The Big Queen's Park FC Thread

[Le Tout P'ti FC]

i doubt anyone's confused. As the financial period for 2021 runs Jan-Dec they should have the accounts signed off and adopted by the members, at the AGM. This should have been by May. Companies House rules say they have nine months, which is end of September, so that ship has sailed too. The settlement for the original building contract is also due to be shown in the 2021 accounts. The President, Immediate Past President and most of the remaining directors will be familiar with year-end accounts from their private business lives, and of course their service in the club.
It all ran like clockwork when the previous Treasure was in office. Unfortunately, he's had to step down for health reasons. His replacement became a Director 2 years ago and company Secretary a year ago. That person is also the only QPFC Director named on the Director's list for the new Foundation company, mentioned earlier. Maybe he's just been a bit busy.

Accounts are not overdue yet. The club have applied to extended their accounts filing deadline to 31 December 2022, doubtless using the widely available three month Covid filing extension still offered upon application by Companies House.

Very widely adopted by businesses, so I wouldn't call this underhand or a filing delay, as such, albeit not particularly best practice either.

[Grumpy Soo-sider]

Thanks, BYOS, Diehard and Le Tout P'ti FC. That fills in some blanks for me as the lack of info just leads to rumour and confusion. I shall await further developments.

[Spider Rico]

I think someone already pointed this out on here but our next two scheduled home fixtures (after the Dundee game which has already been moved to a Friday) clash with scheduled home league matches for Syngenta (12th November and 3rd December).

So it seems fairly certain these will be added to the ever growing list of Friday night fixtures.

The club knew full well this would be an issue when the agreement with Stenhousemuir was confirmed so they

a)decided selling season tickets without telling anyone was an acceptable course of action

and/or

b) wrongly put faith in their ability to negotiate a solution 

and/or

c) expected Lesser Hampden to be ready so that it wouldn’t be a problem for long ……….

[Bring Your Own Socks]

4 hours ago, Le Tout P'ti FC said:

Accounts are not overdue yet. The club have applied to extended their accounts filing deadline to 31 December 2022, doubtless using the widely available three month Covid filing extension still offered upon application by Companies House.

Very widely adopted by businesses, so I wouldn't call this underhand or a filing delay, as such, albeit not particularly best practice either.

Thanks for the clarity; I didn’t know about the Covid extension. Sadly, it opens another can though.

If they aren’t planning to share the accounts until December, why write to members saying they plan to have the AGM in September? One of the four reasons for having an AGM is to share the accounts with members. So that was never going to happen in May, nor September.

Just like the stadium was never going to be ready for July/August. or from what I saw yesterday, anytime this year. Being disingenuous is definitely not best practise.  

[williebraveheart]

12 hours ago, Spider Rico said:

I think someone already pointed this out on here but our next two scheduled home fixtures (after the Dundee game which has already been moved to a Friday) clash with scheduled home league matches for Syngenta (12th November and 3rd December).

So it seems fairly certain these will be added to the ever growing list of Friday night fixtures.

The club knew full well this would be an issue when the agreement with Stenhousemuir was confirmed so they

a)decided selling season tickets without telling anyone was an acceptable course of action

 

I made reference to this when I requested a refund of my season ticket. They gave no argument.

[Ben Reilly]

21 hours ago, Bring Your Own Socks said:

Was QP in the Community not just a part of QPFC Limited? Don’t recall it being a separate legal entity?

The 75% was mentioned but I don’t see that recorded in the Articles. Nevertheless, regardless of the threshold it would take a mountain of changes to align the 1903 Articles (with a few amendments) to be amended to where the club is currently operating, formally or practically. Hence my earlier comment about winding it up and starting again. It would be the end of the committee/member organisation at the stroke of a pen. 

If only we had some kind of forum, behind closed doors, where we could discuss this with the office-bearers formally and recorded.

To be honest I don't know whether QP In the Community was a separate company or not, though its quite possible that it was a part of the club and that's why the new foundation was set up as a separate charity for all the reasons Hampden Diehard explained.

That would make sense to me, but as with everything else, we have to put the picture together with the small scraps of information that become available.

[Mick1867]

On 17/10/2022 at 18:12, an86 said:

 Folk will say nobody has ever been knocked back,

Oh there's been a few knocked back over the years. Back when the committee was full of decrepit out of touch ex-players who thought fans showing passion for the team or expressing opinions just wasn't on.      

[Bring Your Own Socks]

Scottish Cup 3rd round….

 

 

[CathcartSkins]

8 minutes ago, Bring Your Own Socks said:

Scottish Cup 3rd round….

 

 

A tricky away day in the Cup; always been a tough place for us. Should be a fun day out though.

[Bring Your Own Socks]

Just now, CathcartSkins said:

A tricky away day in the Cup; always been a tough place for us. Should be a fun day out though.

End of November. Might be breezy with showers 

[qpfc]

59 minutes ago, CathcartSkins said:

A tricky away day in the Cup; always been a tough place for us. Should be a fun day out though.

Notoriously been a tough venue for us but Peterhead are utterly woeful this season. Would be shocked if we don’t win tbh

[Skeletar Spider]

On 24/10/2022 at 13:12, Mick1867 said:

Oh there's been a few knocked back over the years. Back when the committee was full of decrepit out of touch ex-players who thought fans showing passion for the team or expressing opinions just wasn't on.      

Worth pointing out that I emailed the club about becoming a member twice last year, once in July and again in October. I'm still waiting on a reply.

[CTQP1867]

On 22/10/2022 at 05:49, Bring Your Own Socks said:

Members are “members” of the company, different from the club. The limited company is a legal entity. As with any similar organisation, changes at Companies House to Articles of Association have to be approved by a majority of members. In this case, after about 6 months of meetings, we changed just one word. It therefore follows that to transition from the Comittee-led set-up to a more commercial-led business set-up, an awful lot of words need changed. Perhaps to the degree that the existing limited company is no longer fit-for-purpose. 

 

Don't want to keep banging away at this but the "Club" has to be owned by someone - surely the "Club" is an asset of the Ltd Company - and therefore it is controlled (through Board appointees) by its Members? 

[Bring Your Own Socks]

7 minutes ago, CTQP1867 said:

Don't want to keep banging away at this but the "Club" has to be owned by someone - surely the "Club" is an asset of the Ltd Company - and therefore it is controlled (through Board appointees) by its Members? 

The word “Limited” relates to the limit each shareholder is liable for, should the business fold. A “club” isn’t normally owned, it’s essentially shared, by a gathering of people with a common interest, in this case football. Each individual limited company can decide on their Articles. It can be one page if they want. The directors are appointed to run the affairs of the limited company. It just so happens, it’s the same people who make up the QP committee. The two shouldn’t be conflated. The chaos that has been happening for the last near-three years, in my humble opinion, is all, in one way or another, down to the fact that the legal function of the club is consistent with the amateur status and how we operated then, and logically the new way of operating requires a new set of business rules. 

I think it’s fair to say that the 1903 incorporation of the limited company is, to a greater degree, not aligned with the current operations of the football club. Change is inevitable. The Articles list a variety of sports that the club should develop, such as hockey, lacrosse, cricket, cycle riding and a list of other sports and events, including something called assaults-at-arms. Oh, and football!

I’m right up to speed on the first-team football and greatly interested in the development programmes, with a passive interest on the Women’s team progress. I haven’t a scooby how the lacrosse or hockey teams are doing these days. Let’s leave it at that?

[CTQP1867]

9 minutes ago, Bring Your Own Socks said:

The word “Limited” relates to the limit each shareholder is liable for, should the business fold. A “club” isn’t normally owned, it’s essentially shared, by a gathering of people with a common interest, in this case football. Each individual limited company can decide on their Articles. It can be one page if they want. The directors are appointed to run the affairs of the limited company. It just so happens, it’s the same people who make up the QP committee.

 

 

So I think we're in agreement though that any material changes to the administrative structure of the Ltd Company would need to be approved by 75% of the Members?

[Anonymous Spider]

Feeling great about the fitba at the weekend. Took a stroll by Lesser this afternoon. Raging again. 
 

Absolute shambles. Being taken for absolute mugs, here. 

[NathanQP]

13 minutes ago, Anonymous Spider said:

Feeling great about the fitba at the weekend. Took a stroll by Lesser this afternoon. Raging again. 
 

Absolute shambles. Being taken for absolute mugs, here. 

Full season at Stenny incoming

[JT1867]

27 minutes ago, NathanQP said:

Full season at Stenny incoming

In eight weeks time the building trade shuts down for the Christmas & New Year fortnight- by the time they start back we will have played the first home game of the second half of the season (Thistle on the 3rd January)..

After that point there is next to no chance the SPFL will allow us to change home grounds, sporting integrity and all that jazz.

There's no way Lesser is going to be finished in those eight weeks.

Wonder how long it will take for our beloved leaders to come clean that we're at Stenny until May?

Edited October 25, 2022 by JT1867

[Bring Your Own Socks]

2 hours ago, JT1867 said:

In eight weeks time the building trade shuts down for the Christmas & New Year fortnight- by the time they start back we will have played the first home game of the second half of the season (Thistle on the 3rd January)..

After that point there is next to no chance the SPFL will allow us to change home grounds, sporting integrity and all that jazz.

There's no way Lesser is going to be finished in those eight weeks.

Wonder how long it will take for our beloved leaders to come clean that we're at Stenny until May?

I think your conclusion will stay the same but The President was asked the question at the recent round of meetings regarding switching mid season and he was very clear that we could move anytime. I’d quickly balance that with there’s been a lot said that hasn’t come to pass.

I had a look on Saturday myself, took a few pictures if anyone’s interested. Very little has improved since the start of August. Saw lots of hints that this site still being poorly run. There’s no work at all being done on the south stand and I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve run out of cash for that. The Royal Box is wide open to the elements and the internal walls being built with timber panels. I reckon moisture content in the air has to be over 90% which softwood studs will suck up. The prefabricated timber panels I saw lying in the soaking rain with a thin sheet of polythene over them are probably worse. As was the PUR roof boards lying in the mud at the south end. Nothing started at the main entrance gate. Kitchen block having brick/block work laid. Toilet blocks façade and internal works not started. What was described as “cladding” on the east stand is in fact profiled steel single sheets. Back wall and roof still aren’t finished. 

If the finished stadium, including the north, is a 100%, I’d say it’s less than 50% including the pitch and the clubhouse. If I was to estimate just the new building works, about 25% complete. Nearly three years in. The weather is getting worse. Daylight is getting shorter. We need Nick Knowles and his SOS team.

Edited October 25, 2022 by Bring Your Own Socks

[Anonymous Spider]

A fairly depressing combination of lies and incompetence. Not seeing any evidence of this changing any time soon.