Jackie Myles Posted July 11, 2022 Share Posted July 11, 2022 3 minutes ago, LatapyBairn. said: Are both the FSS representative positions being voted on or just the one Nigel Serafini holds with it being the temporary appointment after Gordon white stepped down? Just the one as Nigel wasn't voted in by the members. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reggie Perrin Posted July 11, 2022 Share Posted July 11, 2022 1 hour ago, Back Post Misses said: Big opportunity at ST renewal time was missed Remember that the Commercial Dept was barely functioning then. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forever_Blue_ Posted July 11, 2022 Share Posted July 11, 2022 Craig Sibbald has joined Dundee Utd 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blame Me Posted July 11, 2022 Share Posted July 11, 2022 1 hour ago, Back Post Misses said: FSS have c450 members. Morton double that but the cash coming on from both is approximately the same I understand. The FSS is minimum £10 so I guess Morton have a lower entry threshold. I wonder if that would help? One thing I have noticed, certainly with clubs like Kilmarnock, Partick and Morton is that the club themselves promote these supporters societies as being integral parts of those clubs. I still feel like the FSS is seen as an arm's length organisation at the moment - a bit like the CI - except with the representation at board level. As it is, it's not even listed alongside other offshoots such as 1876 club, Business Bairns or Junior Bairns and it really should be in my view. I appreciate the club has put out news articles but they will drop off over time if the society is quietly working away in the background. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blame Me Posted July 11, 2022 Share Posted July 11, 2022 1 hour ago, knee jerk reaction said: I can't help but think shares split 50/50 half to member contributing half to FSS would help, people would feel like they own a piece of the club instead of just making a donation to a well meaning organisation but one with no guarantee it'll be successful in the long run and I say that as someone already a member and obviously hoping it's incredibly successful Sorry read this after my post and this is along the lines of what I meant. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FalkirkBairn2021 Posted July 12, 2022 Share Posted July 12, 2022 19 hours ago, Senor Bairn said: Wealthy owners in Scotland aren't sustainable. Fan ownership is. Even though we do have the highest percent of greeting faced basterts I've ever seen. It's better for us to own everything rather than an outsider. Sustainable perhaps, but it does reduce your ability to advance. I believe the St Mirren model had Gordon Scott and the Hearts model Ann Budge - we have no wealthy fan in the background in that kind of role. There's every chance we'll be in the seaside leagues a while longer - when we last won promotion from any division it was under Hughes. And it was because we spent more than the rest of the division. I completely get the advantages of fan ownership and it doesn't mean we have a tiny budget due to our large home crowds but there's no denying that the best way to move back up the leagues in not that model. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Senor Bairn Posted July 12, 2022 Share Posted July 12, 2022 (edited) 6 minutes ago, FalkirkBairn2021 said: Sustainable perhaps, but it does reduce your ability to advance. I believe the St Mirren model had Gordon Scott and the Hearts model Ann Budge - we have no wealthy fan in the background in that kind of role. There's every chance we'll be in the seaside leagues a while longer - when we last won promotion from any division it was under Hughes. And it was because we spent more than the rest of the division. I completely get the advantages of fan ownership and it doesn't mean we have a tiny budget due to our large home crowds but there's no denying that the best way to move back up the leagues in not that model. I'd rather the club was ran correctly by people who will be here whether we're in the seaside leagues or champions league than shoot up to the Premiership in two seasons with a rich owner who at any moment could pull the plug. I get what you are saying I'd rather the club was here for the next 100 years than have a shot at glory for a couple seasons. Edited July 12, 2022 by Senor Bairn 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FalkirkBairn2021 Posted July 12, 2022 Share Posted July 12, 2022 10 hours ago, JulioBairn said: No the incentives being discussed on here were a way to increase membership and draw people in. Not having a go at the idea, I just don’t get those who are able to sign up but won’t do so until they are tempted in with a free raffle ticket or 10p off a can of tennents but there you go. Premium Bonds. On the face of it a pretty shit investment but the main reason people do it is the faint chance of winning some proper cash. I think you are right that tiny nothing prizes will attract no one but if there were say 50 season tickets every summer set aside for 12 monthly subscribers that might be a decent carrot. Credit to everyone involved in FSS. Takes a lot of admin work to keep this thing running usually and you have to be accounting for the money raised. Tip of the hat to the organisers. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FalkirkBairn2021 Posted July 12, 2022 Share Posted July 12, 2022 I'm pretty sure I remember that St Mirren worked out that the club needed 1000 monthly subscribers at £12 a pop to run. Presumably making some basic guesses on the number of STs you will have, commercial income etc. Would be interesting to see what Falkirk's model, laid out simply, is. That could help too if fans knew that we needed say 900 FSS monthly subscribers to be completely self sustaining. Gives a target. We need to set out something saying for each division (and I get a lot of this will be extractable from the accounts somewhere) 1) Cost of running the club Inc salaries, upkeep etc 2) Commercial income ST sales, prize money etc 3) Shortfall Apologies if this has already been done but do we know how many monthly subscriptions are required to be completely break even? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 12, 2022 Share Posted July 12, 2022 9 hours ago, Reggie Perrin said: Remember that the Commercial Dept was barely functioning then. I meant on FSS’s part 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Brockvillenomore Posted July 12, 2022 Share Posted July 12, 2022 24 minutes ago, FalkirkBairn2021 said: I'm pretty sure I remember that St Mirren worked out that the club needed 1000 monthly subscribers at £12 a pop to run. Presumably making some basic guesses on the number of STs you will have, commercial income etc. Would be interesting to see what Falkirk's model, laid out simply, is. That could help too if fans knew that we needed say 900 FSS monthly subscribers to be completely self sustaining. Gives a target. We need to set out something saying for each division (and I get a lot of this will be extractable from the accounts somewhere) 1) Cost of running the club Inc salaries, upkeep etc 2) Commercial income ST sales, prize money etc 3) Shortfall Apologies if this has already been done but do we know how many monthly subscriptions are required to be completely break even? You weren’t at either of the meetings last month I assume as this was clearly set out 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NavyBlueArmy1876 Posted July 12, 2022 Share Posted July 12, 2022 Last time we got to around 970 pledges and they were still pushing to get the numbers up to 1k+ iirc. I'm not sure if that number would be able to decrease the further up the leagues we go? Certainly being in this shiter of a league has the most financial challenges 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FalkirkBairn2021 Posted July 12, 2022 Share Posted July 12, 2022 (edited) 1 hour ago, Brockvillenomore said: You weren’t at either of the meetings last month I assume as this was clearly set out That is correct... I wasn't in the country. If there's a handy breakdown would be nice to see it Edited July 12, 2022 by FalkirkBairn2021 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FalkirkBairn2021 Posted July 12, 2022 Share Posted July 12, 2022 1 minute ago, NavyBlueArmy1876 said: Last time we got to around 970 pledges and they were still pushing to get the numbers up to 1k+ iirc. I'm not sure if that number would be able to decrease the further up the leagues we go? Certainly being in this shiter of a league has the most financial challenges I think costs increase by proportion too though. Salaries are higher, costs on match days when the bigots visit. Clearly commercial income, TV money etc goes higher too. You will be right though obviously that this shiter of a division is a real money pit. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FFC 1876 Posted July 12, 2022 Share Posted July 12, 2022 10 hours ago, Forever_Blue_ said: Craig Sibbald has joined Dundee Utd Fantastic move for him, two year deal too. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ilostmyself Posted July 12, 2022 Share Posted July 12, 2022 Fantastic move for him, two year deal too.Agreed, hopefully he'll for into their style a bit better than he did at Livi. Happy to see him get a good move. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jackie Myles Posted July 12, 2022 Share Posted July 12, 2022 2 hours ago, FalkirkBairn2021 said: I'm pretty sure I remember that St Mirren worked out that the club needed 1000 monthly subscribers at £12 a pop to run. Presumably making some basic guesses on the number of STs you will have, commercial income etc. Would be interesting to see what Falkirk's model, laid out simply, is. That could help too if fans knew that we needed say 900 FSS monthly subscribers to be completely self sustaining. Gives a target. We need to set out something saying for each division (and I get a lot of this will be extractable from the accounts somewhere) 1) Cost of running the club Inc salaries, upkeep etc 2) Commercial income ST sales, prize money etc 3) Shortfall Apologies if this has already been done but do we know how many monthly subscriptions are required to be completely break even? Are we not going to self sustaining anyway? I'd be a bit wary about basing your future on having a certain number of subscribers . Fans can be very fickle and things like the current cost of living crisis could adversely affect the clubs ability to survive. At the moment the club doesn't have anyone putting in a pile of cash every year to cover losses so we have to base our budgets on guaranteed income I'd have thought. The fss money should be seen as bonus money . I'm all for the fss owning the club by providing enough money eventually to get to the magic 51 percent of shares but I'm not so keen on us wholly relying on a certain amount of subscribers cash every month to actually exist. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuartA Posted July 12, 2022 Share Posted July 12, 2022 Lots of good ideas on here. On memberships, we’re currently on about 460 individuals contributing nearly £5.5k a month averaged. That’s just shy of 20% higher than pledged in our survey last year, but about half of the number who pledged for Back the Bairns four years ago (albeit under a different proposition). We are trying to keep pushing memberships up, and have had a good boost since McGlynn was appointed. Incidentally, the most successful membership day was when the ex DoF left the club, and we tend to see spikes in membership linked to good news stories and good form. By now, every Falkirk fan must know that we exist and what we’re trying to achieve. We kept the offer basic so as to make sure we were being honest with fans, rather than add a load of bells and whistles where the core message gets lost. But all these ideas are helpful. I’m less sure about the lower entry level as any boost might simply be offset by people choosing to lower contributions. But that’ll be looked at when we review membership policy later this year. On one point - the board has been mega-supportive. They wrote to all ST holders recently promoting membership, included info in the ST packs, helped us get McGlynn for the event next week, and many other things. So we need to mend the roof while the sun is shining! We’d obviously welcome offers of help. Nobody new stood for election to the committee this year. We don’t want fans to become frustrated at us being unable to action their ideas, but equally we all work too. 15 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FalkirkBairn2021 Posted July 12, 2022 Share Posted July 12, 2022 24 minutes ago, Jackie Myles said: Are we not going to self sustaining anyway? I'd be a bit wary about basing your future on having a certain number of subscribers . Fans can be very fickle and things like the current cost of living crisis could adversely affect the clubs ability to survive. At the moment the club doesn't have anyone putting in a pile of cash every year to cover losses so we have to base our budgets on guaranteed income I'd have thought. The fss money should be seen as bonus money . I'm all for the fss owning the club by providing enough money eventually to get to the magic 51 percent of shares but I'm not so keen on us wholly relying on a certain amount of subscribers cash every month to actually exist. Not sure that's going to work though if we are going to have any kind of serviceable squad. It's a noble idea but I don't think we generate enough income. Unless we want to be part time of course. I think under our current ownership there realistically has to be income from the FSS to balance the books. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FFC 1876 Posted July 12, 2022 Share Posted July 12, 2022 My predicted line up for tonight. PJ Yeats Mckay Mackie Mccann Morrison Mcginn Hetherington Mcguff Nesbitt Oliver 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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