AGM report....

[Reg Smeeton]

.....longer and more thorough meeting than  normal, with King in attendance later on.

 Generally the club is still in a financial mess, but its not too bad.

 A shortfall of 800K, means we are technically insolvent so unable to produce accounts.....but funds have been promised by SSW and St Modwen.

 This puts SSW contribution, up to 9 mill

 Holt is stepping aside from his role, which will be taken on by Mike Sullivan (marketing manager) Sandy Gray and AK. Thus saving money.

 New ground.....positive noises from SBC, looks like they're thinking of development on cricket ground and athletics track......, but nothing concrete in terms of plans for six months.

 We've bought some new floodlight bulbs.....huzzah

 Pitch is fucked, looking at a short term fix in the summer as long term is about 500K

 Cliff Puffett......grumbled about ticket prices, saying he knows his town, and Swindon although on the surface prosperous, has large amounts of low pay and poverty.

 He also questioned the shifting of club assets to the company set up by SSW.....knowledge of which was denied from the Board.

 CP suggested that if this was to be the vehicle for new stadium etc existing shareholders of say over 300 shares should be able to invest.

 The name of Mike Diamandis was mentioned once.

 There's more stuff, but that's all for now.


     :scribe

[yeo]

This puts SSW contribution, up to 9 mill

Nobody can deny that this bloke is a legend/mug!

Holt is stepping aside from his role, which will be taken on by Mike Sullivan (marketing manager) Sandy Gray and AK. Thus saving money.

I see the logic but  Im in 2 minds about this.The most stable time in this clubs recent history was with matey(who's name completely escapes me ) as a spearhead for all things at board level.It says they are going to have more meeting,etc which to me just meens that they will be slower to react to situations that arise.

Cliff Puffett......grumbled about ticket prices, saying he knows his town, and Swindon although on the surface prosperous, has large amounts of low pay and poverty.

He also questioned the shifting of club assets to the company set up by SSW.....knowledge of which was denied from the Board.

He's right there are a lot of low paid jobs in this town perhaps we should be means tested for our ticket prices.
I hope there isnt something dodgy going on but nothing would suprise me.Im inclined to believe Puff Daddy though, he seems a genuine sort of chap but at the end of the SSW cannot and should not be questioned he's put 9 mil into this club an entitled to try and cover his back if need be.That said i see no reason for it to be a seceret if indeed it is?

The name of Mike Diamandis was mentioned once.

who's he then?

[Reg Smeeton]

MD was involved in the old Consortium that wanted to take over from DD and IB.

 He was something to do with Dunwoody, but it emerged that he was banned from company directorship, because of some past misdemeanour.

 So he dropped out and Holt stepped in, but its assumed he still has influence with SSW.

[reeves4england]

Same old Swindon.

[Johno]

shame about bob holt, but good that he is doing some constructive and saving the club money.

[reeves4england]

Well said. Just improve WHAT you're saying and you'll do fine!

[bongofury]

Could have been a lot worse.

[Dazzza]

That’s all a bit worrying!

How have we generated a shortfall of 800k from last year?

There are always unexpected costs you cannot budget for but to the tune of 800K from a turnover of £3.7 million is pretty horrific.

Taking into account the fact that we exceeded the break figure for attendances with the playoff revenue and cutbacks all over the club in general that’s some budget over sight.  In addition I remember Mark Devlin around the time of the Tip fiasco being quoted as saying that the club had cleared a lot of it’s previous debts with the council being quoted as an example.

Is there any indication as to what financial end of year date the club is working to?

If it’s a calendar year then yes some of that figure could be attributed to the drop in attendances this season.  That said the reason for the new break-even figure of 6900 for attendances and price hike was given as a failure to pay VAT on income.

The difference from last season and this seasons break even figure being an additional 1,400 faces and that each 1,000 seats has been given as bringing in a figure of £15,000 per game, that’s approx £20,000 extra being required every game to make up this VAT shortfall!

At 23 home games per season that’s a total VAT shortfall of £460,000, without taking ANY cup games into consideration.

With VAT being 19%, maybe less for larger businesses, that comes to a figure of £2,421,000 not having had any VAT being paid on it.

Alright so my accounting maybe that of a smoking chimp but if someone’s failure to pay VAT on such a huge figure is the attributing factor to the price hike it’s comical to the extreme.

Also reading the Trust site Sandy Gray gave part of the reasoning there was such an oversight was because the club set aside a projected amount from previous years.  That would suggest that we have actually recuperated approximately £2,421,000 in additional income over the actual amount we had budgeted for in the first place!    

AS for the failure to not produce any accounts yet again it’s a worrying state of affairs that this board for all of its hot air over the DD/IB eras accounting they themselves are yet to actually produce any figures from when they have been in charge.

As for NewCo it’s worrying that after being repeatedly asked in the past to offer shares so that fans could own and have a say in any new development there still appears to be very little happening.  

The pitch situation is farcical, say no more.

[Boeta]

When SSW came back to club three years ago it was on the basis that Dunwoody (run by Diamandis) was given the contract to run the club.

[Dazzza]

When SSW came back to club three years ago it was on the basis that Dunwoody (run by Diamandis) was given the contract to run the club.

I remember that the Trust issued a leaflet of some sort that made Dunwoody throw their toys out of the pram and run a mile.

Can't recall what it said though.

[Spencer_White]

Shaw Tip was an absolute disaster.

That cost us money. £800,000 but most of it was St Mowdens.

The club gets raped by Wilts OB for police costs.