely there are Town fans with resources/contacts/cashflow that could do probably what we've wanted for some time now.

I await (like in my other posts) to either be ignored or verbally shot down in an array of beration and disdain...so bring it on.

There's nothing to stop you. We live in an age of individualism... the TE was built by fan's contributions, the Trust's efforts to put a roof on the Bank, shows that it is not now possible for such collectivism. It's a shame but it's where we are.

The head of the trust answered a question on that Facebook page about the clarity of aims on their website which suggests the ground is the sole focus moving forward

I don't think the failure to put a roof on the Bank is down to apathy. From my point of view it is not a good idea and therefore not worth supporting. Better to get behind a proper stadium redevelopment not just sticking plaster stuff. I wrote to the Trust to express this some time ago btw.

seconded

Thirded. Complete waste of time & hard to believe the idea had enough support to get off the ground in the first place. The purchase of the CG is a far more worthwhile cause.

Putting a roof on the Stratton bank is a great idea. AFTER we've bought the ground.

It's in the media pack they released that the bank will happen but the ground idea came from them engaging with businesses to invest in the idea to "roof the bank". The businesses turned around and said we won't invest unless the ground is owned by the Trust as there is no guarantee that the council won't sell the ground in 2 years time and and their money / hard work is wasted. So from that they are switching focus to getting hold of the ground and then once that's done they can work on projects such as the roof, a new TE and the club museum.

The trust has a big problem with their message though, they have 3 websites with 3 different messages which don't seem to be updated regularly (hence the confusion in this thread). Steve Mytton is updating the website(s) this weekend which should help clarify some of the points from the AGM and their new focus but there needs to be a lot more work as it's not very clear what the objective is at the moment

This.

There's no point putting a roof on that stand. It's fucking awful. It needs to be knocked down & rebuilt from scratch. It'll be a total waste of money.

agree with Freddy, condemn it!

It offers a better view than the town end and even though the toilets etc are ancient and dilapidated the TE ones aren't much better. Would be nice to see a new stand but can't see that happening.
We don't get anywhere near filling the other 3 stands as it is so no point.

From my point of view, the point is showing the fans and the wider community that there is a plan in place and an ambition for the future that all could work towards. The plans drawn up some years ago for the ground redevelopment could be a starting point. Open up this ambition to the supporters, the council, potential new owners and make a go of it. It may be overly ambitious but at least it is an ideal to target. Add a desire to include a section of 'safe standing' into the mix and the appeal could be even greater, adding momentum to the whole aim of Trust ownership and redevelopment.

I don't get the 'we don't get anywhere near filling the other 3 stands' argument. If that's the attitude, why bother having three stands open when two would be enough?

I may be delusional, but Swindon as a town does have some pockets of really good stuff. I'd much rather see some big thinking and ambition rather than reverting to the 'oh but we can't compete with Bristol, Reading etc etc...' malaise. 

You are absolutely right: lack of ambition = self-fulfilling prophecy

I disagree. Should The Trust be successful in buying the ground I think a better option would be to try and apply for a FL grant to help fund a new purpose built stand. Stratton Bank is woefully outdated and sticking a roof on it is like sugar coating a turd. Some exterior modern cladding and some cosmetic work to the appallingly rusty grey Arkells Stand would improve the stadium no end. Whilst at it make the lower tier of the Arkells stand run the full length as this has bugged me for years. I'm sure The Town End has a few more years in her yet.

the red army site is clearer now, I'll sort out my payments this week

http://www.redarmyfund.co.uk (http://www.redarmyfund.co.uk)

That is much better. Thanks for letting us know, I've signed up a bronze account.

Yep

Yep same here.

I shall sign up later, just need to work out what package I will do.

Just one piece of constructive criticism - it would be great to have the section on the county ground plan from the AGM pack published on the website (not as a document), or perhaps an FAQ containing the same sort of details. I think this makes things really clear and whilst admittedly I've not kept my eye on the ball in terms of the trust's activities, I still had to hunt for the information!

Hope this builds in momentum.

So the money raised isn't going towards buying the stadium, just the CG campaign whatever that may be ?? I'm still confused I'm afraid on what their aims are for the CG

I think you're being purposefully pedantic there mate.

Yea maybe - just making a point and trying to be negative  :D

Do the Trust publish the current total and value of regular pledges for the Red Army Fund? I can't find anything, but I'm sure there used to be something like that.

In this case where there's a target to aim for, some kind of 'totaliser' could be a good incentive.

Initially I interpreted it as that too, but I think the 'professional campaign' actually uses the RAF as a source of income to buy the ground, as outlined in the AGM pack:

http://www.truststfc.tv/downloads/agmpack.pdf

From what it says on the website, the RAF money will be used to not buy the ground but to help pay for their campaign(s) to get to the stage where they can buy it, then if the council give them the go ahead they will then release shares to buy in the trust / ground to help raise the funds for the purchase.

I actually emailed the trust chairman today about this as their messages are just so mixed it's really confusing, it's hard finding out what you are actually donating for, ok it's long term is the purchase of the ground but as above, it seems like that will be a different "fund" as the RAF is only used for funding stuff like the GWR banner and working with the local schools. Hopefully they will correct me if I am wrong.

What's the latest on this? All seems to have gone very quiet over the last month.

There's a Trust board meeting this week (Thursday I think), expect an update after that.

Working on a press release for this week i think

All the details will be in the Adver, Freddy so you'll be able to read it in there :)

Hold on - your suggesting that an organisation will give the adver credible information to keep supporters up to date with what the latest going's on are to communicate ?

Wow, wonders will never cease, if only a certain football club would grasp that idea

I'm still waiting for my polo shirt and pen. Trust out..

PM me an email address and I'll chase up for you.

Me either  :)

me either, but I'd forgotten about it until now :)

Remember, there is no press ban..

I got my pen a couple of weeks ago. It's very nice. I'd guess the shirts are what's causing the hold-up for you folks. Serves you right for being flash bastards

My pen broke about 3 seconds but the shirt is awesome.

Got my badge after the first one went missing in the post so Trust In!  :D


Can I buy it outside the ground?  ;)

The YouTube video is fantastic but would be massively improved with a x-factor style voice over

I just signed up. Is there anywhere to see a running total of how much has been raised?

There used to be one on redarmyfund.co.uk but looks like it has been removed but any news is posted on there or on http://truststfc.tv/

Nick Watkins is helping the Trust out.

That's nice, we liked Nick.

also a bump

Swindon Town Fans Meeting WEDNESDAY 24TH MAY at Mecca Bingo Swindon from 7.30pm. MUCH to discuss re CG and more.. #STFC https://t.co/1mIMVYN08P

http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/sport/swindon_town_2014/15304021.Ex_Town_chief_Watkins_backs_Trust_push_to_buy_County_Ground/#comments-anchor

Doors open at 7pm...Meeting starts at 7.30pm

Gotta Love Nick Watkins

Maybe Black is coming back into the fold?...maybe this is the "other news" Bilko was on about?

Watkins made it clear in the interview his involvement is solely with the ground purchase...

More chance in my mum getting involved than Andrew Black. He washed his washed his hands good and proper. He'll be sticking to his horses

If he's sticking to his horses, should probably think about washing his hands more thoroughly ...

hahaha

They all say that ;)

Fairly decent turn out - 80-90 people I reckon.

Not going to go over it all but the main points are:
  - Red Army fund being used for costs for things to be put in place for the ground purchase (legals, etc etc)
  - Community share scheme to launch in September. IF I understand it right:
       - they will be looking for deposits on "Lump sum" share come September. Can either stop Red Army and switch or pay cash and continue with red army, whatever.
       -  it will be a one share one vote system on matters relating to the ground - if its purchased. Doesn't matter whether you put in the min or max (20K), everyone is equal
       - seems the money will be held in some sort of Escrow or  ring fenced savings account to be returned (or donated if you prefer) should things not go well in the purchase - though they are confident we can pull this off
       - one potential downside - and please double and triple check me on this (and don't quote me) as I may be well off and no details have been provided on payment timeframe/terms - is that a community share is typically £500-£1000.
  - Any purchase of the ground WOULD include the stadium
  - Myton (mitton not mighton) speaks quite well for a Project Manager ;)

£500 probably prices me out.

Nothing to prevent a small group clubbing together for a share.

Is there any expectation of any return on this 'investment' or is it really a donation by another name.

Not sure about this scheme, but from other similar schemes, technically it would be tradable/sellable but you would need to find someone willing to buy it from you. Which you may do, but unlikely to be at more than you paid for it. That's unless the Trust finds itself in a similar situation as the Pompey Trust e.g. a buyer comes in and offers to buy the club but on condition that he can buy the ground too. That would need to be approved by a (straight or defined %age?) majority of the shareholders and possibly offers a small premium on the shares as a sweetener. Then you might make some dosh. But tbh, it's more likely to be investing in the club in the same way as we expect the majority of the big money investors to invest - to improve the condition of the club/team, but with no real expectation of a tangible financial return

http://communityshares.org.uk/find-out-more/guidance-supporters

In the main no and yes.

I wonder what would happen (to the shares) if the site / ground was bought by the Trust, then a few years down the line was sold (for whatever reason, but to the benefit of the club e.g. move to another site) at say twice the price paid.

Good link that, Bob. Cheers.

One more thing. If the Trust are looking to buy the site off the council and are also looking to buy the actual ground, who gets the proceeds of the infrastructure sale - does the club, therefore Power, own that?

And I presume the Trust will then be responsible for the maintenance of the CG which should leave more cash in the club, hopefully to spend on football related things

In terms of security of the club it's a good move but my main concern here is that we will now spend the next 20 years in an increasingly dilapidated stadium as a result.

Ashton Gate cost £45 million to redevelop and with the best will in the world there's no chance the Trust would ever raise that sort of money, that kind of redevelopment will only happen under a rich owner (we can wish).

So what happens with improving the ground and by that I don't mean putting a roof on the existing Stratton Bank stand as that is a complete waste of money in my opinion. To bring the ground up to standard at the very least we need a new stand to replace The Townend and a new stand to replace the Stratton Bank and also desperately need executive boxes so based on the logistics of the ground the Arkell's Stand needs doing as well. So whilst I'm for the purchase in the short term I struggle to see any significant improvements being made to it under this kind of ownership.

I know previous Trust Boards did some redevelopment plans but it was never really clear where the money would come from....

You realise that if SBC are looking to offload the CG, then if the Trust fail under the Community Asset ruling, they can flog it to a developer after I believe 6 months?

How much £££ do the trust think they will get the county ground for?

Fine if plenty of funding to spare but not quite so clear of the benefits to the Trust of owning the ground/stands itself?

There is only one feasible tenant (STFC) and if the tenant falls behind with the rent, goes into administration etc then the Trust is saddled with the health and safety and other compliance issues.  If the club did fall behind or go into administration then the Trust would be in an ideal position to acquire the ground infrastructure very cheaply as it wouldn't be much use to any other creditor/buyer.  If the club reliably undertook to improve the ground then the Trust could indeed assist with rental holidays or lease variations.

The only reasons to want the ground/stands I can think of would be

1   if the Trust may in the future have a decent share in a development gain - shareable only with SBC - and with STFC etc having no say or negotiating position beyond any lease to it
2   if this is somehow required as part of a Community Share Scheme

Not sure that Audrey's idea of the club having more money to spend on players etc is the answer as profits would end up going into Power's (or new owner's) pocket.  At least the TRust would have influence I suppose.  I see the ground purchase as an STFC tits up rescue scenario (AFC Wimbledon) or as a stepping stone to fan ownership (Portsmouth)

I guess this is more Trust / Mytton territory but any clarifications would be interesting.

Around the £2m figure i have heard

None of our previous owners were ever basing a development off of their own capital, they were all relying on some proceeds from either land sales or from external financial capital investment.

Take Northampton (bad example because the developer ran off with the money it seems) but essentially they were loaned money by the Council at a commercial rate.  The Council were able to provide funding without worrying quite so much about the risks (maybe they should have!) but the point is that funding sources can be fond for developments, provided the business case stacks up.  The Fitton/Wray development proposals were based on external funding and on using spaces within the development to make the return, which as it happens was the concept the Trust worked on in 2006/7.  it's the sale of leases and on-going increases in revenue that cover off the financing costs.  If they can't, then you don't have a viable development and you don't get the funding.  I think the Fitton era struggled because external funds dried up - post 2008 people became much more wary about who they were giving large chunks of cash to.

So, in summary, the Trust doesn't need any money (some would help to show willing) to eventually push through developments at the ground.

Yes me too. That was some time ago though. Is that the figure discussed last night or were figures not mentioned?

It's nowhere near enough by the way

Publicly both parties have said that is the rough figure

I may be misrepresenting what was said, but the impression I got was that buying the land included the stadium and was one and the same, i.e. the club don't actually own it but have a 'maintaining lease' - i.e. are responsible for the upkeep.

But its probably best to ask the Trust directly.

Also there was a reasonably useful info booklet given out on the door. I've not had chance to read it yet but its worth asking if it is going to be on the Trust website (may be already).

How do you know it's useful then? :)

(Unless you're using it to prop up a wobbly table leg or as a draught excluder or something)

Gut feeling just tells me that an 8 figure redevelopment (which is what we need) will be difficult to finance without some internal funding. Purchasing the ground is one thing but I'm more concerned about the long term plan to bring it up to standard as there needs to be a strategic vision in place. If we just continue to play in a delapidated stadium (albeit owned by the fans) with a bit of tin chucked over the top of Stratton Bank then I don't think it'll make much difference to the club as a whole.

That was about my investment in shares, under various former regimes.  Basically a donation, for which I got to go to an AGM and have a set of accounts.

I'm not sure I'd bother again...  but as AB points out, several people could chip in, if minded.

While I'd agree that that scenario won't make a lot of difference to the status quo, it makes a HUGE difference to the scenario that needs guarding against - if the Council put the ground up for sale and the Trust don't purchase it within 6 months, then any Tom, Dick or Jed can buy it. Which leaves the club massively vulnerable. That alone makes this a scheme we, as fans, have to back and invest in. But I do also think there's a "sunny side" here that the Trust as owners of the stadium will be able to act as catalyst for redevelopment AND protect the asset for the club, in a way that the club/owners acting alone haven't been able to.
Nick Watkins is no fool - he won't have publicly nailed his colours to the mast if this was a non-starter

Have the Council actually stated that they will sell to a third party (i.e. not the Trust) whilst they have to give the Trust first dibs as its an ACV there is nothing to stop them not selling it at all if the Trust either cannot raise the cash, or choose not to proceed?

My concern with the £500/share price is that it will price a heck of a lot of the fan base out of the scheme and leave it liable to just become dominated by a small group? 

SBC under the Tories do not have the best interests of the Town at heart... it would be very naive to assume that the CG won't go the way of the Abbey Stadium.

So in conclusion you don't know?

I err on the side of scepticism as regards SBC... they do things like impose a 10% increase in Council Tax, when central government says there's a 4.9% limit without a local referendum. Central government's imposition of austerity cuts is now hitting hard, leaving SBC desperately short of cash and more or less any fund raising sale of assets is fair game.

They haven't explicitly said it is for sale, but they have gradually offloaded or looked to offload every other sports based asset they own.  They also have zero interest in providing money towards maintenance, as shown by recent arguments with the club.  The only thing keeping it off front and centre for them will be because they do not have to provide any subsidies and receive rent.  I doubt it would take much for an external company to make it look appealing to sell in the coming 4/5 year cycle where the same crowd will be in office locally I imagine.

Exactly.

No idea of the detail, but no doubt someone will be taking them to court and rightly winning for them acting unlawfully based on this, looking on-line (not particularly reliable I accept) there is no mention of 10% rise? http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/15079062.Council_tax_to_go_up_by_7_2_per_cent_but_residents_won_t_get_a_referendum/

Depends what bit of town you're in... the 7.2 is prob a mean figure. Mine has gone up 10%.  Had it gone to a referendum, I'd have voted for an increase in Council Tax.

According to the Adver the average is 4.99% handily on the threashold for a referendum? If yours has gone up 10% both the Council and Adver are bullshitting, entirely likely I accept?

TBF on my Council Tax Bill, SBC quite clearly state that it has gone up 10.9% this year.

Well here's your opportunity to go all sad face in the advertiser, put mattress trapped women to shame.

http://truststfc.tv/fans-meeting-overview/

Reg is not alone as most people's has gone up by almost as much, including ourselves, but SBC have pulled a fast one by setting up new parishes so the general rise is 4.99% is their share, the rest goes to the new council's precepts who now have to buy services like grass cutting and recreation grounds maintenance from SBC.  Bloody criminal.

Nick Watkins is indeed no fool, but his ego is massive.

This is the same bloke that lobbed the trust out of their match day office when he was CEO and effectively marginalised them. I know, I used to pop in there back in the day and the guys that were around at the time were really hacked off about it as theys spent supporters money doing it up. Also, I never heard Watkins or Fitton bigging them uip to any major degree while they owned the club, so why now?

It's worrying that the trust hierarchy would openly publicise Watkins supporting them with this. He's a nobody nowadays and it's patronising in the extreme that he's banging on about doing due dilligence on the trust board now that they look like getting something tangible off the ground.

I'd tell him do one, but egos can be odd things at times.

All the more reason he's not going to risk looking like an idiot putting his backing behind any scheme that isn't a viable project.

Remind me again who Watkins is. Wasn't he about during the Black era?

No-one does, but to be fair to Reg it's as close to sure bet as you can get. I wouldn't be surprised if the Trust's bid wasn't triggered because the council tipped them the wink that the CG was next on the asset jumble sale list. The council will also be hoping that the publicity around the Trust bid effectively acts as a for sale sign and attracts the vultures who will move in if the Trust bid fails. That's why it has to succeed.

Yes he was Fitton/Wray's Chief Exec

And now the whole town is paying the non-parish fee too.

Listening to the Trust guys the other night they know what they are doing, they are investigating the various charitable funding they can apply for, it seems they are confident of the council selling  to them for £1m + , they are yet to agree a fee, when they do they will have 6 months to get the money.

They would be purchasing the footprint of the CG which would include the car park and the grass verges to the roads, they admitted that tidying up the outside of the CG would be easier than the inside.

The council would hope in future that the trust purchasing the ground and making plans could be a catalyst for regeneration of the area

Being community owned makes it easier for the council to sell to them, they are getting the council to do a survey on the ground again to see what comes up that may need fixing, they believe there may be water utilities / pipes under the stand

These are just bits that stick in my mind but they are a very good outfit and have a lot of knowledgeable people helping they out with the required areas of expertise I thought both Mytton and Phipps spoke very well and gave over a lot of information in a short period of time.

They also mentioned the possibility of taking a loan from high net work individuals

I do hope that this comes off and I get the feeling that it will not be for the want to trying if this fails, sounds like they are putting a lot of hard work into this and know what needs to be done to see it through.

Will they be bringing in Gary Stanley as a consultant?

Yes and we are now parished!!  SBC pulled a fast one - they would be shouting from the rooftops if a labour administration had done the same!

Why do the Trust not hold their meetings in the Legends Lounge - woudl put a bit of money in the club's coffers!!  I am sure there is a good reason, perhaps one of the Trust board could tell us.

the trust got Mecca free.

I'm not sure Power would endorse the trust buying the ground anyway.

Just signed up...thought if I mentioned it on here, someone else who kept meaning to and forgot would do so.  Never know, all helps.

Fucking hell a lot of our more right wing supporters aren't going to like that!

Still no news about my polo shirt. It's a fucking disgrace..

Me too, and my pen!

my pen, shirt and pin badge arrived today.

marvellous

Ditto, to be fair had slipped my mind till opened the package

Mine also.

The polo shirt is of 'football shirt' fabric and therefore will be making its debut at 5/7 a sides tomorrow.

quite a smart shirt tbh. 1879 on collar, Moto on inside of collar is a good touch too

Mine arrived too. By arrived I mean the postman literally threw it over the gate. I don't think I got a pin badge. The shirt is good, it will look terrible on me in the gym.

Mine arrived today, shirt looks good.

Mine turned up yesterday too..  I haven't examined that closely yet.

Stevenage:


Can we have a Football Foundation grant please!

Haven't had anything through the post yet. Can any Trust bods check it's all ok? Does anyone know what it shows as on your statement?

Gocardless ltd....

Filthy Girls Escorts and Massage Services Ltd

Thank you.

I would image under Trust ownership it will open up lots of ave's for grants and other funding as it will be community owned

I've not had anything in the post either and my account has been debited three times

That will be their plan, the DR was built from grants and a bank loan, the trust would use grants and fans to buy shares.

Sounds good and something that I wouldn't have linked to.

Of course, there was more money available in the early 90's on the back of the Taylor Report.  However, things like lottery grants are available for cultural activities. This is the money that the lot who want a new art gallery, are trying to tap into. Now I'm an art lover... but would rather see that money spent on Swindon's number one cultural activity... the FC.

Let's face it more people care about Luke Norris's misses rather than Frank Auerbach's missus...

(http://www.christies.com/LotFinderImages/D46582/D4658239r.jpg)

Hahaha that's true but the majority of councillors aren't football fans so will never put the club first even though it pays so much into the council every year (business rates, cg rent and the businesses that rely on the club). There would be far more benefit spending £5-10m on a new stand (replace Arkells) for Swindon than the art gallery but it's never going to happen.

Neither lottery grants or Football Foundation grants are given out by, or dependent on, the council.

That whole Kimmerfields thing looks dead in the water now, maybe the Trust could offer Forward Swindon some office space, all they'd need to do is pay for the CG development.  They'll go for it, I mean, they got the Council to pay 15m for a car park and then demolish another car park.

No shit, but the council are putting a lot of money and resources into getting public approval for the gallery (who is paying the wages of the chief ex for the museum) and it's funding. They are also spending a lot of money on other vanity projects around the town. It's all abour priorities, the council don't see the club as a priority, they want as little to do with it as they can.

You have this terrible habit of dressing your opinion up as fact. There's been no proposal for stadium development for the council to be engaged with or otherwise until the Trust's recent proposal which the council cannot fund. I agree the council generally don't give the impression they're falling over themselves to be involved with the club but when they have they've usually got burned. The club has an appalling record as a tenant and as a corporate citizen of the town goig back decades and aside from some engagement under Nick Watkins, have done very little of late to reach out and make the town, never mind the council, feel it can trust the club to work with the town. Takes two to tango and neither side are impressive dance partners

For those that haven't seen. An update from the trust, seems positive and good to have a target date in place.

Without sounding unnecessarily negative, the thing that gets me is that after 3-4months of the Trust initiative (which I commend and support), just 325 people have signed up……..and I suspect the majority are bronze members (£60 pa) and over 100 were already paying a monthly fee!  Whichever way you dress it up, it is piss poor.  To a certain extent we live in ‘The Townend’ bubble where we think everyone cares.  The figures would suggest otherwise. 

To put it into perspective, if 50% of monthly contributors come from Swindon and 50% from outside the town, under 0.1% of the town’s population are interested in buying the ground.  For it to be a success these numbers surely have to multiply by 10.

its not promoted enough though? for the amount of coverage the trust gets online I wouldn't expect any more to sign up and think 325 is actually very good. I will both sign up and contribute when the shares for the ground purchase are put in place and I wont be alone. You can't judge 325 as a figure of swindon fans that are ready to buy the CG

& what's the latest on this to complete my hat trick?

Not why I signed up but I've stuck in 50 quid without the sign up goodies

Not why I donate but impressions last

I have had 5 months debited now and not even received an acknowledgment let alone the gifts. This is not why I signed up but still think it's pretty shoddy.

That's poor, have you emailed the Trust about it?

Not my department, I just help out with the twitter etc, but if you could DM me your details, email address etc, I'll get someone to sort this.

Ditto Mexico!

PS, everyone who has signed up has been emailed, please do check spam folders for [email protected] as annoyingly Trust emails often fall foul of that.

Back to Pieman and Mexico, and anyone else on here who has signed up but not received communications/ goodies, do DM me and one of the Trust board members will get in touch using their personal emails, so they definitely get through..

Yes and Steve Mytton has personally emailed me regarding this issue and other matters. Not faulting the communication but it doesn't fill me with confidence with getting things done. The sign up goodies aren't important to me but should be simple to get sorted especially after a few months. A complicated ground purchase is going to be a lot more difficult to facilitate!

I've got emails and the then the goodies a few weeks after signing up, so not everyone is having issues.

Have heard the same from other people. As said, responses and interaction have been spot ok so not moaning on that front, just need this thing sorted and we'll be all good

I know you ain't complaining, but to be fair when Royal Mail fucked up delivery of my gift Steve Mytton replied to a an email within a day or so and sorted a replacement equally fast.

In terms of impact upon ability to buy the ground as the majority of things would (I hope) actually be in the hands of professionals (I assume its much like buying a house ;)) I am not sure that some delays in dispatching gifts is that much of an indicator?

Hello all

Below is a message from Steve that he sent, or will be sending, to people who contacted me about missing shirts. He thought worth passing on here too

'Sorry for the continued delay - just to let you know that I am still waiting on a large part of the shirt delivery order, we have been badly let down by our supplier in this instance, they are very apologetic but it doesn't help too much. I'm going to do a wider update very soon.

I have another meeting with the Council about the County Ground on Monday so will do a wider update next week.

There is lots to update fans on, aware it's been quiet but can assure you that behind the scenes it's been the busiest time I've ever known (hence the lack of comms).

Going back to the shirts, I'm waiting on an update should know more by next week and that will be part of the same newsletter.

I have had a smaller delivery of shirts, so if you are desperate I may be able to get something out sooner but hoping to do them all in one hit for simplicity.'

This story should really go to the Adver, complete with pics of Si and Mex doing the classic local paper "folded arms and Compo Face" pose:
(http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/resources/images/6849561/)
Local football fans in Trust goodies rumpus

or
(http://i1.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/plymouth-news/article503980.ece/ALTERNATES/s615b/18556449_1485136351526199_2290822449021313551_o.jpg)
Local couple "shocked" by T-shirt no-show kerfuffle

The conversation didn't happen on facebook or get sent to the Adver by the Courts, it therefore didn't happen.

With a statement that it's all Power's fault?

Cannot believe you have banned the Advertiser from this hard luck story....

Or the classic "it has ruined our childrens Christmas" headline

Can't believe the Adver missed that angle on this hot breaking story, tbh. No wonder Power has banned them from covering it.

Here’s the latest
http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/sport/swindon_town_2014/15644012.Trust_pushing_on_with_plans_for_County_Ground/

http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/sport/swindon_town_2014/15644025.TRUST_MATTERS__Don_t_worry_about_silence___talks_are_ongoing/

I just want my prize i won  :D

Good point, that may still be in a box of things from when I moved house. Have set an alarm on my phone to dig out tonight..

Scary times ahead folks.

SBC, are presently having to cut 420 jobs as the Tory austerity project continues to bite, this to save £ 30 mill over the next couple of years, despite a 10% rise in Council Tax. So there can be little doubt that divesting themselves of assets will continue. 

So, it does present an opportunity for the Trust. The danger is that it will require a chunky financial input from fans at a time when gates are falling and we're in Div 4. £500 per share is a significant sum for most, especially in a low wage economy town like Swindon, where the value of those wages continues to fall post Brexit

I daresay the TEF could maybe muster such a sum as a collective, but how many individuals would buy in  :hmmm:

If it comes off then great, but there will be plenty of vultures out there looking to strip STFC of its final asset.

For those who are not [yet] contributors to the Trust's Red Army Fund, here's the full text of the latest newsletter:

"It’s been two months since our last newsletter, and you could be forgiven for thinking that things have gone quiet on the Trust front. I can assure you, they have not!

Whilst the aim is to keep you informed throughout our bid to purchase the County Ground, the truth is, it’s been very difficult to do that, so this is quite a lengthy update (apologies).

There has been a tremendous amount of work since April, and we have had more than forty meetings with various parties related to the bid, as well as our monthly Trust board meetings. These meetings all need to be planned and conducted in a professional manner, which eats up a lot of time.

We’ve also submitted not one, but two proposals to the council for both the land and the buildings (for those who are still wondering about that), one of which was a 29 page document detailing how and why our bid makes great sense for the community, but also analysing all of the risks and issues that we have gathered over the last six months.

We’ve continued to meet and discuss the deal with the council, and talks have remained positive and encouraging throughout. Last month we held a behind closed doors meeting for all local councillors in Swindon, and sent personal invitations to over 50 people as part of that.

Support from these councillors will be very important as things move ahead, and the vast majority showed tremendous support, either by email or by coming along on the night and letting us know in person. We had leaders of both main parties present, and covered some background on the Trust (for those unfamiliar with our previous work). We also talked through the concerns that have been raised about the current state of the stadium, and some very exciting development possibilities that we have generated since the campaign was first mooted back in March.
Your support via the Red Army Fund has been immense, and we thank all of you that continue to back us every month with whatever you can comfortably afford. We have needed every penny so far, and your donations have contributed to some very important pieces of work:

We’ve funded a professional financial review of the County Ground and the Football Club, and we are working hard with Supporters Direct to establish a community share offer that appeals to as many Town fans as possible. This is no small task, it’s an incredibly detailed process and requires many formal agreements to be in place before the launch.

We’ve also funded professional due diligence and dilapidations based on information attained via the council, and we have met with a host of potential partners to discuss matched funding schemes, community fundraising and possible loan arrangements.

It’s been fascinating to be involved with, and exciting to see how just a little bit of positive football fan intention has generated some very (very) exciting possibilities for Swindon Town fans, and for Swindon as a whole. There is a long way to go, but hopefully these early discussions are the start of something good, not only for Swindon Town fans but for football fans everywhere, as we strive to set an example and show how a well organised group of supporters can do more than just moan, they can actually bring about some very positive possibilities for their community.

Earlier in the year we met with multiple fundraising partners to discuss how we can get the money together to purchase the stadium. Our initial £1.1m bid was not accepted by the Council and we can expect that number to more than double when all of the associated taxes and costs are taken into account and before a final offer is accepted.

Does that make this an impossible dream? No, definitely not. We might not necessarily need all of that money up front, and there are many ways in which the deal may be structured to ensure that the local taxpayer gets the right deal. As local people ourselves, that’s important - our proposal and our associated work is 100% supportive of an arrangement that is great for Swindon Town, but also great for the Town of Swindon. We are all local people, and we want the Town to thrive and improve on the back of what can be the most exciting fan based activity seen in this country for many years.

We want to be trailblazers and set an example for football supporters everywhere - our message is, take positive action and work together to bring about improvement for your club and your area.

There is no doubt we will need your help to make this happen. Whilst we may be able to achieve our goal without fan investment, it goes against the true appeal of this campaign - fans working together and every supporter contributing and owning a share in the stadium and it’s future.

We are very close to confirming a £1 million matched funding arrangement, where every pound you put in as a supporter will be matched. There are still some technicalities to work through but we have been working on this deal for over two years - it’s almost there.

With your support we can make this happen. Our team have worked tirelessly to form the basis of the biggest and most professional fundraising scheme this club has ever seen, but it will all be for nothing if you - the fans - don’t respond in numbers.

The Red Army Fund has taken us so far (all TrustSTFC shirts have been posted but several people have not provided sizes so let me know if you are one of them), and now we’re delighted to have the backing of major Swindon employer, Nationwide, for our community campaign.
 
We have been able to build a promotional team that consists of specialist PR experts that cover both national and regional news, business and social media and we have a professional video production company lined up. After much discussion we can confirm that our fundraising partners will be Crowdfunder.co.uk who are the leading experts in this field, having already raised over £40million on community based projects over the last few years.

Members of our PR team have worked on local Community Share offers previously and have been part of fundraising efforts that have exceeded £7m in the past.

Community shares will not come cheap for some supporters, and are likely to start at somewhere around the £500 mark. We had originally intended to launch them at the end of September, but the due process has proven to be slightly slower than we would have wanted, and now it looks most likely that our campaign will start in March 2018.

Community shares will allow people to contribute anything up to £100,000 each, but no matter what the donation - all supporters will have an equal say, and crucially, a vote in what happens to the County Ground. You will literally be buying a share in the future of Swindon Town’s stadium.

Our experts tell us that it’s usually enough of an incentive to offer the share in a community asset to reach a fundraising target, and that a club of our size can easily exceed targets raised by other smaller clubs around the Country, but we want to go further than that. We realise that football fans spend enough money on their passion already, season tickets, travel, memorabilia, clothing etc, and we are determined to make this a campaign that gives back as much value as possible.

We are still finalising the arrangements for a reward based system that will be part of the Crowdfunder offering, but have already put together a likely package of rewards that every community shareholder will receive, things like: commemorative paving, personalised granite blocks in the County Ground area that can be laid upon completion of the deal, showing the names and messages from each and every community shareholder.

This will not only improve the look of the approach to the stadium, but also give future generations the chance to point at the floor and say “my family played their part”.

We’ve also commissioned a very special piece of artwork by David Squires, a Town fan known all over the world as the resident cartoonist at the Guardian. These will be limited edition prints offered exclusively to community shareholders and will again recognise those contributions.

These things will be joined by other rewards to add value to our proposition and help convince supporters to part with their hard earned money, and in doing so, own a slice of Swindon Town’s future.

We will continue campaign planning in detail, and will take several months to do it right and ensure maximum reach. We hope to get a period of exclusivity for fundraising with Swindon Borough Council by end of the year, or possibly January - and after that we will launch the campaign in March.

Whilst matched funding and more generous donations (and possibly loans if needed) will get us over the line, the real success of this project will be down to one thing - YOU - the supporters.

£500 will be a lot of money to many of you, so please start saving now. If you are an existing Red Army Fund member and need every penny you can get toward this, then please cancel your monthly contribution immediately and start putting the money to one side, ready for our launch in March.

If you’re financially comfortable enough to continue with the Red Army Fund, and put aside £500 or more for Community Shares, then please go ahead and do both. All surplus funds will continue to benefit Swindon Town fans as we move forwards in the future.

Our work won’t stop if and when we get the stadium. We have had some amazing conversations with potential developers that could potentially see HUGE improvements to the stadium within the next 24 months, however time is against us and we need to move quickly to finalise these deals.

If we succeed in our bid, it will be national news, and we will attract even more interest in Swindon Town and it’s fanbase. In this day and age of the Premier League and Football League seemingly uncaring about fans welfare, empowered supporters is a great message and will attract commercial sponsors and interests. This last six months has proved it, the media are fascinated and it will be a real “community” moment if we can pull this off.

We will attract further donations and sponsorship from large corporates, and also get offers like the ones we have already seen come in. It could be amazing,

Back in March, we launched the “Let’s work together” campaign, which called for Town fans, the media, the club and the council to all join forces and improve our club. Although it wasn’t enough to prevent relegation to League Two, it’s been noticeable how much things have improved since then.

The club have really embraced the idea, and with the help of a new and positive manager who is happy to engage with supporters, we have seen some great strides. The recent open training session held during the half term holidays proved that point, and saw lots of children get to meet the players, all of which helps to confirm our next generation of supporters.
There have been improved ticket offers and lots of encouragement. We take our collective hats off to the management of the club and long may this positive work continue. On the pitch, things have been hit and miss, but with a new batch of players coming in, that was always likely to be the case. Over time I’m sure things will settle down and we will mount a decent push toward promotion.

We’re often asked how the club feel about our campaign, and the truth is - we don’t really know. We have been so entrenched in the work that our only communications have been via the press, where it looks like Lee Power has some ideas of his own regarding the stadium.

Our view is that we should let the supporters focus on the stadium and infrastructure, as we have a very skilled and resourceful fanbase, and let’s not overburden the club with the costs associated with purchasing and improving the stadium.
What matters most of all is that we get things right on the pitch, and through our work we can all play a part in improving that. We can give beneficial rates to the club and let them focus on spending money where it really matters - on the football team.

The stadium needs a lot of work, and serious dilapidations still exist. Under the terms of the current lease, all of the repairs will require funding by Swindon Town. These are compulsory and remediation will not come cheap. Supporters can find ways to help ease the burden on the club and the additional publicity will be on a national scale and will bring a lot of interest to the club and to the town as a whole, with new backers coming forwards as we proceed.

The future of the County Ground is currently uncertain, but we are in no doubt that it could become a brilliant community facility that brings benefit to all, not just football fans, whilst also benefiting the club and helping them to focus on what really matters, the football.

Going back to our message from March - “Let's work together” - the fans can concentrate on finding ways to fix and improve our tired, old stadium, and let’s leave the club to concentrate on building a team that gets us back up the leagues, where we belong.

Please get in touch if you still have questions, there will be more to come via the media and other newsletters, in the months to come - but as Town fans you should be excited about what’s coming and the potential that we have to make a big change to the club’s future.

Get saving now!

Thanks for reading,
 
Steve
Stephen Mytton
Chairman, TrustSTFC"

Well, you couldn't accuse them of half-arsing this. £2m+ seems a massive sum, although when you think about it as less than Massimo Luongo, the economics of football seem a bit odd.

Will probably try and chip in for £500, it's a fairly big amount but it's good that they're trailing in advance.

I reckon I can stretch to £500.

It would be good if there is a way of supporters being able to get together perhaps to get to £500 between a few fans as obviously every penny counts so rather the trust lose £500  - but no sure how it would work under the 1 vote jobbie - but I suppose 1 vote in the grand scheme of votes....

If shares are up for grabs then I'd be willing to invest some dollar!

Very positive news/update.  Steve Mytton & his team deserve a lot of credit for getting things to this stage.

The next stage will be up to the fans.  The £500 minimum contribution will be a big ask for most, but we need to get behind this.  Some will club together, I'm sure.  I will find the cash from somewhere.

I guess whoever your syndicate involves, you "vote on the vote" privately and then whichever one represents you, votes in favour of your syndicates outcome.

It would possibly make sense for the Trust to make available (I am sure it will have been done in other cases and thus SD can probably advise) some manner of short document that syndicates could adapt and sign to formalise things if they so chose.

It's tricky though.  They will have set the minimum contribution at £500 precisely because they need a critical mass of supporters getting behind the scheme with personal contributions of £500.  If they are seen to encourage syndicates, word will go round that that's what everyone is doing - and they'll end up with half of the fanbase chipping in £20 each...which will get us nowhere near the £1 million target.

They're treading a tightrope, because neither will they want to discourage those fans for whom £500 is out of the question.

True but 2000 fans @ £500 should be easily surmountable to reach £1mil. Don't forget in "community projects" people who don't even like sport tend to put their hand in their pockets too. I'd go as far to say that we will have the funds regardless of uptake in fan shares. Every little helps as one capitalist supermarket says. With around 4000 regular, 1000 pick & choose, and another 1000 occasionals. I'm certain 1/3 of that lot would be interested in buying a personal share at £500. The other 2/3? Well if they were in 5 person syndicates @£100 each, that would still raise £400k alone.

I think I read on here somewhere that they already have the funds available if needed. I don't know how true that is, though.

Yes I had also read this on here somewhere too. I also cannot validate the truth though but it's a distinct possibility that they have the funds.

If they don't, the Trust will want to quash that rumour immediately.  If they do, the motivation for going out to the fans would, I guess, be to maximise fan participation/involvement in the club's future.

I think that's the "matched funding" they speak of, no? I.e. they have £1m or so on a promise, which would have been enough at the original price?

I would be tempted to put £500 from business more so than personal. Things like paving slabs and brick walls can be good permanent advertising. i wonder if that would be allowed? Would be a lot easier to shift the 2000 slabs from local companies than from individuals in my eyes

I'll be in - when I get a job / life  :grrr:

I see Plymouth have had permission to redevelop the main stand at Home Park & AFC Wimbledon have had permission to build a new ground im Merton. Really hope the Trust can push on with their plans. We are getting left behind as things stand.

Dunno about getting left behind, we were left behind years ago. Can’t be many grounds left in the football league that don’t have any executive boxes and what not, even the small grounds like FGR have them.

At least we have a traditional ground.

We do.  And it's in a traditional town centre/inner city location as well.  We'd miss that terribly if it ever changed.

But we have to do something with the ground soon.  The last time we did anything significant with it was 1994.  Even our 'new' stand is now a generation old.  There can only be a handful of clubs that have gone as long as that without investing in their infrastructure.

Absence of any movement in that area is surely an integral part of our slow, steady decline.

It's depressing to look at all the clubs who have surpassed us with new stadia. I wonder how we'd be getting on had the front garden or shaw tip developments had gone ahead?

Think that is difficult to say, there's clubs with new grounds who've struggled, and others with traditional grounds who've done OK.

BBC Wiltshire reporting the club have met the councils valuation.

Wembleys going to look a bit empty when we play there whilst the GC is redeveloped........

Well it that's the case and Power/STFC do buy it they will need to change their attitude to the fans sharpish, 5,700 odd today must be very worring for Mr Power.  Need to re-engage with the supporters pronto.

It was one of Power and Hodgetts cosy chats on the radio. LP suggested with Axis on board they the expertise to look at redevelopment. Due to meet with SBC next month to discuss plans further.

Power was asked if it was part of a long term commitment or an exit strategy to which he said both. It would make the club more attractive to 'Blue Chip' investment and made the point there wasn't anyone with money interestedwhen the club was last sale.

He also said plans for the training ground were progressing and expects an announcement in the next 6 weeks.

Sent from my HTC U11

Youth team HTC :)

--

Thanks for filling in a bit more context. Guess we'll suck it and see.

Not being miserable here, but arent season ticket renewals due to be announced soon...which is why hes coming out with all this stuff.. time will tell...

Have the Trust responded to this news yet? It must be very demoralizing for them after all the work they've put in. Can any of the Trust board that are on here give us an update from their end? Pets4Prizes??

Latest from the man himself. TBH, what he says sounds entirely reasonable.

http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/sport/swindon_town_2014/16030900.Town_chief_Lee_Power_eager_to_seal_the_deal_on_County_Ground_sale/

I assume we'll be playing at The Axis of Evil County Ground, if this goes through then?

Everything he says does make sense. Being a mere simpleton, how likely is it that he could turn around straight away and say, 'looks like a lovely plot for some houses'? Is there anything that can realistically be put in his, or future owner's way?

I'm actually pleased if he gets it, partly because I know it will piss a lot of people off.

I have yet to be convinced he's anywhere near as nefarious as many would have me believe, and they've had more than enough time to present a case. I'm not exactly enthused about the trust buying it either.

I suppose you've got the Goddards covenant but I'd imagine buying that out would be a mere formality. Its easy money for whoever owns the covenant. Simple question - do you want the covenant to remain in place to pass down to your children or do you want a load of money for doing nothing, that you could pass down to your children - that's if there are any children.
What Power says makes total sense but it still boils down to trust. Like most, if he makes money and leaves us in a better place then I'm fine but he needs to be more open and transparent to allow trust to build.

Can someone remind me what he has done so far that can be classed as untrustworthy

Has the period passed where the ACV ceases to give first dibs to the Trust, their continuing silence is rather deafening...

At first glance its contrary to at least 1 policy in the adopted Local Plan, plus potentially the Council would have to refer any decision on such matters to the PCU as theoretically they would financially benefit from the decision. Therefore essentially planning decisions would be outside the remit of the Council.

I know that certain posters will disagree, but if the Council are selling the land for a song (when compared with its residential development value with PP), it will no doubt have all manner of clauses in the contract for say for uplifts in value etc, etc...

I may have misconstrued what Power said, but does he mean he hopes to buy the CG but not to necessarily upgrade it himself, but more as an attraction to someone else who would?

Ditto the Training Ground.

I’d assume £2m to SBC would be the end of their interest in the CG - unless they have a sell on clause. If it eventually sells for, say, £10m to the next owner, the Council would be lambasted.

As he is making much of the Axis involvement and the fact that he wasn't interested until he got development expertise on board, that would suggest something is planned...

See my earlier comments regarding the Council....

Yes as I intimated to a few weeks back too.

Power was not interested at all until Axis came onboard, only time will tell though.

If the Trust don't buy the ground now it is available they are effectively finished as an organisation. I'd be happy with Power buying, as long as the ground is owned by the club.

Power owns the club ergo Power will own the ground.  I don't trust Power and I don't trust SBC.  Think a lot of this is spin.

Lee power =/= the club

I have more faith in Power than I do the trust.  Quite frankly I think the trust are just a load of hot air and very little tangible output.

He is the owner... therefore it's his club.  

Maybe you see him as a Wycombe style benefactor like Frank Adams at recently visited Wycombe. Adams bought Loakes Park where they used to play and gave it to the club. Its sale generated the $ to build Adams Park.

I would want a lot more detail from both organisations on the ownership structure of the ground, would the ground be owned by stfc and then well the football club is sold the ground is part of it or will be owned by a separate company and there is potential to sell one without the other.
Need to know who is putting up the money and what future plans are and what ways it would be used to increase revenue.

While Power has done nothing to suggest he would run off with the ground and charge a huge rent and let go of the less profitable club, it is a concern and needs to be dealt with in such a way this could not happen.

Would I trust SBC to do the right thing ? No, I would expect them to sell to the highest bidder sadly.

Although I understand this worked well at pompey where they had x large bond holders who had a bigger say when it came to selling the ground as they had invested a lot more money and eventually agreed to send to Mr Disney.

Actually the biggest concern would come when Power sells up.

If he does what Black did & sells to anyone who fits his timeline rather than someone who cares about the football club, then we would be in the shit.

Just imagine if Jed had been able to sell the ground, we’d probably be ground sharing with Supermarine or Chippenham nowp

I would imagine that even where clubs own grounds in entirely stable situations the ground and the club owning vehicles remain separate entities to prevent either becoming a liability upon the other.


Taking off STFC coloured glasses off for a minute why should they not do so with a Public owned asset, I would imagine that there would be uproar from the 90% of Council tax payers who give not one shit for the club if the Council did not seek best value for their asset.

Yet still silence from the Trust, at least some clarity on where they stand with the ACV designation which in theory gives them first dibs would be useful, I can understand the Council seeking alternative arrangements if they don't think the Trust can raise the cash, but it all seems very peculiar this has come out into the public domain whilst all the cards seem to still be in the Trusts hands?

Just got to hope Power doesn’t do a Uncle Firoz on us and sell the club but retain ownership of the ground/training facility and screw us for the rent.

From what he says, though, it looks like he intends to cash in the entire kaboodle when he leaves.

The big question mark for the Trust is what funds do they have re upgrading the CG if they buy it. Mind you, the same question applies to Power, too. Which is why I reckon he will buy the ground and sell the club and let any new owner develop it.

The Axis angle could just really be to give his bid that bit more leverage.

I get the impression that Axis will handle the redevelopment and take their share when it comes to selling.

Possibly, however I have never seen anything to suggest that Axis go beyond contracting, meaning that there is rather a big gap in the process?

SBC are not to be trusted, as having the best interests of Swindon at heart.  If they did, they certainly wouldn't be selling a historic cultural asset to Lee Power.  Did Manchester City Council sell their asset of a stadium to Abu Dhabi... no, they take the rent from City, and gain the soft power benefit of having a second major football club in the city.

They’re certainly not covering themselves in glory re Lydiard Park. That Perkins fella is a piece of work.

Just for a change you are comparing Apples and Bananas....

MCC get so much more than just the rent from the Etihad and that's why they retain ownership, multiple concerts each year, multiple other sports using the site (all which bring additional income) the commitment from City for the wider regeneration of the land surrounding the ground, I know that when I worked down there is was a total no go area, changed beyond recognition now. Its become the centre piece of a regeneration success providing a community facility that the City is proud of, and brings the CC a lot of kudos in Manchester.

At the present SBC get £250k a year (when we get round to paying it) and frankly fuck all else out of owning the ground, which is an eyesore from many angles and only brings any sort of positive to the Council from the c.5k of residents who actually give a shit about the club, its an asset that needs a fortune spending on it to make it useful for anything above third tier football and there is no hope with revenue streams beyond football in its present state.

Frankly its a millstone to the Council as it stands, not saying that absolute caution should not be employed when deciding who to sell to, but don’t try to rewrite history to make a point.

As for the historic cultural asset - really???? No part of it is older that post war (I stand to be corrected on The Town End), and whilst the field and historic use of the site may have some social history it’s no Goodison for instance. Its means a lot to us fools and not many more...

How can it be a millstone, they get quarter of a mill for an asset that cost them fuck all to acquire and cost them fuck all to maintain, as it was given to SBC as guardian for the sporting benefit of Swindonians.

No, it's effectively another Tory privatisation, take assets which should belong in the public realm and flog them off.

I can see SBC (legitimately) complaining during the periods where we didn't pay/withheld rent.

But how much money will the FC have paid in down the years into SBC's coffers, just in rent alone.  Millions.

Mention of the Tories after only 2 posts... I am calling house on this one!

Sadly it's the Tory administration who are making the call on this.  With the May locals coming up, there is a possibility of them losing their majority.  According to some sources if the Tories do badly in Swindon and London, then it will precipitate a leadership challenge for Theresa

Man City is a bad example, they may not own the ground but Man City own all the land around it that is now called the Etihad Campus. So yeah Manchester Council did sell their assets to Abu Dhabi as you put it!

You would hope/think that anyone with an interest in the town would be keen to keep the club where it is...regardless of their feelings towards it.  There is a lot less going on in the centre of Swindon compared with other towns/cities of similar size.  If you keep hollowing the place out and shifting everything to the suburbs, you'll end up with a giant housing estate with no discernible heart/centre.  SBC & STFC need to work in partnership.  They both need each other.

There's nowt wrong with partnerships between private finance and public bodies, if the general perception is that it is beneficial to the wider community. As I understand it the Etihad Campus was built on derelict brownfield land, and as a hub for sporting excellence so fits that remit.

There's no doubt that the CG needs a bit of a facelift and could be put to wider use..... however we know from previous research into how that might actually work and how it might be profitable, that there aren't too many solutions.

Which begs the question why would a a company like Axis get involved if they didn't see a sizeable profit.

A full redevelopment is a step up for Axis, previously they have been contractors or sub contractors. So what's in it for them is proving to the wider business community that they are big enough to do more. Plus profit, presumably.

The same thing had crossed my mind Jayo.

Hence the line that they were “involved in” Wembley and White Hart Lane redevelopments. They may have been together with 300 other contractors. I’d be interested to hear in what capacity, but if they’re the only ones interested, let’s get on with it.

The same thing crossed my mind when I posted it at 2ish this afternoon..... 😉

I probably missed it through scrolling down to bypass Reg's waffle.

What I’m struggling to understand is how anyone who owns the CG will make money out of developing the stadium. Unless there is additional development to go alongside any revamped stadium - houses, hotel etc.

I presume the council are just selling off the footprint that the CG currently stands on. Unless the surrounding land is also sold there is no room for anything.

Whenever things have been looked at before which involve an effort to redevelop and turn a profit, they've always fallen down on what you can actually do on the footprint, hence why the plans have tended to be about getting the CG on the cheap to sell up, relocate to a new prob out of town or Shaw Tip type site and build on the greater CG site to fund it.

What's different now?

Brexit

I cannot believe i’m agreeing with you but I do.

I’ll take your word on MCC. I will add onto your synopsis that it won’t be long before Power exits out with a decent wedge after the ‘redevelopment’. Wether that’s just the GC or a wider development of the car park, land in front of the DRS, cricket and playing field behind the AS & SB respectively. This will be financed by some very heavyweight money men/companies but not from Power though. I cannot see there being enough money to be made solely out of the GC footprint either, though a princely sum will need to go in first just to bring the stadium up to current day standards. Cannot for the life of me seeing to much in the way of non football income coming out of that. Throw in the other land and then you can start to look at all sorts of blue sky income.

Question is, how much would the council require to let all that go and where would the cricket club and athletics go?

is that why it's called the May Locals ?

I like what you did there. Try not to feed the animals though, Plowman has enough food as it is with the chips on each shoulder.

There is already a second planning application being considered for the athletics track, being led by FITC.  Now I don't know if that is STFC by the back door but it will involve upgrading all the athletics area, new changing rooms etc. and a 3G pitch.  The local are not happy about it, god knows what their attitude would be if the CG was to be redeveloped.

They could object like the residents around Ashton Gate when they wanted to move to Ashton Vale. City stayed where they were and now they are moaning about street parking during games!

Absolutely not. If the club owned the CG and surroundings, the dovetailing is obvious, but the FitC application is something that's been worked on for some years and is a really valuable and much needed facility for kids' football in the town. It stands in it's own right and deserves to succeed on it's own merits

The cricket ground pavilion by contrast surely is a historical, cultural asset.  I am no Swindonian but the pavilion must surely be listed. It would look odd without a pitch. 

That's it for me too.

Power always describes himself as a businessman and has no intent to share anything till it's a done deal.  He said as much on Saturday.  

I have no reason to think Power would do STFC any favours.  Not sure why anyone would?  Does anyone believe he would write off 2 million of his own money to enable a sale to go through?  Or truly carry out careful research into the suitability of any potential buyer of the club?

Trust ownership may contrastingly enable fan involvement and influence on any wider development and the opportunity to assess any viable, future owner or collaborator.  

Which is where, the sporting covenant may be our trump card.

Awaits PaulD to fume at you

ooh, but why would Paul go mad. The sporting covenant (isn't it leisure) is a rock solid  way of securing our future at the CG...

;)

As has been debated at length on here sadly means piss all. If the Council do sell to Power our biggest hope down that route will be whatever clauses they put in any contract regarding uplifts, right to sell on and, as I would expect, repeat the sporting covenant in their sale document to him along with equally draconian measures to maintain its sporting community use.

However, there is still silence on the ACV issue from the Trust, as I understand it they can request a 6 month moratorium if the owner decides to sell (which I assume they did when this all kicked off), I wonder whether this 6 months has now ceased hence Power now getting heavily involved as the Trust have persuaded the Council they want to sell (the law of unforeseen circumstances I fear) but have not made tangible process within the 6 month window, plus there is no legal requirement for the Council to actually sell to them meaning as I mentioned at the time the ACV designation is not the golden bullet many were suggesting it was?

However the ACV is also a material planning consideration for things like demolition so it gives the Trust (or anyone else for that matter) the ability to hold the Council to account on subsequent planning applications should Power go down that route and also leaves the door open to a JR if the Council do not attach sufficient value to the ACV in the planning process, or go against their own development plan in making any decisions.

Things are far from lost, but fucking hell the Trust could desperately do with saying something.... anything.... about where they are with things  :hmmm: FWIW I am equally fearful of the Trust buying the ground with the funds of a few wealthy (and as its stands entirely unknown) backers....

(https://media2.giphy.com/media/iLgbO6Y4EoRc4/giphy.gif)

Will make him aware he is needed here

No need, horlock did it for me :) Although it doesn't matter how often you tell people this, they do seem to prefer to cling to the myth

Not fuming at anyone, but we need to concentrate on areas where pressure can be applied....

The trouble with fan ownership is dosser and Christian Kostiuk get the same say as any of our more sensible fans.

I don’t think we’d allow Cheltenham fans to have much say

Fan ownership would be a disaster in my opinion. Guaranteed to have in fighting on any fan related board.
The owner of the club should be allowed to buy the site but only at a fair price. It should also have conditions on the sale that it can only be made on the guarantee of preserving the football club if any sale of the club is made thereafter.

I very much doubt the sort of guarantees you'd like to see are legally possible.

Out of interest, why do you think an owner should profit from the time, effort and investment of hundreds of individuals over more than a hundred years?

I don't believe they should profit from it. I believe the club should and only the club

 :hmmm:

Of course in an ideal world, I don't think anybody would complain if the owner wanted to buy the CG, develop it and then hand it over to the club as a gift, before beating a retreat with maybe the ground named after them.

But TBF to Power, he has said all along his reason for being here is to make money, so at least he's up front about it.

 Now for me the evidence for Power being benevolent, are about the same as his being malevolent, which  should rule him out of CG ownership.  If SBC has to sell, and the Trust can meet the cost, then they should get it.  

Therein lies the problem, as the club has no money, shows little sign of ever having any substantial amount of money and one cannot borrow money without someone profiting on the project development is never going to happen.

Power (or in fact any owner unless they are a mental fan and uber wealthy) isn't going to spend £50m+ buying and then developing the ground for nothing in return, its the paradox of football club supporting, fans moan about season tickets going up and having to pay 50p more for a burger, then in the next breath moan that the owner won't spend millions of their money with no return.  

How far do we go with this, even if Power decided to pump a few mill in and then proceed with a development for no personal gain, any contractor doing work would profit from the scheme so why should they and not Power - I know I am being silly in this example but where does it stop?

if any owner makes a bit, and passes the club on with better facilities it owns and a new owner that isn't a 'Jed' - surely 90% of fans would welcome it?

it's the risk of getting/being sold on to be Kasam'd that's the real issue isn't it?

I think I have a hunch who one of the backers is and if i’m right it’s not a villain in sheeps clothing. You’re right to some degree about the covenant possibly meaning diddly squat but the you thrown in possible caveats that SBC could weave into the sale, in a way are they not similar hurdles for ANY prospective buyer to agree to and overcome? You are of course right to be sceptical of the Trust also. Let’s assume they win the bidding process, one would assume SBC have done (as should the trust members) due diligence on the buyers? I still feel that the other bits of land are key to the whole future of the club. As it stands we the fans have a good hand at the poker table because if and it is a big if we all decided to boycott the turnstiles Power has nothing but some concrete and steel to show for his input so far. Once he or the Trust own the ground as well then it’s all to play for isn’t it? Could all end up being a heads you lose tails you loose.

I don't disagree with any of this, but to pick a few points...


Possibly so, but what about unforeseen circumstances, successors etc? Setting aside years of experience of property deals going belly up as investors circumstances change or those who inherit their estates either a) want to cash in and don't have the same personal links to the investment or b) don't agree with what has been done and challenge god knows what, on a more local level just remember what happened with Power (B)?


Again I would agree in principal however the Goddard one was written years back in different times and I assume will be a fairly generic land use only one, in this day and age if it were sold to a private company the Council could be incredibly specific and tie the covenants all together (for instances controls over use, ownership, disposal rights, land use etc etc etc)- any decent property solicitor could make such interlinked covenants nigh impossible and very costly to wriggle out of.


Indeed, but then this falls foul of the issue of anyone bar the club making a profit. Looking at a few high profile examples of ground redevelopments and the overarching theme is a) Council co-operation (who knows if this is feasible) and b) some manner of third party (in planning terms 'enabling development') to fund the project, Bolton - Middlebrook Retail Park, Swansea - Council led scheme, Cardiff - Retail scheme adjacent, Brentford - hundreds of houses. Now in the old days the easiest solution (not for the town possibly but for the club financially) would have been to sell the site of the CG to Tesco or someone to build a store, now that isn't an option anymore so housing maybe. The problem the CG has is I don't know how much land comes with it but you ain't going to get the enabling development to cross fund on the site, you might get a hotel ala Bolton but that isn't enough, so you are immediately dependent on (likely third party who will want their 15%) seed funding at least!



This is it, could be great, could be a millstone for the future for whoever gets it, for instance if the Trust buy and then 5 years down the line and unforeseen £10m needs spending where is that coming from, likewise Power buys, fans get pissed off revenues drop and you have a very pricey football pitch!

Its an important historical moment and needs the right outcome and team on either side, I honestly don't know which way I would like it to go, a combined bid seems the most attractive and unattainable.

Just think it could be renamed the King Power Stadium....oh no, that has gone. If it was moved out of Town it could become the "Lee Delemere Arena"   :soapy tit wank: :pint:

More likely be something like The Waterford Paddy Power Stadium.

If we got Paddy Power on board we would have something we don't enjoy now.....


A pot to piss in!

Don't disagree.

That is why I would like to substitute the Trust for Power in this project. 

Agree with everything else you say and am not convinced about the Trust - just more so than by Power (or most other potential private owners)

Surely buying the ground is a no brainer for Power. The club are paying £150-200k rent a year and all the maintenance costs. SBC are willing to sell for £2m then it pays for itself in 10 years and the club is maintaining its own asset.

Power has already mentioned it improves the resale value when he decides to sell up. Power has been willing to invest heavily in players when there is a good chance of selling on e.g. Luongo so why not the ground.

Only problem might be renaming it the Aden Flint County Ground from the sell on fee if he moves on in the summer.

Sent from my HTC U11

Shaw tip is still a tip with a few trees on it / community forest.
Witchelstowe is a floodplain inhabited by great crested newts.

Whatever happened to Terry King and FRAG ?

People with no engineering degree still spouting this crap I see.

Easy way to find out....

https://flood-map-for-planning.service.gov.uk/

I don't need to look it up, the whole estate is built about 3 metres higher than ground level, and surrounded by drainage channels, run offs, a massive fucking field which has rivers running through it in multiple directions, 2 lakes and a canal which is always half empty.

Oh and the house came with a 1000 year flood guarantee.

As the nearest I have been to that part of Swindon was when my old man rolled a car down an embankment of the M4 with me unbelted in the back on that stretch when I was a kid about 30 years ago I couldn't possibly comment.

I did look it up :)

More chance of flooding in Rodbourne than in Wichelstowe.

I knew there was a capitalist Tory in you somewhere. There’s no such thing as a free lunch, someone will have to pay somewhere along the chain.

Let’s see how this sale pans out and who the eventual owner/s turns out to be. Then we can all go batshit crazy with theories and heresay.

So if Power buys the ground then sells the ground off along with the club for a tidy profit to a developer that is only interested redeveloping and to make money from the ground and associated businesses that would have to go with it, would everyone still be happy.

This is why the plans from both sides are crucial, I fear the trust will be open about what their plans are and how they see the future, but Mr Power will not as it is down to him and nobody else.

Time will tell, this is stfc after all so it cant be straightforward.

I have no idea what the ideal outcome is to be honest, what is noteworthy (IMO) is that nearly a week after these latest developments occurred the Trust appear to have been entirely silent on the matter. I can only assume that the 6 month moratorium they could ask for as part of the ACV designation (which they made such a song and dance about) has passed and Power now sees an opportunity.

The Trust open? They won’t even say who their investors are or made any communications since this all came out. They’ve been less open than even Power!

I would have to disagree with the comment the covenant 'means piss all.'

I work in planning and was doing some research on a site in the Gloucestershire area and nearby was a site that Taylor Wimpey won planning permission for 100 homes. But the development didn't meet the criteria of the covenant so the scheme had to be stopped and the 24 houses that were built had to be demolished. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-16309548

It all depends on the covenant. Developers can try many different ways to circumvent a covenant but they are normally pretty tight.

So do I, aren't we the lucky ones..... ;) I have the double whammy of misery of being a Surveyor as well.

It has been fairly comprehensively covered on here from those who have seen it and seen advice regarding it that the covenant relating to the CG use is very woolly and getting round it fairly easily done, plus as pointed out at length those who benefit from the covenant, The Goddard Estate have no interest in the land anymore and thus there is little to stop them taking a settlement to release.

The Gloucestershire one if of interest as it seems that the locals have kicked up a stink regarding a development (well who would have thunk it ::)) and managed to get it enforced, no doubt someone along the lines PI insurance has taken a hammering in that case.

It has been fairly comprehensively covered on here from those who have seen it and seen advice regarding it that the covenant relating to the CG use is very woolly and getting round it fairly easily done, plus as pointed out at length those who benefit from the covenant, The Goddard Estate have no interest in the land anymore and thus there is little to stop them taking a settlement to release.

Be that as it may, why hasn’t anyone managed to ‘get round’ fairly ‘wooly’ Covanents as you describe in the last 30-40 years? You may not have the answer but surely someone must have had the means to wrestle the freehold from the council in that time frame?

You are right I don't have an answer, however,

Has there been a willing seller at any time before now, it's never been suggested or hinted at that the council wanted to sell until the Trust took an interest 12 months back, which seems to have smoked Power out as well.....

Unexpected circumstances and all that....

Take it from a capitalist Tory boy, everyone has their price at any given time.

Let’s face it there have been times when the local authority had more tax payers money to play with compared to now. Even then the council were not prepared to invest in the site and they negotiated a lease that meant the clubs owners were responsible for the upkeep and maintenance thus reducing the rent payable and the responsibility passed over to the clubs owners. Now the with the purse strings being tighter maybe it’s dawned on the Euclid St. elite that it’s time to dispose of the white elephant. I doubt that it’s value has changed much over the years to the same extent as prime commercial or domestic property because of its limited development potential.

Regarding who has blinked first I think that the trust have been spurred into a purchasing position with the tie in that Power has with these developers which was mooted some time ago and before the trust made their move. Where I agree with you is that it would seem that this has perhaps put an impetuous on Power and the developers to expedite their plans a bit sooner than maybe they had anticipated?

The trust has finally spoken, and give me the impression that they have funds for purchasing the ground only.

http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/sport/16041146.County_Ground_becomes_community_asset_as_Trust_press_on_with_purchase/

Indeed, 'lucky ones.'

It will be all down to the Goddard Estate and if they are happy if an application meets their definition of the covenant. When or where are there details of the covenant? 

The more I hear of the Trust’s bid the more it feels that it’ll just stagnate us further if they manage to purchase it, the ground needs more than some dilapidation works and some cosmetic improvements.

It does, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't be able to get further investment once they had a tangible asset to attract investment. If the worst case of the Trust scenario is that we don't get as much investment in the ground as we like, weigh that against the worst case of Power selling up to another Jed and what would happen to the ground then. If the club had owned the ground when Jed was here, we'd wouldn't have a ground now. And quite possibly not a club either. Look at Hereford and very nearly Hartlepool.

I get all that but at the same time they could end up holding us back from any significant redevelopment. Also there’s nothing to stop an owner be it Power or someone else saying fuck it if I can’t own the ground I’ll take it elsewhere and we end up somewhere akin to Colchester. The Trust could easily get left with an empty ground...

I agree with those saying they'd like to hear more from the Trust on their plans, they've not been nearly as forthcoming as I'd have liked either, but in the current climate of increasingly disconnected and rapacious owners, I worry that the one thing that has protected us from asset strippers over the years has been not having that many assets (and even then it didn't stop Jed forward selling our catering revenue for the next decade). Transferring one very big and valuable asset into private ownership is just inviting trouble; transferring it into community ownership is the only secure option for me. If that means we don't attract a Chinese consortium with fuck all interest in our club, but lots of interest in an edge of town centre development site, well, that's a risk I'm prepared to take.

That said the Trust need to set out a positive vision as to why they are the best, as opposed to the less shit option (which is what I've set out). I'll vote for "less shit" personally, but a positive vision of what the Trust can achieve is still needed

Paul as someone well versed in trust affairs with the orange consortium etc, do you think that the Trust not revealing its backers (as yet) can be seen to be a negative, because at present we still do know who that is, and the intentions of the backers?

The same thing that has ‘protected us’ has held us back as well though as owners haven’t owned the ground so done fuck all over the last 20 years and left us with a crumbling heap. If Axis are behind this and want to prove themselves as a main contractor then I think that’s my preference as we might actually see more than some crap roof on the Stratton Bank. If the trust don’t have the ability to finance building at least 2 new stands (which is the minimum the ground needs) then it would be pointless them owning the ground.
I cancelled my trust membership a while back as didn’t feel I get anything for my money; pretty much zero communication and won’t even tell their own members who they are supposed to represent who the backers are. They’ve become a closed shop and haven’t been acting like a supporters Trust IMO.

I don't think Axis have invested. They are a design company and would be employed for redesigning the CG?

I think Power got them in as a sponsor for that reason.

If you remember, we had a period where we had backers but couldn't say who (when Bob Holt "knew" that they were un-named Americans). Ideally you'd want to be open and transparent about everything as early as possible; sometimes that isn't always possible. There may be (e.g) good legal or commercial reasons why the Trust's backers don't want to be named at this stage. I look at it like this - the guys involved in running the Trust now are:
a) bona fide long term fans
b) all pretty smart and fairly successful in their chosen fields and there's a decent amount of business experience in there.
That gives me sufficient confidence that their motives are good vis a vis the club and that they have the experience/knowledge to assess that the route they're pursuing is a viable one. Whereas I think Power's end game is more opaque and that of any 3rd party who chose to sell to is necessarily at this stage unknowable.

When you're stuck between a rock (Power) and a hard place (SBC) the least shit option looks most inviting.

Do those advocating Power seriously believe he and his chums will swan in stump up about 15 mill, conservative estimate, to build us a few new no doubt steel and breeze block stands?  

Why would they?

Yes I remember that time very well

And thank you, can always count on you for a good reasoning from someone who has had experience in something like this.

Any you believe the Trust would be able to stump up £15m?

Lots of bias from a huge amount of our fan base against Lee Power based largely on speculation and conspiracy. In no way do i believe him a saint, i think the distance he has put between the club and the media/fanbase has put apathy at an all time high. However he runs the club like a business, and has never said he would do otherwise.

No, but for me it's realistic to try and do any redevelopment in a more sustainable fashion, more in keeping with our historic status.

He's always been open about his desire to make money... at the outset it was I'm a football man no interest in redevelopment/new grounds etc. However that source has now dried up, so is it just coincidence he's now interested in the ground?

If there appeared an obvious route for generating the evanescent 365 usage, that is required to make money from the CG, then fair enough, but all previous attempts at a concept of how this might be achieved on the CG footprint have failed... from Rikki's casino to Fitton and co's....  NHS surgery.

Let’s face facts until the trust registered interest and moved it forward Power never showed any interest in buying the CG.

The only reason he has joined the bidding are because of the trust bid- read into that what you will

TRUST STFC have revealed they have had the County Ground listed as an Asset of Community Value, insisting they remain committed to their own plan to purchase Swindon Town's home.

Wasn't it listed fucking years ago (yes it was http://www.swindon.gov.uk/download/downloads/id/753/information_-_list_of_community_assets.pdf and the listing runs out on the date the story suggests), this is just regurgitating old news to make it look like something is happening (or more likely shit Advertiser work), however the Council are not duty bound to sell to the Trust.

Vice-chairman Rob Angus added: “Our legacy speaks for itself. We are here for the long term, any stadium redevelopment will happen over years – and we will be here to see it through.

What legacy, they haven't really done anything yet...

I want them to succeed, I really do but we have a mysterious funder or more in the background and still no real answers, a website (one now thankfully with no news since June)...

I am pretty sure they are just plumbers and possibly contractors?


Maybe so, but I can show you 20 successful and pretty smart people with business experience who have no idea about property management nor development, a key part of my career is getting such people out of the shit!


Just out of interest what do you think the Trust are going to build stands out of hemp, hope and dreams??

Modern football grounds are steel and block, they might have  fancy cladding but people are very cautious about that post Grenfell!

I reiterate they are probably my preferred option, but they need to piss or get off the pot!

Did anyone see this and the groundtastic site. Original design for the Arkells from the 1960s looks quite funky modernist

https://twitter.com/paul_gtastic/status/966598704101756928

interesting!

If the club had owned the stadium, Jed would never have got his hands on it for a quid. Silly argument.

With an asset of that value there would've been plenty of suitors when Black decided to sell.

It's a perfectly valid example of why the club would have been more attractive to asset strippers. Agree it wouldn't have been Jed in that circumstance, but the prospect of being done over by slightly wealthier asset strippers doesn't appeal either

Finally some sense. This whole Jed argument is bollocks, chances are if we owned the ground all these years we would be a different proposition, Darragh Macanthony has said as much

Yes we would have been a much more attractive proposition to decent owners ... and to the kind of scum who stripped Portsmouth bare.

But that's just the risks Paul,we can't not want to move forward. We can argue that we shouldn't really trust the trust after what happened with Northampton.

I am going to go against what most think but if we get promoted this year and Power buys the ground and sells to a better equipped person to take us forward then we could argue he has been the best chairman we have had in a long time.

That eventuality is actually a 50/50 possibility so let's just wait and see.

No-one was suggesting we don't want to move forward. We have two alternate possibilities in front of us of how we do that. Power getting the ground will probably achieve that quicker, I think you're right about that. But it comes with higher risks, whereas a form of community ownership could actually secure the club's future for years.

Eh? What did our Trust do to Northampton? And come to that, what did their Trust do? Do you mean Notts County?

Completely agree with that. Problem is he's just as likely to sell to a dodgy consortium looking to asset strip, launder mafia money or use the ground as the entrance to a secret undergound base for a gang of international supervillains, whoever offers him the best return on his investment. The Trust owning the ground won't stop him selling to bad owners, but it will provide some degree of protection for what should be a community asset

Still not a dicky bird from the Trust to their membership - just a few somewhat spun quotes in the Advertiser, is this the point where we can start moaning about them not keeping the fans informed and only talking to friendly media outlets, or is that just Power..... :hmmm:

PS - not being strictly serious, but FFS!

nope, realise it's a difficult job when you have other commitments but the communication has been fairly shocking since the initial proposal was presented at Mecca.

At least you've nailed your colours to the Power mast, but let's be clear as such we've had 2 owners. Black and now Power.   SSW was sort of owner, but had other people on a Board and still conducted club matters in a traditional way.

I can see nothing much in Power's tenure of STFC to suggest that he has the acumen to progress the club.  Whether if he did get the ground, it would spell the end of the club is moot, but I'd rate 50/50 as too favourable.

Perhaps they should never have got our hopes up by making the announcement at such a religiously significant location?

I cannot comment on local custom having never actually lived in Swindon, but I am not aware of the traditional business custom of getting a Greek bloke to piss your money up the wall??

Perhaps more significant is that he was a disqualified director so should not legally have been running any business, much less our club.

All this talk of strippers reminds me of the Grapes and the Piccadilly.

You may have to enlighten the entitled generation as to the appalling sexist behaviour and degradation of women and the sisterhood in the Piccadilly. Would also be helpful to let them know where it was so they can protest outside or something.

You really do talk some shit mate

Sunday lunchtimes at the Grapes with that fat cunt compare like Bernard Manning with a Swindon accent introducing the lovely Marinda from Slough.
Lots of shaving foam too if I remember correctly.

Do we know each other?

 :)

Back on topic, a short newsletter from the Trust today says they're continuing to talk with the Council but (a) the Club's recent interest in buying the freehold and (b) the forthcoming Council elections mean any meaningful progress now unlikely before the summer.  The Trust say they are looking to find ways to work together with the Club for the "right outcome".  That's all well and good but are the Club interested in working with the Trust???

I think we know the answer to that one...

It's the Trust's AGM tonight.  Anyone else going along?

can't go tonight unfortunately. Ben Wills, and probably the trust are live tweeting.

 But usually there are one or two bits that are left out of those so any reports back from those that make it greatly received - especially the ground issue

Yep, I will be coming along I expect

Unless there is any serious update on this tonight with regards to purchasing the ground, I will be cancelling my monthly donation, lack of progress and information is boring me..

ditto

Just read the notes from the meeting, still hugely unconvinced by the Trust bid. On one hand they say they have £1 million matched funding (again can’t tell us who from due to non disclosure agreements) then they say they’ll need to spend £1 million to bring the ground up to standard as well. Then on the other hand they went on to say they are in talks with a developer about a new £15 million Townend

All just feels like pie in the sky to me, honestly don’t see supporters raising the million or so to help buy the ground yet alone the further amounts to bring it up to standard and contribute to any redevelopment.

Also they mentioned they would operate like the council/normal landlord if the club didn’t pay the rent, as if they would apply for a winding up order, would be pretty self defeating.

The £1 million is from James Phipps.

Where can I read the notes/minutes? Couldn't see anything on their website.

From the figures banded about in the media it suggests that it will take c.£2.2m to buy the ground, plus another £1m immediately on works. So even with the match funding that suggests that the Trust is going to need to raise about £2.2m from somewhere to proceed setting aside the promised match? Add fees onto that as it has been suggested that they have spent £30k on due diligence already which seems a hell of a lot?

I assume that the £15m on the Townend is a hell of a lot more than just a new stand?

I know its far from the same thing, but did you follow Ben Wills on twitter - he at least have an outline of the meeting which may be useful before the minutes are available.

You are assuming that the extra £1M is needed immediately. What's the current ground rent? Could be re-invested into the repairs. Just my thoughts.

RE:15M. I did note that they had talked to the Goddard re: the covenant. Could of course be unrelated to the proposed development, i.e. a - what if Power buys the Ground...

That's the problem with not being at the AGM - context can be lost!

Cheers Batch. I'll have a look at his account.

Isn't it about £250k a year, but under that who is actually responsible for repairs is it the club or the landlord? If its the landlord then I would be suggesting that the freeholder brings it up to standards before I purchase or the price is dropped accordingly or if its the club the lease be renegotiated possibly at a lower rent/rent free for say 4 years and the club bring it up to standard?

Otherwise its going to take 4 years of rent just to cover the works, which is rather risky in case any unforeseens arise.

One thing that is strangely reassuring is that if the match funding is £1m and the total cost in excess of £2m it at least means that the funder is not going to have provided 50% of the funding which should limit their ability to dictate to the Trust going forward?  

You reckon? seems the most obvious

Makes a mockery of the whole thing if it is him.

It is him.

Why (not stirring to be honest one stakeholder having so much in the process concerns me - just as a long distance supporter I don't know the local politics)

I think you're right, I just don't think the spirit is there anymore amongst the fans.  Not like in the 1930's when the TE was paid for and built by fan subscription and then the same fellas and women, marched off to war to defeat the swaggering jack booted Hun. Or even like the late 60's early 70's when the collectivism of municipal socialism could fund the building of the Arkells, then a state of the art stand.

Now it's more, let's sell it to that nice Mr Power, as the only way he'll make money out of the club, is to be able to sell it on to AN. Other, so that they can make some money out of a tract of land that sits fallow for 330 days a year.  Makes sense to me guv. Gawd bless ya Mr Mogg.

The truth is, if you are asking fans to raise £1m, they need to be kept in the loop of the goings on to keep themselves interested. This is where the Trust has failed and fans are losing interest because of this.
You can’t expect fans to pay a monthly subscription, but only give them a 6 monthly update.

At least you didn't mention Thatcher so the treatment is slowly working....  ::)

Thatcher screwed us over on the A Ground.... a microcosm of the likely scenario if Power gets the CG, but at that time people weren't quite so clued up on what was happening.. 

I just think the trust getting it is a recipe for disaster. The relationship with the club is non existent now so can only assume it will become bitter if the Club don't gain ownership and Power won't be best pleased. If I was then in the clubs position I'd call the Trusts bluff and say I'm not paying any rent and not contributing to maintenance as what are the Trust going to do get the club wound up or make them homeless? Also when it comes to financing any future development like the Townend investors and lenders are going to be reluctant to provide money unless the club are under a long term lease as the ground could effectively become unused at any point if Power decides fuck it he'll move the club or something worst. The best of intentions often lead to the worst consequences.......

So by the sounds of it, you'd rather it stayed with SBC, who could then carry out their original remit set out by Major Goddard, of keeping the land in trust for sporting use for the people of Swindon.  :hmmm:

Yep

Out of all the options I’d rather the club own it to be honest, yes it’s a risk but so is the Trust.

Fair enough.... but there's no chance of the club owning it.  Mr Power or whoever is fronting him the cash will own it.

Just think it is all a bit cloak and dagger, Phipps is on the trust already. I like him he seems a really decent bloke to be fair i just think there are people currently not going to games who are giving more money to the trust than the club and actually getting little information back. The meeting last night did not tell me one thing i did not already know a year ago when all this started

And can then do with it whatever they wish.

Which is always the case if the ground is owned by the club as ultimately whoever owns the club owns the ground by default, it’s if it is owned by another company that isn’t the club where concerns would begin. I still think without the club signed up to a long term lease the Trust would find it very difficult to get outside investment or money lended to them and I can’t see Power signing up to a long term lease with the Trust. With the club able to leave at any moment you’d have to be stupid to lend any substantial amount of money in my opinion so the idea of any redevelopment will just fall away due to lack of finances. I can’t help but think that in the back of their minds the Trust are planning for an AFC Swindon scenario which is of no interest to me.

Which becomes a whole lot more likely once you take the ground into private ownership. Look down the road at Kassam's triangle

It looks that way to me, I do wonder whether the Trust interest has actually made the Council interested in selling and smoked Power out - unintended circumstances and all that!

Consider a very modern club.... Chelsea.  Stamford Bridge is owned by Chelsea Pitch Owners plc....

http://www.chelseafc.com/fans/chelsea-pitch-owners.html

Mr Abramovich might own the club, but he doesn't own the ground, and an attempt to purchase it was voted down by the fans who hold shares in CPO

But clearly having fans owning the pitch has held the club back massively and prevented anyone from wanting to invest in it .....

Serious question, so what would you plan to do? Continue with the Trust and their mysterious backers who are so cloak and dagger no one can speak their name? Frankly to be rather blunt about things they need to piss or get off the pot, fucking hell Powers PR has been better than there on this issue which says it all sadly.

Yes. In much the same way that MCC owning the City of Manchester Stadium prevented.... Sheikh Mansour investing.

Well the fact their owner is a billionaire and paid for pretty much everything himself has single handedly led to their success. Unless we have our own billionaire owner lined up it’s not really a proper comparison is it as they have never really needed to raise external finance.

Much like a Flitters Div 4 team set up, it's about %'s. What are the % chances that Power would sell to a benevolent billionaire, as opposed to a propeerty development company?

Agree with this. I think they shot their load too early for whatever reason (perhaps for reasons that could not be foreseen at the time) and now the inevitable lack of enthusiasm and more damagingly a diminished trust on their ability to execute has set in.

Think after nearly a year I'm stopping putting in my lowly monthly sum.


Same for Power right now. Certainly regarding the source of money (presumably developers), who will own the ground (is it cast iron ring fenced as a club asset that can't be split) and ROI expected.

I don't think there is enough information to base any informed decision whatsoever. If the council said choose, I'd go blindly with the Trust based on intent rather than ability.

I would probably do the same to be honest, but with little confidence of success.

Its been 12 months plus this has been going on and the lack of progress or communication is shocking, the difference between Power and the Trust is that Power is not looking for the fan base to provide a few mill to cover the project so he doesn't really need to say owt, the Trust are supposed to be enthusing the fan base, get and then keep them on board but it seems to have petered to nothing, apart from I have got what has turned out to be a very expensive pin badge - although not as pricey as those polo shirts are looking.

Its all very well making noises about due diligence and all that, but as Bob Holt would say and actually be not far of the mark, its actually not hugely different to buying a house, be intrigued to know where £30k has been spunked up the wall on it already?

Yours thoroughly disillusioned with the whole charade...

Not disagreeing with the lack of engagement. Always feel bad criticism because I couldn't do better.

Although it wasn't actually confirmed at the AGM in as many words, it seemed quite clear that Power is in no hurry to engage with the Trust (although Phipps said he had met with Clem Morfuni - and got on well with him.

Picking up on Theakston2k's point above, someone raised the question last night of what might happen IF the Trust became owners of the ground and Power subsequently decided to throw his toys out of the pram and move the Club elsewhere, leaving the Trust owning a ground without a Club to play in it.  The Trust's answer was that they thought the Council wouldn't make it easy to relocate elsewhere in Swindon and believed the Football League's rules (post-Wimbledon/Franchise) meant it would be most unlikely he would be allowed to move the Club further afield.  This is what the relevant rules state:

"13.6 Each Club shall register its ground with The League and no Club shall remove to another ground (whether on a temporary or a permanent basis) without first obtaining the written consent of the Board, such consent not to be unreasonably withheld and the Board shall be entitled, if granting consent, to impose such conditions as it deems appropriate in all the circumstances.

13.7 In considering whether to give any consent to a permanent relocation, the Board shall have regard to all the circumstances of the case (including, but not limited to the factors set out in this Regulation 13.7) and shall not grant consent unless it is reasonably satisfied that such consent:

13.7.1 would be consistent with the objects of The League as set out in the Memorandum of Association;

13.7.2 would be appropriate having in mind the relationship (if any) between the locality with which by its name or otherwise the applicant Club is traditionally associated and that in which such Club proposes to establish its ground;

13.7.3 would not to any material extent adversely affect such Club’s Officials, players, supporters, shareholders, sponsors and others having an interest in its activities;

13.7.4 would not have a material adverse effect on visiting Clubs;

13.7.5 would not to any material extent adversely affect Clubs having their registered grounds in the immediate vicinity of the proposed location; and

13.7.6 would enhance the reputation of The League and promote the game of association football generally.

13.8 The Club must disclose, as soon as practicable, plans and details of any proposed future move to a new stadium.

13.9 Subject to any dispensations granted by the Board, a Club shall either own its ground or have a legally enforceable agreement with its ground's owner for its use by the Club, expiring not earlier than the end of the current Season.

13.10 Each Club shall, provide The League with full copies of such documentation as The League may reasonably require to demonstrate the Club's ability to play fixtures at its ground. By way of example, and without limitation, this may include copies of HM Land Registry entries, copy leases, any licence to occupy and any sub-leases or licence relating thereto. The League shall maintain a register of Clubs and the basis upon which that Club occupies its ground. 13.11 Without prejudice to the provisions of Regulation 13.6, a Club shall forthwith notify The League of any proposed change in its circumstances relating to the occupation of its ground. By way of example, and without limitation, a proposed change may include a sale of any freehold interest (with or without subsequent leaseback) or any surrender or variation of a lease or licence."

After going last night I found it interesting that the Trust are being proactive, they have spoken to Goddard estate and it sounds like they recognise what a sporting covenant is and what it means to the people if swindon, it sounded like they would not be prepared to accept sums of money to buy this out, they have also spoken to the Eady trust and have had positive noises.

They have spoken to a developer that would be interested in doing things to the ground who would like to use stfc as a showcase stadium to get other ground redevelopment work of the back of it

NDA in place with investor(s) who would be prepared to put in substantial sums

Due diligence has been done on the stadium and an independent valuation, gentleman's agreement in place not to announce publicly the price for the CG

As has been said though these things take time and the council have to decide between 2 proposals and ensure they do what is right for the future of the football club and for the surrounding area as well as if they get this wrong that is huge for them.

I'd actually prefer the Trust to have the ground, I would be concerned that Lee Power would own the football club and retain the lease to the ground himself or have no interest in any redevelopment, whereas the trust do want what is best for stfc and the ground.

I cant see why Power would not pay rent as he does now and of course they would have to deal with it if it happened just like the council.

They would appoint a stadium manager with experience to deal with stadium.

Power refuses the speak to the Trust, they have suggested a partnership agreement but he refuses to meet with them or talk to them (rather childish if you ask me)

All in all quite a positive evening, but its just a waiting game to see when the council decide to officially announce they are selling the ground and to whom.

I suppose why should Power bother, if the Trust buy the ground they need the club to commit so they need him probably more than he needs them at the moment as if he buys he doesn't need the Trust. BTW my lack of local knowledge again, but who is Phipps, his name keeps coming up and he is obviously acting on behalf of the Trust but I can find nothing on their website to give a clue of who he is or whats his role, in fact there is very little since last summer on there?


There are a lot of ifs and buts in there though, I cannot see anyone putting decent cash up based upon a vague hope that the Council may help (how far does one have to go outside the town to be outside Swindon Borough?) and 'believe' the FL rules again its all a wing and a prayer and basic stuff that should have been bottomed 12 months ago.


I agree I feel a bit of a wanker criticising as they are doing a hell of a lot more than I am, but it doesn't remove the fact that even a fucking email once a month would be huge step forward.

I am involved with a few railway heritage charities entirely volunteer ran and each manage a weekly or fortnightly email to all supporters, even just a few lines reassures that something is happening and keeps lines of dialogue open. It was noticeable this year that I didn't get the loads of reminder emails regarding the AGM that were received in previous years, plus if something was handed out at the meeting it could have been emailed to members either yesterday evening or today after the meeting, or even just a link on social media.

All good stuff, but stuff which could have been drip fed to keep people on board and show progress....

Playing devils advocate for a minute, what would the Trust be bringing to this 'Partnership', if he has the cash to buy the place why complicate things by getting the Trust involved??

Not sure if you have local elections in Swindon in May, but if so don't hold your breath it would be back end of the year I imagine before they would be out of purdah and organised enough to make such a big decision.

Agree Trust have not handled things well, but would still rather keep the ground in some form of collective/public ownership. Once it goes into private hands we are wide open and vulnerable to the very many asset strippers hanging round English football. Sorry but I just don't trust most club owners, no matter how good their PR.

For horlok07, on Phipps - a good guy.  Knew him when younger and his family.  He built up a local telecoms company and has done well personally as a result.  Lifelong Town fan.

To be honest, if it is him and his money behind it then I am confused why they don't want to disclose it.

They've done a shocking job of managing this, but this is the problem when you rely on people with day jobs.  I don't doubt they have been working their nadgers off, but it helps cement the idea of part time fans with a lack of knowledge.  I think they should have appointed and paid for a Consultant to run this.  Could have been one of the group if needed and they had the experience, pay for them on a two year contract to get them to give their day job up or get an external professional.

SBC don't make it easy for anybody to do anything....unless large multi-national.

Power is well on the way to circumventing FL rules.  What do the National League have to say?

I don't disagree with your sentiment, but it doesn't remove the fact that the Trust have had an 18 month run at this so far and after getting a lot of goodwill have contrived to potentially lose a large proportion of it, which is possibly careless....

Ultimately I would love a non commercial organisation to own the ground, but if they don't have the cash nor ability to carry it through and sustain long term its pretty irrelevant.

Read your first paragraph and said in my head 'why the fucking hell don't they say so then', then read your second paragraph  :D ;)

As per my earlier, literally an email once a fortnight saying 'we have met with x, y & z over the last couple of weeks, all going well, we have presented a,b & c to the Council and are awaiting their response which they have promised by...' would show progress and be more palatable than we have a secret investor and secret developers comunicated once every 6-8 months. It would literally take 30 mins a fortnight, I assume they have someone on the committee in charge of PR who could do it. 

Pretty sure you could get around all that pretty easily with the help of a decent legal team.

Another devels advocate but..

What if Lee Power is actually looking for his exit plant (and why wouldn't he with the criticism he's getting), if the club owned the ground, then its an asset, and a club with an asset relatively debt free/low debt becomes an attractive proposition to a buyer?

Or is this simply not the case

Lee Power pretty much said all of that in recent interview with BBC Wilts that owning the ground attracts 'blue chip' (his words) investors.

If SBC only want approx £2m and the club is paying approx £150k rent a year and all the maintenance costs, then if LP has the cash it's a no brainer. Save on rent and get your money back when the club is sold on.

I doubt whether LP would redevelop the ground significantly because some of the loans Andrew Black wrote off were repayable on sale of the club or ground redevelopment. I think it's a £2m loan still sitting in the accounts for the last few years.

Sent from my HTC U11

They gave these out last night.

I’m having trouble posting both up but you should be able to get to both sides of that document here...


https://twitter.com/nyc2sn1/status/976911341519802369?s=12

So are they saying the developer has the backing to build the “£15 million Town end” without the need for any other investment?
Also I’m still intrigued how this matched backing would work, if it is Phipps and he’s putting in £1 million does that mean he will have to agree to anything on the ground going forwards as his holding will count for 50%+ of the shares in which case it’s not really Trust ownership is it if there is a single individual with the power of veto.

Why don't you put these questions to the Trust directly?

Nope on the Phipps thing. He gets 1 share, same as your £50 gets 1 share.

Note: I attended last night but I’m not on the board, but this is what I understood. They said there will be no hierarchy of shareholders.

....or you could just read the summary of the AGM which is now up on the Trust’s website.

Which is what I’ve read and still have the questions..

I guess it all boils down to my main concern in how does this benefit the actual football club other than a nicer ground to play in. The one thing we all agree on is the club needs 7 days a week income in order to move forward in any way and I can’t see how this will achieve that. It’s sounds like any redevelopment will require outside investment so things like hotels or a NHS centre (like at Deepdale) will pay for any new stands and then sign a lease with the Trust. In this scenario not only would the club receive no increase in revenue they’d end up with parts of the ground they have no access to which if I was in the clubs position doesn’t sound very appealing to me.  Forgetting who the owner is at least if the club owns the ground they might get a better deal with sponsorship, naming rights, shares etc and obviously would benefit from any rent.
Unless the club is issued with a massive lease and get all income associated with the ground then as a football club surely nothing changes and we just stagnate further other than maybe getting a bit more matchday revenue.

Yeah, maybe I’m being thick but say the trust did buy the ground and developed it to a state where it generated income 365 days of the year, what and how would those profits be put back into the club??

That might well have been covered already tbf

So ask the Trust then. And when you get an answer, post it here and then we can all benefit from, or dismiss, the answers. Rather than ask a load of folks on here who either can't answer your questions or at best can paraphrase what the Trust would say directly. So ask them

Did that already but the responses are ambiguous and don’t really give any answers hence posting on here for other views.

As we discussed last night, all income generated by the ground (in whatever form) will be put back into Swindon Town FC and specific developments can see adjustments to the lease accordingly. The Trust will not benefit, but will maintain an interest and keep the legacy protected.

I hope they’ve spent their £50k on a good PR firm as based on info to date it’s difficult to work out if it’s the best thing for the club and worth giving money to.

I can’t pretend to know the ins and outs about financing large projects, but if the Trust, or Power for that matter, have someone in the wings prepared to fork out for a stadium revamp what would be the cost to the club?

In the Trust’s case £15m on a new Town End will obviously need to generate a return for whoever stumps up the money. I presume to secure that money a charge would be levied on the CG at and a, hopefully, commercial rate charged. Assuming 5% that would mean the club coughing up £750,000 yearly in interest payments before even looking at paying off the capital.

Maybe any income streams from the new stand may be the developer’s carrot.

If this scenario is total bollocks, in good TEF fashion, I apologise.

In all previous redevelopment plans, whether having got to the little wooden model and some drawings on a noticeboard stage, or just something in Rikki's head, the 365 revenue stream thing hasn't come up with a workable idea.

You can look at other clubs to get ideas... so for example Saturday's opponents a Trust owned club, are in the process of redeveloping and part of it is being paid for by including student accommodation for the University.  Of course not an option for us.

Exeter is interesting, insofar as when they had economic problems a few years, the ground was flogged to Beazer Homes. 

This is what developers do stockpile land.... Exeter City Council eventually bought it back.  I guess it's what St Modwen were about back in the days of SSW, only their aim was the whole of the CG complex.

No developer is going to fund a CG redevelopment... there's no prospect of a return, unless it's for the whole site to build something else on, and move the club out

Irrespective of who owns the ground, unless you have a Steve Lansdown type owner prepared to fund a redevelopment out of his own pocket any redevelopment will have to be self financing which means it will likely be funded by a developer building something else on site which they profit from in the long term (e.g. a Hotel)
The club's benefit would be the larger / better facilities incorporated into the new stand(s) and the revenue streams they can generate from them.
A decent sized replacement for the Town end on its own would probably cost £3-4million if it were just a bog standard stand with a 3-4,000 capacity. A £15 million development must therefore include a lot more besides.
The Town End is the most logical place to start a redevelopment as it's where there is most room and the current facilities are most basic.
If you were going to develop the stratton bank, you'd be very limited on space which in turn would make it more difficult to fund.

Swindon seems pretty well stocked with hotels atm.... although a new one is going up on the old Southern Laundry site.

You could just about imagine some flats being included into the Bank, with perhaps a very small terrace in front

Well go back to them and ask for clarification if you're not happy with the answers. Nothing wrong with asking for greater clarity but asking questions of people on here who can only speculate or give their own interpretation seems a bit pointless when you can go direct to the source?

What the fuck are they planning at the Town End that's going to cost £15m, Stevenage are building a new end stand at the moment and the budget is c.£1m, been trying to get a figure for the works at Exeter but struggling (incidentally have they bought part of Barnet's ground to re-erect?)

Its not as if the car park is very big for any form of enabling development, but that £15m seems bloody high to me?

Isn't that the point of a forum?

Lets be honest here this has been going on for over a year and very little has come out from the Trust which with the level of funding they are chasing is pretty poor. When you ask questions you get referred to the minutes and the leaflets that was handed out during the AGM which is fair enough and gives some information but as I said is ambiguous. I appreciate they all have day jobs but by now I just feel we should know more and it shouldn't be down to individuals to go chasing basic things like how will this allow the club to get 365 income. They are saying they want to raise the £1 million+ over the next 6 months and I just feel there is a void of information that needs to addressed as it's notoriously difficult to get a large proportion of our fanbase to support things like this at the best of times.

I am going to sound very selfish here but my only concern is the club moving forward, I don't have any interest in community aspects as I live over 50 miles away these days so it's of no benefit to me. I just want the club to increase it's turnover and move forward as a football club which is why the 365 income for the the club is key to me, it's a selfish viewpoint but I'd imagine it's a similar view point to many others especially out of town supporters.

I think the simple answer to your question is simply they don't have an answer and hence the ambiguity of response?

Now if the proposal for the Town End was for some manner of incorporation of say corporate facilities/executive boxes etc it would be comparatively easy to quantify and explain a process for that as they would just be leased to the club as part of the ground, the club could operate and tak the income, possibly with some triggers on rent uplifts profit share that kind of nonsense.

The problem arises if the development is actually only being done to fund the works to the ground and does not provide any revenue opportunity. Again take the Town End as an example its not going to be a prime spot for football hospitality, to me it would seem most sensible to get a decent single tier stand built for a couple of mill, possibly with a decent leisure facility to the rear for fans (but that would majorly piss off the CGH), as part of this get PP for some residential/commercial use on the car park (part of probably as some parking will need to be retained) and then reinvest the cash in finally opening up the mythical Don Rogers second concourse for corporate facilities which would potentially provide a 365 revenue for the club and be included in the lease terms?

Yes I get the point - communication from the Trust has been poor. If you're just looking to sound off about the Trust's comms being a bit shit, then fair enough, make that point here or wherever you like. Although, again, I'd suggest if you want the Trust to improve their comms you'd be better off telling them than complaining about it on a forum. Or do both, of course. But if you actually want answers to your questions (as opposed to posing the questions as rhetorical questions to poke holes in the proposals), they are the people who can provide them so you're best off asking them, rather than asking people on here for their opinions of what the answers might be.

I've been asked to post this :

Since our last May fans meeting (which was fully documented on TrustSTFC.tv), we did a newsletter in July, August, November, and January and just had the AGM which again is documented and up on the site now. This has been sent out via our newsletter this evening, and has been promoted on Facebook and Twitter. The AGM pack is available for download on that page and it covers last year's questions and also this year's questions.




http://truststfc.tv/2018-agm-summary 




In between all of these newsletters we did press releases, Facebook, Twitter, answered many individual emails, did several radio interviews and covered off many of the questions being asked in the forums at the AGM itself. Accusations of non-communication are way off the mark and if anyone did not receive the newsletter, it's likely to be because of technical reasons, spam filters, ISP issues etc. Please email [email protected] if you believe you're experiencing issues and we can try and help.




It's worth highlighting that there are long periods (such as now) where the council are deliberating and going through their process  (as has been communicated in our press releases, newsletters, website articles and radio interviews) . Often times there are no new updates - and often we are waiting to hear on the next steps ourselves.




Some of our discussions are subject to Non-Disclosure Agreements, there is nothing we can do about that - the parties involved expect that level of professionalism.




We've had strong donations from local companies and we are in a good position financially, your contributions to the Red Army Fund are totally appreciated and have helped massively to-date, but as we explained last night - if you are struggling for cash or no longer want to contribute, then please go ahead and cancel. The fund will be used for the County Ground promotional campaign and for future fan related projects - if we end up with a surplus for whatever reason, then we will have a vote on how to spend the balance.




Please read the summary and the Infographics that we handed out at the AGM and keep a positive outlook, alternatively we welcome ideas on how to improve fan engagement and we also welcome further volunteers who may be able to help our work.

Ah so they have been excellent at communication and we're just all wrong. That's me convinced.

Fucking Holt-esque.

OK and that's all well and good, but it's just an extended justification of the comms the Trust have already done. And clearly from the posts on here, people have read that and still have questions (and in at least one case has contacted the Trust directly and got an answer he thought was vague and added nothing to what had already been said). So perhaps rather than going on the defensive about how good the comms have been or not, might be an idea to get someone to have a trawl through the thread and directly answer some of the questions raised rather than re-pointing people to the info already posted as that clearly doesn't answer the questions. Or just tell everyone to fuck off if you like, your call :)

.....and from memory, each of the newsletters circulated began 'Sorry that we have not been in touch recently....' or words to that effect!!!

That's harsh, at least they have released it on a Friday which, for me at least, is a welcome acknowledgement of a fine club tradition.

Its all very well getting Summerof69 to post it (And thanks for doing so) but if the Trust have something to say, come on here and say it, actually put your head above the parapet through direct engagement, minds could be put at rest, it still has the air of we are doing something but its too complicated for you so don't worry your pretty heads about it, we know best!

But is glad to know its all the fans fault, I know its different but Power would get destroyed if he replied to the questions from the fans regarding lack of information in the same way....

Imagine if Andrew Steele Davis popped on here and said Lee has asked me to post on here and tell you we are hoping to buy the ground still and you are all wrong about him not telling you anything.

I’d be suprised if Andrew Steele Davis posted anything STFC related tbf

£15m seems astronomical cost for a single stand, here are a few other ground/rebuild costs I can find on the net.

Stevenage new stand capacity 1,700 cost £1.2m

Exeter City new stand capacity of 1,600 cost £3.5m

Yeovil whole ground £3.5m 9,500 capacity (in 1990)

Bristol City whole ground capacity 27,000 improvements cost £29-40m (depending on source)

Bristol Rovers whole ground improvement 16,000 capacity cost £35m

Oxford Kassam stadium capacity 12,500 cost £15m for 3 stands! (in 2001)

Plymouth Argyle new stand 5,000 capacity cost £5m (opening 2019)

This is the problem with not already having someone on-board who is driving this as their full time occupation.  In their infographic they mention getting a team on-board once purchased - too late, you need to have been using the funds to get someone in now.

Part of the issue they are facing is, yes, they have sent "communications", but they haven't been able to articulate the plan.  The NDA is a killer for them I am afraid.  Maybe for a few weeks it's ok, but they re a Community group and not being able to reveal the source of funding promotes all kinds of trust issues (pun intended).  I'd be hard at work right now convincing the backers to allow this to be removed-  if they don't, I do not see them  getting any funding to match.

Next, they need a skeleton business case out in the open, showing how they intend to use funds, apportion income, fund development and outline timelines etc.  Essentially we are all the potential shareholders, we need to be convinced to provide funding, not begged at.  I very much doubt they will raise a million by just asking for it on some vague hope.

It's a shame because this was a great opportunity.

The 15m Town End is a good example.  Don't just float such vague ideas around, provide an outline as to how it is being funded (don't even need names at this point), how it will provide increased income for the Trust and how that will then flow to help the club.  What is the scale of the development? What does it incorporate - that again can be as vague as xxxxx sq ft of commercial space for lease and we are in early negotiations with proposed tenants etc.  Maybe a theme of where the tenants come from - sports retail, hospitality etc.  Early indications as to when it could commence, how it will impact matchday's and for what period.

It depends on the source funding and the extra facilities required to get such parties interested.

Let's face it, the willl to fight for the club's future just isn't there any longer.

Now it's just  :shrug:  and hope that Power can find someone benign to sell up to.

I don't think you can say that until the is obvious peril (which granted may be too late in the case of a ground sale).

with Diamandis there was an obvious tangible threat of the debenture.

today there are a few 'power is ruining us' FB posts, but no actual evidence.

Don't like the bloke myself, but not going to act on nothing more than a guy feeling

That isn't what people are saying though, that's just your thesis. What people are actually saying is that the plans as communicated are too vague or they don't think they will work, not that they can't be bothered.

They really don't, to use a local example the Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Railway have reconstructed and reopened 13 miles of heritage railway without any paid staff, its all volunteers (I think so, it was until very recently anyway) most recently raising £1.3m to extend to Broadway via share offers etc https://www.gwsr.com/supporting_the_railway/shares/broadway_-_the_last_mile.html I have nothing to do with them, although I know people who do and they manage this through volunteer time.


Entirely agree with this, its someone donating to a bleeding community group, not taking over Nationwide (to keep it local), seems entirely unnecessary and instead sets all manner of hares running about having something to hide?


Again entirely agree, to share another example of a mainly volunteer group trying to raise cash, and its another heritage railway one as they tend to be the sort of volunteer projects I am aware of (plus it keeps Reg happy!) http://www.vintagetrains.co.uk/uploads/Documents/VT%20Share%20Document.pdf again gives you some confidence of what you are giving money to, how its going to be spent and a plan going forward.

Hi,

My name is Steve Mytton - on Twitter as Mightymyte, so have used that here. I am the Chairman of TrustSTFC (5th Anniversary next week on Tuesday 27th March 2018), so I can hopefully answer your questions...

Please be kind  :D

Fully take on board that our communication has been patchy, that's mainly because of delays in the council process (prior to this CG campaign our newsletter was every month without fail). I think some of the accusations are a bit harsh as there are very specific questions being asked in some cases, and maybe our responses on twitter (for instance) are dismissed as generic when in fact they are just an attempt to summarise without writing an essay. Anyone that attended the AGM or previous fan meetings will know that we give detailed answers (I rabbit on far too much actually, I'm working on that).

I have responded to hundreds of emails over the five years (often in great detail), and you are always able to email directly at [email protected] - nothing gets ignored, and everything gets a response. Sometimes there might be a delay, but that's because I am a working man - up at 5:30am each day and commuting, father of two young kids, husband to a very understanding wife, and have a dog that needs walking every evening.

We have a fantastic Trust board who are involved in many discussions, but not necessarily all of them, so it's hard to get others to answer the fine detail that many questions demand. There are forums like this, and others in Facebook, and of course there is Twitter too. It's not easy to cover all of the angles, but we are continually trying.

At the AGM we brought James Spencer on-board (he contacted us and volunteered his services, we are always appealing for more helpers by the way). James is a fantastic addition and is going to take the lead on the TrustSTFC.tv website which was created for comms purposes but has fallen to the wayside as our previous Administrator (Sam Morshead) got himself a new job, got married, and had less time to spare. James is hopefully going to work with Sam and get the site moving again, so we would welcome your contributions/ideas.

We are looking into doing a regular podcast (or something similar) as this may work better than the written word. We may also continue with infographics, it worked really well at the AGM (check out our site if you have not already) and everyone who came along went away better informed, we took loads of questions and it was a brilliant two-way interaction all night.

Anyway, all of our current comms and methods are not working for some of you so I'm willing to take it on the chin and accept that, for the moment at least, we have not covered all the bases.

I've tried looking through this thread but the topics vary and it's more of a chat than a questions thing at the moment. I am in meetings for much of the remainder of the day today, and I'm catching up on a busy week after preparing for, presenting at and writing up the AGM. Can I suggest that the questions are collated either here or in a different thread, over the next day or two, and then I will come back on at the weekend and answer them?

Please keep in mind that nobody gets paid for this Trust work, and over the years we have put in hundreds/maybe thousands of hours (family time) in an attempt to make something worthwhile happen. We are not looking for medals or heaps of praise, but a little understanding. We get lots of appreciative emails and support, and contributions, but I know to some people we are still a mysterious organisation. We're not - you're all welcome to join in at any time.

Doing all of this via social media/the web is very time consuming and hence why we encourage people to come to the AGM. It really was great, really positive and everyone walked away with a clear view.  We had loads of questions, and answered them in detail, I would encourage you to come along to any future meetings, it helps everyone.

There are loads of Q&As in here, both from this year and last year... http://truststfc.tv/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/2018-AGM-Pack.pdf

So please get the questions together, and aside from the NDA stuff (yes it's real) I will do my best to answer.

As it's the Town End forum, I might even drop in the odd swear word  :)

Thanks,
Steve
 
Stephen Mytton
Chairman, TrustSTFC
 
Twitter: @mightymyte / @TrustSTFC
Facebook: facebook.com/truststfc
www.redarmyfund.co.uk  www.truststfc.tv








 

Then presumably if they could be bothered they'd get engaged and try and do something about the perceived weaknesses of the case. That's assuming they think the Trust owning the ground is a good thing.... reading the posts on here plenty don't think that is the case, and would prefer Mr Power.

I helped PaulD create an entire ground redevelopment proposal on the back of packet of fags 10 years ago, what more do you want :-)

Mytte - to summarise - it is not volume or regularity of Comms, it is who to and content.  It is not that we think you are not working hard, it is in-fact that you haven't been able to articulate a business plan.  It is not that nobody knows who you are - it is that they do not know who the funding is coming from and whether you like it or not, that is a problem for you.

To take the issue 10 years ago, and yes it was much more compelling, it worked because it was simple.  A) we do not want this guy, b) we'd like this guy, c) we are happy with this other guy just sell

But people not thinking the Trust owning the ground is a good thing does not equate to people can't be bothered to fight for the club's future. You might equate the two, and personally I agree that the Trust owning the ground does much to secure the club's future whereas Power (or AN Other Owner) holding it raises the spectre of real threats to the club in the future, but plenty of people don't. And that's a perfectly coherent view, as has been set out quite cogently by several posters in this thread, theakston and DRS among others. They both very much care about the club's future they just don't agree with your analysis of how best to secure it.

It's a bit like the Scottish referendum, they had all these ideas, but it felt like a bit pie in the sky, there was a lot a vague ideas. (not Scottish, I just used it as an example).

To promote engagement, people need to feel a part of the plan, the more info you can put out (within reason), the more engaged people will get. Fulfil the points that RobT outlined, and more will feel more informed.

Some people have had 30 years or more of vagueness from STFC related people, probably feel like they just had enough of it now

Nowt wrong with some vagueness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aJEcz5PqsQ

I just think the Trust are missing their opportunity (personal views on whether it is my personal choice aside). To me this is the calm before the storm, you have to assume at some point the club will release their own vision if for no other reason than to put people off giving the Trust their money. I would have thought the Trust would be doing all they can to get people on board whilst they can before the club really enter the mix.

Can we get away from the use of the term "the club" buying the ground..... it's Power and whoever he's fronting for.

Well, Power isn’t doing any better re the mythical training ground. Must be 2 years now since he bought the golf course. Get a few vague noises that ‘things’ are in hand, but I’m not holding my breath on this one.

At the moment we have put a detailed 30 page proposal into the Council. There are elements of it that are subject to the NDA, so we can't share the whole thing  - but instead we have tried to get some of these messages out in a way that every supporter can understand, via the newsletters, articles and AGMs etc. In terms of the matched funding - it was a LOT of work to secure the £1m, and we are not in a position to give any further details at the moment - that's just a fact.

It would be great to give all of the background, but in fact it's not necessary. It's important to note (and we stressed this at the AGM many times) - the Trust is just a vehicle for the supporters to buy the stadium (THE SUPPORTERS to buy the stadium) - the fact we have secured matched funding and some other significant pledges from some of our more wealthy supporters should not matter - it's not a loan and doesn't give anyone any greater power than anyone else. We want every single supporter to own an EQUAL SHARE in the stadium, that's how it works with community shares, regardless of how much you invest - it's a truly democratic process that secures the stadium future.

It's likely that we'll get many £50 pledges into our crowdfunder (if we get the nod to go ahead), and we also know we'll get many more wealthier people stepping up. Look at other examples, you will see the bulk of the money comes from a relative few, but we want to include EVERYONE which is why we have taken on board feedback and floated a figure of £50 as a minimum share price.

This is not a "Trust" thing, it's a "Supporter" thing - we are just trying to facilitate matters.

The Trust board will be there to provide that management and administrative layer, and in future - we hope to have the stadium and a full-time team to do this. It's also important to point out that the Trust board will change over time, so there will be other people writing into this forum, and other people chairing and guiding the work. This is not a lifetime gig for me, and others will indeed move on in-time. It sounds like you were involved at some point in the past.

Regarding a business plan, we cannot factor in anything other than stadium rental costs at the moment and not any proposed developments which are all second phase / future projects - they in themselves will have a business plan.

The new Town End would be a unique one, first in the UK, a showcase for other stadiums, more than seats and a roof. The company behind this have been down to see the County Ground and meet us, they are well respected and Independently funded, and they have Swindon as first choice. Can't say much more as we have signed an NDA, but as a Town fan I am very excited about the prospect, and I hope it comes off regardless of the outcome in this saga.

It's very much on the back burner at the moment, needs a lot more looking into (devil is in the detail) and we need the stadium ownership to be resolved, one way or another. Even after that, getting these things introduced into Swindon won't be easy, there are planning hurdles and councillor approvals etc to consider, but it's definitely got potential.  We are nowhere near that stage at the moment. If we don't own the stadium, we will never get there.The discussions with the company in question suggest a potential 10 year payback period to cover their costs which will be covered by 24/7 use of the stand, after which the Club/Trust/Council (whoever owns) would be given the majority profits from the stand going forward in time.

We have released the basic information about the stand to let fellow supporters know, but it mustn't confuse the overall discussion about who should own the County Ground - this is the only proposal on the Council table at the moment.

Well I say all Power to your elbow, and all the others who are working hard to try and secure the future of our club. No doubt we're in for difficult times ahead...

OK, so I understand you can't go into too much detail perhaps but this is one aspect that has been questioned - why is the redevelopment of the Town End proposed to cost £15m which seems to be considerably more expensive than other stand redevelopments? And how are you proposing this should be paid for? That's both in terms of the initial costs and then, presumably, that money would need to be paid back to whoever fronts it up?

I read the post as saying that the developer gets the returns for 10 years to cover costs at which stage it reverts back to stadium owner?

How many bums on seats would be needed to pay that back? What would the capacity of the stand need to be? How many people would they expect to be in the stand regardless of its capacity? Would there not be a conflict between the club and the 'owner' of the stand, what with both wanting revenue from tickets? Why would the club/power agree to having a bulk of ticket revenue going to a 3rd party for 10 years or whatever?

Fair enough. So why so much more expensive than other similar stand builds? (Presumably because of whatever is being built into it to generate a revenue of £1.5m pa?)

Presumably it would be the revenue from the mystery extra thing that would go to the developer for 10 years not the ticket revenue? But it's a reasonable question

Ah. They must be expecting that mystery extra thing to be jolly well profitable, then.

Town End Knocking Shop and Casino for players. Just recycle their wages before they even leave the building

I reckon it’ll have a gym, a bowling alley and a Ferris wheel.

Also welcome Steve and thanks for answering questions from us.

I think Bristol Rovers fans are having a similar discussion about any new proposed stadium. The problem they have is that there is already a charge on The Mem so I presume the % rate being charged is substantially higher than the norm

Ticket money is the club’s, other income is the developers - or a percentage -  usually for a set period of time.

If you were risking 15m on an investment, you wouldn't want 15m back. You'd want 15m and then some more. Rather a lot more...

I'm going for a Weatherspoons, a Greggs and a Poundland....

Actually is this any different to Power forking out to redevelop part of the ground and then pocketing the proceeds for the first 10 years - where does this stand with the oft repeated view that no one should profit from the club?

15-20% is the norm in property....

Myte, I think you are missing the point a little, although I appreciate the time you have taken.

The Onus is on the Trust!

it may be a Supporter ownership model, but you are in the driving seat, you need to get everyone to follow.  That's two NDA's - I can tell you now, I'd be amazed if this isn't your Achilles heal.  For all you do that is good, whether you think it is relevant or not, people will be wary.  I live in a country where a guy who made up all the Facts runs the damned place, enough people will read into it entirely the wrong things.  You are right that the shareholding approach means it shouldn't matter, but it will.

On the business plan, people are looking for some flesh on the bones.  Yes the club will pay rent, and you will reinvest that.  What people are looking for is what then?  How will the Trust owning the stadium lead to higher revenue for the club - corporate hospitality, new facilities etc.  How does the revenue share work on those new items - does the Trust take it and reinvest? do they up the rent? do they let the club keep it all over and above a base rent etc.  Nobody would buy a freehold commercial real estate without having a long term financial plan in place, so people will ask these questions, and more so because they are concerned about what the club does.  People will look and think do we get ourselves into an ACL/Sisu standoff, rightly or wrongly.

10 years worth of saved rent?

Presumably the rent will be spent on other modifications and dilapidations.

Who has that view? Don't think I've ever heard anyone say that

I've heard it often. Here and elsewhere.