JayMFC

Yeah, I think this is along the lines of my own thinking. I'm a trade union rep in my workplace, so I'm well versed already in terms of balloting members and including recommendations etc. On a personal level, I don't think it's logical to have a ballot that doesn't include some sort of comms from the Well Society Board around a particular view or views. Now, as I said in my post earlier, members don't need to care a jot what those views are - but, perhaps unseen, Society Board members put a load of time and effort into the Society, the fan-ownership model, and the club more widely, and so some Society members (at least) may agree that there'll be a level of knowledge, understanding and experience that's built up there, and that the subsequent views from the Board might be worth considering (as you suggest). What that looks like though still has to be ironed out. Everything is still very much hypothetical, including even the negotiation getting to a vote, and it's impossible to know just now whether any final offer would be unanimously supported/opposed by the Well Society Board, whether a majority would support/oppose, or what - and why. So once we reach that point, it'll be a case of establishing some sort of position and then working out how that's best communicated to members. But generally, I do think it would be very odd for the Society's position on any offer not to make up some of the comms in any ballot.

If you think that my ability to go on and on and on is only a recent thing, I am more than happy for you to continue believing that.

Fired up another laptop and it appears fine on here - but I thought I better hurry on and post before I'm silenced on this too... Nah, all joking aside - I've been lurking and reading the thread this week, lots of good points, and I know I've been tagged a few times. Don't want to go back and multi-quote everything, but I do want to respond to a couple of points. Firstly, I believe @capt_oats had a few questions about the Well Society's role in the investment video - I'm going to just take the easy option here and just not answer those. It's something that the Society would respond to officially if someone sent in those questions directly by e-mail. In terms of the current negotiations themselves, I'd just reiterate what it's in the Society statement - that the Well Society Board is not a part of those negotiations. I know there's a lot of comments and questions around why that is, and whether that's right or not, but again, I'm going to opt out from responding to that. Essentially, that's what the situation is - the Chairman & Executive Board have been discussing options with potential investors, and one of those has reached a point that all parties currently involved are happy to proceed to a next stage. That said, it's not the case that the Society is kept entirely in the dark. I think it was confirmed at the club AGM that the Society had met with both interested parties at the time. We have also received some updates on progress and some key aspects of discussions, which I would imagine have allowed each of us as individuals to at least start to form some initial thoughts on whether the deal would be good/bad/indifferent for the club and whether members would be likely to think the deal was good/bad/indifferent for the club, but there's no collective position and we haven't had any discussions around reaching one. Basically, it wouldn't be right to do that until we were in receipt of any finalised agreement that the Chairman & Executive Board had reached with an investor and we were able to fully understand what that could mean for the club and for the Well Society. If we reach that point, Well Society members would be balloted and, in order to make a fully informed decision, would be provided with as much detail as possible. I think it's worth flagging that any potential investor will have been told from the off that their offer would need to be cleared by Well Society members, so it will not come as any surprise that extensive details of any offer should need to be released to members. If any potential investor had a problem with that, I'd suggest they'd have been better looking into a club that wasn't fan-owned - so I don't foresee a problem in making sure members are informed when it comes to a vote. I think @StAndrew7 has raised a question about whether Society members are club shareholders or not. The answer is no - the Well Society is the shareholder and Well Society members are exactly that, members. So it's up to the Well Society as the majority shareholder how it would vote in any shareholder vote - and it is the democratic and moral position that the Well Society's vote would be guided by its members. Just on that too - firstly, there's no guarantees we reach a point where there's a shareholding vote or Well Society member ballot, we all know how negotiations work and things might just not reach that point. However, there's also a discussion to be had by the Well Society Board itself around how it conveys its views on any potential offer. There's obviously no automatic assumption that anybody will care what the Society Board itself thinks is positive or negative but the discussion still needs to be had around the communications that accompany any ballot, whether that's remaining neutral, providing a recommendation one way or another, providing arguments for or against, or whatever. The last thing I'd just highlight is that, while the negotiations carry on between the Chairman & Executive Board and the potential investor, the Well Society is just cracking on with the work it needs to do as majority shareholder. No-one would expect the Society just to sit on its thumbs assuming transformational investment is on the way, instead we continue to approach things with October's refreshed Board, and the fresh approach and enthusiasm that has resulted, by ploughing on with a lot of work to ensure that fan-ownership is even stronger in the future, regardless of what happens here. Contrary to what some people seem to enjoy suggesting on Twitter, fan-ownership demonstrably works, the previous years have shown us that quite conclusively. However, it absolutely can - and needs - to be better. The workstreams that the Society has formed have already hit the ground round with some fantastic work underway in comms, governance, events, fundraising and membership. As the comms workstream lead, I'm buzzing about the standard of contributor we've got on board (at the risk of complimenting a P&B stalwart too much ) and we've already done some fantastic work around identifying what needs to improve - a comms strategy will be finalised in the next week or two, and a return to a standalone Well Society website, that provides members with all the actual information they want and need, is already underway. And as a whole, the Well Society Board continues to put together its own strategy and plan, for both the Society and the football club, that it is hoped members can put their faith in should the Society remain as majority shareholder. So I think at our end, we're just cracking on feeling quite positive about what we're doing - the Well Society will grow, members will find that the information and experience they've been deprived or found difficult to access beforehand is soon accessible, fan-ownership will continue to work, and I'm personally very enthusiastic that the new CEO comes into the club with a wealth of experience around income generation, following a recruitment process that the Well Society Board was heavily involved in. So aye, not actually sure if any of that is particularly useful as such. Basically, the Chairman & Executive Board will continue to discuss things with the potential investor, while the Well Society continues the work we'd identified needed done prior to the investment video even going out - work that we're really positive about and work that we think will see growth in the Society, increased income generation in the club, and a platform to take the already-working fan-ownership model at Fir Park, and make it better. Of course, the perfect addition to that is positive investment that works for both the football club and the Well Society, and so if that is what comes from these negotiations, then that will be a further thing to be positive about.

Aye. There's no question the actual consultation should have been much earlier & been more engaging. But I think the strongest lines in the club's statement are those around wholly negative feedback & folk who'd now vote against VAR, and they're strong lines exactly because plenty of folk were actually on board with VAR originally.

Also, I probably wasn't that surprised at the time come to think about it. I was perhaps a little disappointed as someone vehemently opposed to VAR but I think it's easy now, after it's been such a shambles, to be quite revisionist. The actual truth is, at the time, a lot of folk were pretty content to welcome in VAR, on the proviso it was done well. Obviously that proviso looks laughable now, but I wouldn't really say that the club voted for VAR against some sort of groundswell of opposition.

I agree with the comments about the short turnaround in terms of a consultation with fans, and I also have to say that I've been vocally opposed to VAR from the very beginning, but it's also probably just worth flagging that I was surprised that, through the Society's consultation, there was a majority in favour of VAR.

I have to admit that I hadn't even looked at the survey yet, I was just sharing it to help the target be reached. Might fill it out now though...

Couple of you may have already completed this online or on Saturday when Sean from the Society Board, along with some volunteers, was talking to people outside the ground - but if anybody's got a spare few minutes, feel free to fill out this survey on Society values etc: The Well Society (office.com) Not far off the target originally set for respondents, so if some of the fine posters on P&B complete it, the target should be easily accomplished, ta!

This would be my understanding, aye. There have been multiple times over the past few years, at least since my involvement, where discussions and even slight progress has been made towards an equal Executive Board. This has never quite been realised, however, much to some frustration. As mentioned before, there has appeared to be a lack of urgency employed around the whole thing from the club's perspective because, essentially, "everyone is a Well Society member anyway". That's partly why there's now a drive to ensure that it is part of any strategy going forward, exactly for the reasons you've outlined - paying a fiver a month (or even not, as the case may be) is not reason enough to have the majority shareholder able to be outvoted going forward. Allied to that, a part of the Society strategy will hopefully be on identifying and recruiting non-Society representatives for the Executive Board that really allow the club to access the kinds of skills and experience needed in a modern football club. The CEO is obviously a huge appointment, but I think it overshadows sometimes the opportunity that now exists to establish a genuinely capable, driven Executive Board that can take the club forward under fan-ownership.

Not to hark on about the golden days of a standalone website, but there essentially was a venn diagram on there showing how the Executive Board, Well Society Board, and the (at the time) Supervisory Board related to each other. The short answer to your question is no, the Executive Board call the shots with regards to the football club, not the Well Society Board. The setup - certainly since I've been involved - has been a five person Executive Board with the Well Society possessing two seats. The Chairman throughout that time has not been a Well Society representative. This has essentially meant that the Well Society Board can make a case to its two representatives on the Executive Board for something, while hoping that that they then make that case on the Society's behalf within the club boardroom. But even if they do, there's no guarantee that the Executive Board will make anything of it. It's worth highlighting, however, that everyone who sits on the Executive Board is a Well Society member. This has been the counter-argument the many times that some of us have asked for a 50/50 split on the Executive Board, as any other majority shareholder would expect (at the very least). Part of the Society's strategy going forward, though, is to ensure a more even split on the Executive Board so that we can ensure there's a direct line from Well Society members to the Well Society Board to the Executive Board. That's something that has to be given serious consideration though, because there's got to be an effort to get the right skills and experience in the boardroom, alongside that representation - rather than just flinging an extra body in there as a tickbox exercise.

So in the good few years I've been involved with the Society now, I have come close to tearing my hair out on a number of occasions in relation to this kind of thing. I remember spending months repeatedly highlighting how the array of wee frames for advertising in the East Stand toilets were lying empty, and I was constantly told they were going to be used by the club's commercial department. I don't think they ever actually were until maybe nearly a year later. Pre-pandemic, I felt like we were making genuinely slow but reasonable progress in terms of visibility and general communications. We had wee stalls up the back of stands on the concourse at a number of home games, attempted to do Society versions of "MP surgeries" at Fir Park, and had a website that - although pretty mundane - was hosting information on the Society, including allowing us to issue statements on genuinely important matters that gave the Society its own voice. However, it feels like that progress wasn't just halted in the last couple of years, but was rolled back to some extent. I think that's why there's a genuine positivity now - now having a board with a majority who understand what's needed to improve, both drastically and quickly, and are actually prepared to put in the time and energy required to make it happen. So in short, absolutely - I totally agree with your comments about visibility and presence, and we'll definitely be looking at the ways in which we can maximise that going forward. I do know that Speedie has already begun identifying a possible location for a constant Society presence going forward, so hopefully that's something that can come to fruition soon. Just while I'm here (I took a bit of a break from the forums for a wee while there as the Society & investor stuff is currently all-consuming), I thought it might be worth just picking up on one or two other things. In hindsight, the consultation question very possibly was a bit vague. I think the reason for that is simply that there was a huge effort to try and make both the content and the question itself as "non-leading" as possible. As a Society member, I've always voted for folk to join the board who I think will progress & protect fan-ownership, not folk who I think will still down and have conversations about investment with third parties who want to end fan-ownership. There was a real concern that we simply didn't have a mandate to do that. That's what the consultation was about - either getting that mandate from members so that we know we're not acting out of line by talking to investors who want majority control, or getting confirmation from members that we're wasting everyone's time by doing so. On a purely personal level, I'd have probably preferred a different outcome in the vote, purely because my preference was for the club to appoint a CEO as soon as possible & get on with recruiting for the Executive Board in order to get the club out of the limbo it's currently in, while continuing to seek external investment that doesn't impact on fan-ownership. However, I completely understand why any Well Society member would vote to keep the options open, and that's absolutely fine - as I say, the consultation was just about setting out the parameters we are approaching discussions with, rather than anything else, and we can now do that. There was a deliberate approach to try and keep it as neutral a question as possible - which is probably why it perhaps spilled over from neutral into vague territory. In the meantime, I am genuinely positive about what we're now doing as a collective with a common purpose, fresh ideas, and a majority willing to put in the graft required. The workstreams in place are going to see some real, tangible improvements going forward. Even just very obvious things like scrapping the frankly ridiculous decision to incorporate the Society's website into a couple of pages hidden on the club's official website and returning to our own standalone website that provides all the information, including things like minutes and policies, will go a long way to solving issues around communications and transparency. It's been a bugbear of mine for a few years now that the Society was convinced by folk inside the club to go down that route and we've paid for it since, so I am delighted we're now at a point of being able to re-join pretty much every fan-ownership group on the planet in having our own website. I mean, when you actually write that out it is just mind-blowing that anyone thought it was a good idea to get rid of a Well Society website in the first place. The approach we are taking to the Well Society's strategy will, in my opinion, allow the Society to put itself forward as the best option, rather than just the default one. That's the aim and I think we're now very confident we can do that. Fan-ownership hasn't failed and it isn't not working. But the Well Society can be so much more than it currently is and, after having a great deal of my enthusiasm sapped over the last year or two (to the extent that a couple of my fellow board members had to persuade me to stand again in October, which I'm relieved I agreed to), I feel very positive again that we're going to get there.

I'll feed that back. Not sure a follow up email would materialise but it's worth highlighting as an option. I suppose the email does say it's non-binding and sometimes you just have to hope folk pick up on that. But as I say, a few comments do make me wonder if it could have been clearer.

On a side note, it's been encouraging to see some positive mentions of the actual consultation email content itself. I'm not sure if that's the widespread response but there's certainly been some favourable comments made. It might not seem like it, but a lot of collective work went into the content to try and ensure it was as balanced as possible and avoided anything that was too leading in either direction, so if that has been achieved, it's a good thing. Although that said, one thing that maybe could have been clearer in hindsight going by some of the comments is that idea of the consultation being non-binding. It's to give the Well Society and club parameters within which to approach current, and any further, investment offers in terms of negotiations, while also clarifying if steps such as green lighting a CEO and beginning to rebuild & refresh the Executive Board can be undertaken, or whether those kinds of things need to remain on hold. However, I think it's worth highlighting that if the Hollywood A-Lister did indeed rock up at the Chapman Building carting wheelbarrows of cash and looking for majority shares, nobody would say "sorry Taylor hen, the Well Society voted in a non-binding consultation not to give up fan-ownership so you'll need to taxi it back to the airport".

Yeah, obviously none of us on the Society Board would be putting out details at this stage, although - as outlined at the AGM - we have had discussions with both, saw sight of the extent of proposals, and had a chance to do our own due diligence in terms of who they are, what they're intentions are, how in line they are with the club's values etc. Obviously all of that would then be provided to members, were we to get to a point of seeking agreement from the Society membership in relation to a particular investment offer. Also, in terms of that due diligence, I personally think it's important that the Society Board is putting any investment offer out to members, as long as it's credible, makes sense, is actually a reasonably "good deal", and doesn't have any particular red flags. I assume that's what people have understood the Society's role to be at the moment, rather than just offering out any option that comes along to members, but thought it might be worth clarifying. It's a fair point. One thing I would say is that I think that's really just a reflection of how a lot, if not most, Well Society members seem to be quite content with things just rumbling on, and haven't taken a great deal of interest in the elections. Our survey data genuinely does show that the majority of Society members think things are totally fine - that's not to say there aren't drastic improvements necessarily, I'm the first to say that - but I think the turnout for elections just reflects that it's not really priority. At the same time, we've had differing turnout figures - which I don't have to hand unfortunately - for things like the VAR consultation, the share sale ballot etc. And my understanding is, although it was before my time, the ballot to prevent Rangers from getting back into the top flight had a high turnout. So I think it's really just dependent on the topic, and I would expect there to be far, far more interest in a vote on any potential investment opportunities. In short, I think the Society is just like the real world - give folk a local government election, and loads of folk won't even know it's happening; given them a referendum, and there'll be a big turnout. So my own personal views at the moment - and these are not the views of X, Y, Z, etc etc - are that I personally would argue against the possibility of the Society losing its majority shareholding in the club. There is a sense of urgency that's been attached to all of this that I don't think is particularly helpful - the club is simply in the same position it's been for years, where, if we have a poor season and no cup run and no player sales, a gap needs plugged. It is, of course, very important to sort that out, which is why I totally agree that a balance between fan-ownership & outside investment would be ideal, but I get the impression that a lot of folk think this has suddenly come to the fore at the AGM. The only reason it's being discussed so vocally now is because there are a couple of offers on the table because of the video, not because the club is in peril. I believe that I've been voted onto the board by (admittedly 18-20% of!) members to progress & grow fan-ownership, and to stick to that original rallying call of preventing the club from falling into the wrong hands. I believe that fan-ownership throws up concerns about sustaining what level of football you can maintain in the long-term without serious growth of the current model or outside investment, but guarantees the club will exist forever. And my own personal opinion is that there's actually a lot of merit in going ahead and appointing a CEO, transforming the Well Society's communications & governance via the workstreams being rolled out, producing a strategy that outlines the Society's plans for the future, and continuing to seek investment that works for all involved while protecting the long-term future of the football club. I don't think we can do the above, at least in relation to the CEO, while negotiations carry on for weeks, maybe even months, involving the possibility of the Society losing its majority shareholding (something I believe, again, was clarified at the AGM - the reason for no CEO isn't that a recruitment process hasn't been carried out or because there are no suitable candidates, it's just not going to happen while these negotiations are ongoing). For others, delaying that appointment to conclude those negotiations might very well be worth it, but not for me. And just on the consultation itself, which I know was also outlined at the AGM, that should be going out soon - there's just some work being undertaken around the content of it & timescales involved.

I know Twitter is hardly representative of pretty much anything but some of the rhetoric out there does give me the absolute fear, which is a bit of a comedown from coming out of a Well Society meeting on Monday evening feeling the most positive I've felt about fan-ownership since before the pandemic. Some folk seem to think this is simply the real life equivalent of using the editor to give yourself a higher transfer budget on Football Manager, rather than the genuine future, and potentially even long-term existence, of the football club.