NCM users quiz Keri & Steve: Part Two
ST - Yes. I know this may not directly answer your question but one of the things I do for a living is I go in and look at dead business' and I honestly don't think I've ever seen a business that was so dead, yet managed to survive, as this was. I just couldn't believe it, I thought that it was going to be a nightmare.
The commercial department had suffered badly and this isn't a criticism of the administrator (Paul Finnity), who I think you have to be thankful to because most people would have wound us up. He'd let it go and let it go but there was absolutely nothing here, nothing in the (club) shop, all the goodwill had gone. There was nothing.
A lot of contracts had not been paid, it was impossible to get it going. So slowly but surely it's getting there but it takes money to invest in the marketing to do more. We could do more but I don't think it's through a lack of trying or a lack of imagination but I just think it's a slow building-up process.
Also since we've taken over we've got relegated, had an awful season last year and any club will do better if you're doing better (on the field). If we maintain something like this (form) until the end of the season you'll see everything suddenly turn up, banqueting, everything will suddenly go up.
The commercial department had suffered badly and this isn't a criticism of the administrator (Paul Finnity), who I think you have to be thankful to because most people would have wound us up. He'd let it go and let it go but there was absolutely nothing here, nothing in the (club) shop, all the goodwill had gone. There was nothing.
A lot of contracts had not been paid, it was impossible to get it going. So slowly but surely it's getting there but it takes money to invest in the marketing to do more. We could do more but I don't think it's through a lack of trying or a lack of imagination but I just think it's a slow building-up process.
Also since we've taken over we've got relegated, had an awful season last year and any club will do better if you're doing better (on the field). If we maintain something like this (form) until the end of the season you'll see everything suddenly turn up, banqueting, everything will suddenly go up.
Cookie - To be fair to yourself and the current board, the PR's been a disaster for quite a while. The image of the club has not been what it should be, that goes back more than five years.
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For example, we had that England Under-17's game and we got the highest gate that they've had in something like 15 years for an under-17's game so it is slowly getting there.
KU - I think we can play a role in that as well. We've done a lot of work, for example, at the Wycombe game last season where we had the 1,862 tickets given away. We went out to all sectors of the city, giving them away to people who would never have dreamed of coming down here.
Gradually we raised a lot of awareness about kick racism out of football. We went into Meadows schools and we actually gave kids the opportunity to make a banner, get a ticket and bring the banner down. Loads of kids in those schools came down here. The Open Day's another example, we can build every year on what we've acheived at the Open Day.
And things like Lifeline. We took a decision as a Trust that we were going to get behind Lifeline and really start promoting it and see if we can get it back to the 2,500 members it had 20 years ago. What we're pleading with people is to come and help us. Talk to people and say 'Join Lifeline' - let's all be ambassadors for it.
It's such a slow process that sometimes people don't see the immediate benefits but we've just got to keep plugging away at it.
Gradually we raised a lot of awareness about kick racism out of football. We went into Meadows schools and we actually gave kids the opportunity to make a banner, get a ticket and bring the banner down. Loads of kids in those schools came down here. The Open Day's another example, we can build every year on what we've acheived at the Open Day.
And things like Lifeline. We took a decision as a Trust that we were going to get behind Lifeline and really start promoting it and see if we can get it back to the 2,500 members it had 20 years ago. What we're pleading with people is to come and help us. Talk to people and say 'Join Lifeline' - let's all be ambassadors for it.
It's such a slow process that sometimes people don't see the immediate benefits but we've just got to keep plugging away at it.
PieEye - Do we still give free tickets away to local schools?
ST - Yes. We don't always use the same bit of the ground, but we do.
KU - Football in the Community, Graham Moran, is doing an incredible job and that's another aspect of the club that goes unseen. But FITC is renowned nationally for the model of how this sort of thing should work. And in the Pavis Stand, at the end, that's where a lot of the kids are.
D51X - Recently there has seemed to be some tension between the Supporters Trust and the Supporters Club. Can the situation be improved?
KU - Football in the Community, Graham Moran, is doing an incredible job and that's another aspect of the club that goes unseen. But FITC is renowned nationally for the model of how this sort of thing should work. And in the Pavis Stand, at the end, that's where a lot of the kids are.
D51X - Recently there has seemed to be some tension between the Supporters Trust and the Supporters Club. Can the situation be improved?
KU - I honestly don't understand where this comes from. If you look at the two organisations, they're completely seperate and there's absolutely no competetion between the two organisations. There has never been.
I would love everybody to be a member of the Supporters Club and the Trust. The Supporters Club is there, it organises the away travel, it does it really well. It fund-raises, it does it really well. It arranges the Player of the Season awards, it does it really well. It is affiliated to the Football Club.
The Trust was set-up as a totally independant organisation, as a totally limited company. It's owned by its members, it's a vehicle for having representation in the club at board level and at shareholder level and what we're doing is as a Trust is a lot broader, a lot wider.
We're talking to people in the business community. We're out there talking to people in the local Government community. We're talking to people in all sorts of different organisations, trying to get them involved.
We'll do fund-raising as well but we'll try not to conflict with the Supporters Club because we've got two organisations who care deeply about this club. Why on Earth is there animosity? Let's just say that both organisations want to work for this Football Club.
I would love everybody to be a member of the Supporters Club and the Trust. The Supporters Club is there, it organises the away travel, it does it really well. It fund-raises, it does it really well. It arranges the Player of the Season awards, it does it really well. It is affiliated to the Football Club.
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We're talking to people in the business community. We're out there talking to people in the local Government community. We're talking to people in all sorts of different organisations, trying to get them involved.
We'll do fund-raising as well but we'll try not to conflict with the Supporters Club because we've got two organisations who care deeply about this club. Why on Earth is there animosity? Let's just say that both organisations want to work for this Football Club.
PieEye - I'm a member of both organisations and in a sense I was worried when the Supporters Club gave Gudjon £10,000 recently. Was there any points-scoring going on there?
KU - I don't think that matters. If they've got £10,000 that they want to put into the club, that's fantastic. Let's all do whatever we can by whatever mechanism we can but let's see that the organisations are completely different and that they're not in competition with each other. What matters is this Football Club.
ST - What you have to remember about the Trust is that from a legal perspective, the affiliated Supporters Club is not something which is geared up to share ownership because it is affiliated to the club.
From a legal point of view what a Trust is is having somebody in on behalf of the fans to professionally maintain a seperate company which can, in effect, ensure that there isn't anything untoward happening within a Football Club.
This can happen by either membership on the board, share-holding or by owning the Football Club. From our point of view, we don't own the football club so our role has to be ensuring that nothing untoward happens. For example, these loans (paid by the Trust); They're never going to be repaid, no-one wants these repaid. But they're put in as loans because if you just 'give' the money the fans lose their right.
The Directors do not 'give' their money. If it goes wrong, the Directors will have a first call ahead of the shareholders. By putting it as a loan, what you're doing is protecting the fans so that they have equal rights as the Directors.
I got involved with the Trust role chiefly because I see it as that sort of over-seeing role for fans who, for years, have been shafted. Recently I was asked if the club was suffering because businessmen aren't involved in running this football club.
80% of Football Clubs in the last 20 years have gone into Administration, that's something like 1000% more than is represented in the business community. All of these clubs have been run by businessmen.
What you need is a balacing act. You need the entrepreneurial skill of businessmen involved with running of football clubs. You also need somebody there to make sure that nobody is siphoning money out of the club.
From a legal point of view what a Trust is is having somebody in on behalf of the fans to professionally maintain a seperate company which can, in effect, ensure that there isn't anything untoward happening within a Football Club.
This can happen by either membership on the board, share-holding or by owning the Football Club. From our point of view, we don't own the football club so our role has to be ensuring that nothing untoward happens. For example, these loans (paid by the Trust); They're never going to be repaid, no-one wants these repaid. But they're put in as loans because if you just 'give' the money the fans lose their right.
The Directors do not 'give' their money. If it goes wrong, the Directors will have a first call ahead of the shareholders. By putting it as a loan, what you're doing is protecting the fans so that they have equal rights as the Directors.
I got involved with the Trust role chiefly because I see it as that sort of over-seeing role for fans who, for years, have been shafted. Recently I was asked if the club was suffering because businessmen aren't involved in running this football club.
80% of Football Clubs in the last 20 years have gone into Administration, that's something like 1000% more than is represented in the business community. All of these clubs have been run by businessmen.
What you need is a balacing act. You need the entrepreneurial skill of businessmen involved with running of football clubs. You also need somebody there to make sure that nobody is siphoning money out of the club.
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Cookie - Is the issue with Mr Pavis going to rear its head again?
ST - I don't want to open up wounds on all of this, but what was completely wrong in this was that people were saying that the club and the Trust were stopping Mr Pavis taking over. Mr Pavis made an approach to a shareholder, who can do what he wants with his shares.
Sadly, for whatever reason, this was conducted in the media. And then it got nasty, but I felt, as a Director, I was in a difficult position because, as a Director, you are governed by your shareholders and at that moment nobody had bought or sold any shares but there was a lot of nonsense that was going around.
Who's won out of this situation? The club have suffered, Pavis has suffered, the shareholder's suffered. Everyone's repuation has suffered and that is because people did not do things properly.
Sadly, for whatever reason, this was conducted in the media. And then it got nasty, but I felt, as a Director, I was in a difficult position because, as a Director, you are governed by your shareholders and at that moment nobody had bought or sold any shares but there was a lot of nonsense that was going around.
Who's won out of this situation? The club have suffered, Pavis has suffered, the shareholder's suffered. Everyone's repuation has suffered and that is because people did not do things properly.
PieEye - Did the club approach the media during this just to tell them to simmer it down slightly?
ST - I think the wheel came off when a few weeks ago the lawyer of Mr Pavis spoke on the BBC Radio Nottingham's Monday night phone-in, which is supposed to be for fans and this was a staged event. I know that because I was told that.
I think a lot of things had been said and I think the board here had just had enough of just doing things free of charge, spending a lot of time trying to do it and getting this in the back everytime.
But we've got a lot of time for Radio Nottingham, they do a great job and give us a lot of publicity so it was unfortunate that we had crossed words but these things happen in a relationship but as far as I'm concerned now it's business as usual.
As far as I'm aware Derek hasn't made any offer for anyone elses shares.
I think a lot of things had been said and I think the board here had just had enough of just doing things free of charge, spending a lot of time trying to do it and getting this in the back everytime.
But we've got a lot of time for Radio Nottingham, they do a great job and give us a lot of publicity so it was unfortunate that we had crossed words but these things happen in a relationship but as far as I'm concerned now it's business as usual.
As far as I'm aware Derek hasn't made any offer for anyone elses shares.
For the third and final part of the BIG meeting, be sure to check to check back to NCM in the next couple of days.