Ad Lib Posted December 2, 2022 Share Posted December 2, 2022 2 hours ago, John MacLean said: I think the statement from the PTFC Trust yesterday is a welcome one and a small step in the right direction. I previously described the situation that we are currently find ourselves in as a fan base as a civil war. It’s good now to see the potential at least for some détente. However……………… It’s been a weird old route that has got us to this point and I can’t help but feel that there is still more than an element of doing things back to front. I think it is perfectly reasonable for the majority shareholder to appraise the current Board and their roles. And I think it is entirely appropriate for the majority shareholder to make changes to the composition of the Board as they see fit. But we can’t escape the fact that it is the five trustees of the PTFC Trust that are essentially the major shareholders and not the PTFC Trust itself. Until they democratise their organisation, and it is good to see some steps being made towards that, it will be these five guys, no matter how well intentioned, acting without any mandate to do so. I don’t think they are morally in any kind of position to make changes. Their priority has to be identifying their current beneficiaries and widening the definition of beneficiary. Once that’s done and once there is some level of accountability to their beneficiaries, and this all takes time in an already glacial like process It was that issue of legitimacy and mandate that caused my eyebrows to rise when The Jags Foundation called upon the PTFC Trust to vote against the reappointment of four Club Board members at the recent AGM. You can’t on one hand question the legitimacy of the PTFC Trust, essentially label them a five man cabal and accuse them of all types of malfeasance in acquiring the shares and then basically ask them to complete what amounts to little more than a coup d’etat. A bit of gesture politics there from The Jags Foundation in my opinion. And I think TJF are missing an opportunity to demonstrate that they are a member led organisation and that having 900+ members is more than a bargaining tool, by continuing to have ‘red line’ issues before agreeing to further discussions with the PTFC Trust. I don’t think it is practical for any member based organisation to consult with their membership on every issue and TJF Board clearly have a mandate but, IMO, this is a pretty fundamental issue and one worth canvassing their membership on further (they may well be doing so – I’m not a member) to give them a degree of certainty that this is the wishes of the majority of their membership. Social media would certainly suggest that it is but social media can also be something of an echo chamber at times. Maybe their membership would welcome a softening of that position and dialogue with the PTFC Trust and maybe they wouldn’t and are entirely supportive of the stance taken by TJF Board, but why not take a bit of time to explore what their members think? There’s nothing to lose by doing so and plenty to gain. It can only strengthen their position and highlight their levels of engagement. Dialogue is the only thing that is going to sort this mess out. I don’t want to see the Thistle support divided and I don’t want to see fans watching from the canal bank when we should all be inside Firhill together. For the avoidance of doubt we proactively asked our members, and then the wider support, to contact us if they had concerns about our red lines. The overwhelming majority of responses, and almost every single of the members' responses (of which we had literally over one hundred) emailed to support the red lines. We have also seen the membership grow significantly since doing that. These were long, considered and proactive emails. They included a lot of considered and carefully crafted thoughts. Our members are extremely engaged on this, and are clear that they want us to hold to our red lines. We are guided by that. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Virtual Insanity Posted December 2, 2022 Share Posted December 2, 2022 Without wanting to sit on the fence I think there is good points on both sides here. My personal opinion (which I will be e-mailing TJF about this weekend) is that the reaction to the PTFC Trust announcement could have been more conciliatory in tone. That said, I absolutely agree with the substance of it, again as one of the 100+ members that e-mailed in support previously. Majority elected Trustees by May 2023 is a very reasonable and achievable request and there is no legitimate reason for not doing it by the end of this season. My preferred position remains (and I believe there could be a route to doing so now) that the share ownership is transferred to TJF as a matter of urgency. Regardless of the makeup of the Trustees, the Trust is simply not a suitable vehicle for ownership of the shares. I would also add that TJF's engagement has been in my opinion exemplary and, differences of opinion on occasion as to tactics aside, I have nothing but the utmost respect for everyone who has been involved in TJF in either iteration given everything they have been through and the continued enthusiasm and energy they possess. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jagfox Posted December 2, 2022 Share Posted December 2, 2022 (edited) All I can say is I have received frequent communications from TJF keeling me updated as well as setting their points out clearly. The PTFC Trust seems to have been spurred into action all of a sudden. I wonder what prompted that? Even Ms Low seemed unhappy with their inactivity in her recent interview. ETA: Turned up now. There has been talk from the PTFC Trust but little action. I would email them but the address, even if I opted out goes to the Trust. They have appointed themselves into running a secretive Trust that has been appointing board members in almost secrecy certainly without much communication from the BoD. I agree with the TJF to hold their ground. They can talk when the Trust show some contrition not a tail wagging the dog from some unspecified entity. Edited December 2, 2022 by jagfox 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ad Lib Posted December 2, 2022 Share Posted December 2, 2022 1 hour ago, Virtual Insanity said: Without wanting to sit on the fence I think there is good points on both sides here. My personal opinion (which I will be e-mailing TJF about this weekend) is that the reaction to the PTFC Trust announcement could have been more conciliatory in tone. For context, PTFC Trust made an announcement giving fans the impression that they had asked us for a meeting and that we had agreed to (when they hadn't and we hadn't). Their "commitments" in the statement are also not making any concessions on the things we've actually asked for. On the contrary, what they've done is basically try to buy themselves time. Notice that their commitment to elections has slipped from "May 2023" to "summer 2023". Having said they were prepared to update the trust deed in advance of the end of the season, they now want to set up a "working group". This isn't necessary, will be a waste of time, and will simply delay the democratisation of the Trust. And their announcement makes absolutely zero progress towards majority democratic control of the ownership vehicle. They also very recently broke a mutual agreement to share with each other key announcements in advance, so that there would be no nasty surprises for either organisation. We will be conciliatory when there is good reason to be conciliatory. We're fed up of words. We want actions. Now. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pie Of The Month Posted December 5, 2022 Share Posted December 5, 2022 Has anyone had an reply or even just an acknowledgement from the club after contacting them about passing your details to the Trust? I appreciate it's only Monday afternoon and they sent the email out last thing on Friday but considering the deadline they set is Wednesday I thought they should be on the ball with confirming your details won't be passed on. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arnold Layne Posted December 5, 2022 Share Posted December 5, 2022 12 minutes ago, Pie Of The Month said: Has anyone had an reply or even just an acknowledgement from the club after contacting them about passing your details to the Trust? I appreciate it's only Monday afternoon and they sent the email out last thing on Friday but considering the deadline they set is Wednesday I thought they should be on the ball with confirming your details won't be passed on. I emailed Mr Britton and received a reply that day. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pie Of The Month Posted December 5, 2022 Share Posted December 5, 2022 2 minutes ago, Arnold Layne said: I emailed Mr Britton and received a reply that day. Cheers, I've had nothing but also complained about the fact I've attempted multiple times to provide my contact details to the club and they continually don't update them so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt until Wednesday and then contact him again. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pie Of The Month Posted December 7, 2022 Share Posted December 7, 2022 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Thistle Archive Posted December 7, 2022 Share Posted December 7, 2022 It's all very manual and very time consuming, but we're halfway through re-uploading the match hubs 1876 to 1924 with all sorts of improved data, mainly with regards to personnel data, birth dates found, images found etc etc. As early as this 9th February 1889 → encounter, TEN of our 11 players are now aged. Before TTA started, precisely NONE of these players were aged on the internet, and the progress being made is very pleasing. Keep the home page → bookmarked to see all the latest updates going in. With this in mind, we could still do with some page upload volunteers to help us grow the Archive. If you've got Excel and can spare some hours now and again (for basically a "copy and paste" exercise) then please get in touch → In total, we now have a phenomenal 86.5% of known individual starting appearances aged, which is great news for all sorts of stats reports. PTFC's earliest 100% fully aged eleven has now been pushed back from 1920 all the way to 1900, as per the screenshot below. It's cost a lot of time and money and is one of our finest in-depth achievements to date. We'll continue to push on... PTFC's earliest fully-aged eleven → Could you help any? Where or when was he born? → 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrcat1990 Posted December 7, 2022 Share Posted December 7, 2022 29 minutes ago, Pie Of The Month said: Curious about the one director staying but otherwise pretty damn surprised they are going assuming true. Either way, chuffed. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Nightmare Posted December 7, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted December 7, 2022 Good job by the small number of loud voices on social media and 30 people up on the canal. 24 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fuctifano Posted December 7, 2022 Share Posted December 7, 2022 Obviously good news but I am still worried the outgoing BoD will have some form of sabotage as a leaving present, hopefully the Trust having 74% of shares can stop anything too shady. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jagfox Posted December 7, 2022 Share Posted December 7, 2022 17 minutes ago, Fuctifano said: Obviously good news but I am still worried the outgoing BoD will have some form of sabotage as a leaving present, hopefully the Trust having 74% of shares can stop anything too shady. I am not too worried about a Chien Lee type scenario. I just hope no impact on sponsorships - something the BoD or relevant party has done a seemingly good job on. Element of wait and see what happens with the Trust and Foundation. Well done to all that stood up to be counted though. Just as long as we're not moving to Broadwood as Cumbernauld Thistle. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VictorOnopko Posted December 7, 2022 Share Posted December 7, 2022 (edited) This is obviously very welcome news. It had to happen eventually as Low's position was untenable - but doing the right thing as quickly as she has is surprising, and hints at a level of self-awareness we have never seen before. I only hope the dodgy balance sheet isn't the reason she and her pals are suddenly running away. Looking forward to seeing what happens next, and what input TJF is allowed to have in the club as a proper, paid-up fans group. ETA: I take back what I just said about self-awareness. The hilariously salty statement they (Jacqui) just put out blaming the nasty fans who wanted fan ownership is quite, quite remarkable. Horrible fans, being nasty to the nice, honest Board and making them feel bad. Edited December 7, 2022 by VictorOnopko 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pie Of The Month Posted December 7, 2022 Share Posted December 7, 2022 Euan Robertson from Football Scotland mentioned in his article it's Duncan Smillie who will be the one remaining board member which I hadn't noticed mentioned elsewhere. Ideally once all this has settled down Gerry Britton will also be chased for his part in this. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oneteaminglasgow Posted December 7, 2022 Share Posted December 7, 2022 Confirmed. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pie Of The Month Posted December 7, 2022 Share Posted December 7, 2022 That is the best tear stained statement I've ever read on the club website. 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bairn88 Posted December 7, 2022 Share Posted December 7, 2022 That statement! Bosh, straight in there with the fan blame and “false narrative”! That puts our ex board to shame 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jagfox Posted December 7, 2022 Share Posted December 7, 2022 Why have we even got seven directors in the first place? Anyway good that they've moved on. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Malkmus Posted December 7, 2022 Share Posted December 7, 2022 Takes some going to be the most shambolic Thistle in this league. Congrats lads, you deserve it. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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