Thetownend.com

Trust throw weight behind Power regime
           
           


  TRUST STFC have this morning thrown their weight behind Lee Power's tenure as owner of Swindon Town, following a difficult few months at the County Ground.

           

http://www.thisisswindontownfc.co.uk/news/headlines/11320064.Trust_throw_weight_behind_Power_regime/?ref=rss
           
           
           

Mr puniverse immediately springs to mind.

The one truly bad thing the Jed/Ged legacy has left us all, is the knowledge that the Trust is pointless. If Jed/Ged fucking Mcwhatever can waltz into football club ownership with a quid, why the hell couldn't they?

Cos unlike Jed they wouldn't take on a football club without having funding in place.

Plus, and to channel Mr Redknapp for a second, after the Black years the Trust was down to the bare bones.

I think we'll see a lot more from them during this season, they went to the court case, and build up a decent dialogue with Power. The new Trust board  (most of whom got involved post Jeds arrival) know the ball is in the their court now, action is needed to make it a viable relevant organisation, hopefully they'll be able to silence some of the nay sayers over the next 12 months.

And they wouldn't take on a club without being able to do due dilligence either, and time was not on their side to get the required people lined up that would have been needed to run a FC the size of Swindon

The only way this season is going to be a success is if fans get behind the club in an active and financial way. No matter what your opinion of the Trust, them publicly supporting the clubs owners and pro-actively encouraging others to do the same can only be a good thing, particularly in light of the harsh truths about finances for the coming year.

What do you mean by success?

Not a failure?

That's a topic for a new thread! With a Poll!

Somebody else will have to do it I think, I'm drunk

Very good question. To which I don't really know the answer!

The cake for me would be top half, marzipan the play offs and promotion the icing.

Wrong thread?   :sherlock:  unless they are having a flan fling ala tiswas

It's all Bangkok's fault.

I honestly hope so too. There is a place for a decent, well run Trust in Swindon.

Agree with this. I would love the trust to be of use to the club, if i could see what they were activly doing i would join i just don't get what they are doing at the moment

...who was, incidentally, a Town fan.

RIP.

One word of caution about the statement.  I understand that the Trust (like everyone else) will be relieved about the outcome of the court case, but I'm not sure it should be 'throwing its weight' behind any owner.  (Was that a Trust phrase though, or the Adver's?)  The Trust should not get too close to any owner; surely the whole point is that it remains sufficiently detached/independent that it can offer proper scrutiny of what the current owner is doing?

The Trust should be a 'critical friend'. 

Yes and no as a more involved trust would have a better idea of what is actually going on behind the scenes. Plus a more involved Trust may create more fan power. I thought the idea of the trust was to get a fan on the board if possible and to play a role in the running of the club and have a say for the fans? Unless of course their agenda has changed?

What 'weight' does the Trust actually have to throw?

Currently about 250 Neil Ruddocks, I think.

The headline is unfortunate and I suspect nothing to do with Trust or 'Adver, rather another unfortunate invention of the outsourced subs.

There have been a few regrettable ones recently, not least POWER WANTED TOWN TO BE SPURS FEEDER CLUB. The headline didn't include quotes or italics and suggested this was a fact not just the out pourings of an unreliable man in a witness box.

And people wonder why Power has no time for the Adver. Regardless of the content of the articles, headlines such as those are going to piss people off. I know Sam and co don't do the headlines as he's told us many times but they need to sort them out if they really want to rebuild a relationship with the club.... I really don't blame Power on this.

The trust as it exists now, is a toothless granny. Why? Because even Jedscum has got more cash than they have.

Unless they can get into a financial position whereby they have some cash, and I'm talking upwards of a couple of hundred grand, they will be forever the bridesmaid.

Not having a pop at them, just saying it as I see it.

I think that misses the point of a supporters' Trust.  It's not intended as a takeover vehicle, and never has been.  It's a supporters' body with elected representatives whose job is to scrutinise the current owners of the club and publically hold them to account.

The power of a Trust is not going to derive from a large bank balance/financial backing.  It will derive from serving as a focal point for popular opinion across the fanbase (which any owner will have to take note of).  In order to be effective, the membership of any supporters' Trust will need to equal a significant proportion of the overall fanbase...and I am sure our own Trust would admit that they're not there yet.  It's a work in progress.

It amuses me, the way that large numbers on here slag off the Trust, but aren't prepared to do anything about things themselves.

The Trust is just a bunch of fans, trying to do their bit; it's never easy as an amateur trying to run a voluntary organisation, especially one with such a vague remit.

.

Takes a couple of minutes to join
Currently £1.25 thru paypal so not gonna break the bank.

Like a lot of things in life. ppl will moan about something when they can make a difference - but choose not to

Now now, such talk got me banned from here not so long ago.

As a more serious point, I know the Trust are now doing regular email shots to members, if you aren't getting yours please PM me as your email may be out of date (as mine was) on their database.

No it didn't.

Anybody can say whatever the fuck they like about the trust, for or against. It was you being a snide cunt that got you banned.

Flash I Stated in my post that I wasn't having a go.

Ardiles, I know what the point of the trust is but the point I'm making is that any owner is pretty much going to say ' buy a percentage off me and you can enter the boardroom or fuck off back to the terrace where I only have to listen to your bollocks every couple of weeks'.

I'd be saying exactly that if I owned the club.

Huh?

I didn't say you were!

FFS it was a joke, the second part of the message was the important bit. So, Flash did you get your email or do you need me to check your email in the database?

Yours Snide Cunt

What?

[quote As a more serious point, I know the Trust are now doing regular email shots to members, if you aren't getting yours please PM me as your email may be out of date (as mine was) on their database.
[/quote]

This

I'm not a member

The problem with investing in the club is that the investment can be practically written off by an issue of new shares unless you have even more money to chuck in, which is exactly what happened to the Trust's previous investment when Andrew Black was looking to reduce Fitton and Wray's holdings by issuing and buying vast numbers of new shares and adjusting the value of each individual share accordingly.

If the Trust were to invest in the club to the amounts you suggest, it would have to be with a guarantee that its shareholding would remain constant. I don't know whether any owner would want to sign up to that, especially as it would impact on what they could get for the club when they sell it, although I think Swansea have something similar going on. Otherwise the Trust should probably fundraise for a future 'bailout' fund, which I think is their plan, so that if we ever reach a point in the future where an owner wants rid of the club sharpish the fans might be in a position to step in instead of another Jed.

If I have misrepresented current Trust thinking anywhere there, apologies.

At the beginning of last season Jed was apparently trying to sell the club for...£5m !! I believe Jed was telling any purchasers that HE owned the land, which the CG is on.

As soon the the Trust announced the ACV on the CG, and the press rightly pointed out that the CG is leased from the council, all possible buyers disappeared and he started saying that anyone on the Trust board were 'crooks, and took money from the funds they collect' to various fans.(Pot,kettle, black)

A fan who bought this from Jed has recently apologised on Twitter for falling for his BS, and admitted Jed told him that.

Hopefully Jed will get his just desserts via the courts, and proof enough, that even just a legal document that the Trust did, screwed him.

If that's true he really is a complete and utter cunt isn't he.

Doubt he'd have the balls to show his face within a 10 mule radius of the CG now.

So who's the cockwomble now Joey/Ged?

These are the tweets from the fan :

 
   
 Phil Brunnen
@stfcphil 
  @TrustSTFC I think this is an appropriate time to unreservedly apologise for previous tweets where I have questioned your integrity.

   @TrustSTFC I was unfortunately acting on information given to me by a previous chairman, who I gullibly believed at the time.
 
 

Fair enough. At least he has the balls to apologise.

Firstly, the Trust had nothing to do with the Advertiser headline. We do not claim  to be anything more than we are - a fan-led organisation concerned to increase the involvement of fans in the development of the club, with long-term aims of representation on the board, and eventually fan ownership.  No-one on the Trust board is under any illusion that that aim is anything other than a pipedream at the moment.

Our priority at the moment is to build membership of the Trust so that we are more representative of the fanbase. As a result of the commitment of one board member, we were present throughout the court case, have published the judgement on our website, and have engaged both Lee Power and Sanghita Shah in discussion about the future, and are successfully developing a strong relationship with other staff of the club. Practical initiatives are under discussion that  will engage the interest (and we hope support) of a goodly number of supporters. We are engaging the media in discussion about how to improve communication about issues both specific to the club and also about national issues (such as the FA proposals for a new involvement of Premier League reserve teams in a new league); and currently discussing how best to address the Football League about the 'fit and proper persons' test and related issues arising from the court case.

A lot of this relies on building the membership if we are to be anything more than 'mr puniverse'.  We are all volunteers, have other things to do with our lives, but believe passionately in the principle, which Lee Power candidly admitted in his letter to fans last week, that the supporters are integral to a successful club.

You can sit on the edge and snipe....that's dead easy. Why not join up and join in? The website (www.truststfc.com) tells you how, and what we are trying to do.