Re: Peter Hood says Bulls on brink of going bust. : Wed Mar 28, 2012 6:26 am  

bazzo44 wrote:

Chucking money at the club will not help, please talk to the Wakey fans in the know, we have good experiance in this field. God knows what we have been through in the last year or three. There are right ways of doing this and chucking money is not the right way, sorry

Wakeys fiscal woes are different to the Bulls, nobody is chucking money at them and thats the problem, whats left to get them through this are the Fans, and despite the reservations that quite a few of the more savvy and respected members on this Forum have expressed it's the Fans that will decide whether the Club survives or not, so it is put up time!

Re: Peter Hood says Bulls on brink of going bust. : Wed Mar 28, 2012 6:30 am  

Bloody ridiculous this whole scenario anyway. This should not have been left to happen. Lets hope that all can be saved and Hood gets publicly ousted and humiliated for causing this.

Re: Peter Hood says Bulls on brink of going bust. : Wed Mar 28, 2012 6:34 am  

Blotto wrote:

Wakeys fiscal woes are different to the Bulls, nobody is chucking money at them and thats the problem, whats left to get them through this are the Fans, and despite the reservations that quite a few of the more savvy and respected members on this Forum have expressed it's the Fans that will decide whether the Club survives or not, so it is put up time!

Ok mate, hope you do come through this, i have had many a sleepless night and stress, its not good trust me, but there is this to think about, nothing is as bad has it seems, all the the best to the club and manly the fans, and i meen that

Re: Peter Hood says Bulls on brink of going bust. : Wed Mar 28, 2012 6:51 am  

You do have some very very wealthy fans, who I know your club have courted pretty strongly over the years. The 'difficulty' you have is people like this usually have done so through making good decisions and they aren't easily parted from their cash.

I can't imagine the club can offer the guarantees that would make sense for them to part with the big sums of cash you need right now (sadly this rather echoes what has happened with the bank), moving forwards I would hope and assume that your are talking to these sort of people about utilising their business nous to put the club on a firmer footing with a more robust strategy.

I appreciate thats naff all consolation right now, but hopefully there should be some sort of light at the end of the tunnel

Re: Peter Hood says Bulls on brink of going bust. : Wed Mar 28, 2012 6:56 am  

Blotto wrote:

All Fans who can instead of agonising over it just pledge, it is not a shares option that is not the table, what is on the table is a way to stop the Bulls becoming a fond memory in a couple of weeks.
There will be time to ask the questions when the pledge succeeds and the Club is stabalized.
I will be putting my pledge in shortly, it is a gamble but it is one of those gambles thats worth it even if you lose it in the end, at least you know you tried along with a lot of others!

I'm still undecided. Not yet convinced that if the fans hand over £500k, without any assurances as to what would happen next, that it would necessarily be in the best interests of the club.

Re: Peter Hood says Bulls on brink of going bust. : Wed Mar 28, 2012 7:12 am  

Cibaman wrote:

I'm still undecided. Not yet convinced that if the fans hand over £500k, without any assurances as to what would happen next, that it would necessarily be in the best interests of the club.

That's where we were last year. In the end, not bailing out the Board was the best thing that ever happened. The energy and drive of the new owner was a major factor in the successful franchise application, and a savvy buyer won't step in until you go into administration. Why take on a million pound debt when you can get the whole thing for peanuts?

Re: Peter Hood says Bulls on brink of going bust. : Wed Mar 28, 2012 7:17 am  

anarkik wrote:

I just wanted to reply to your points. I understand you passion entirely and respect it and those of others who have pledged, but I cannot and will not go down that route myself.

1) There is no reason to expect this will happen, the threat of this is being used to blackmail us out of money without even the option of a share issue thereby allowing new capital and potentially a change in ownership structure. You are dealing with a professional salesman and fear sells - I am not buying the security they represent which has proven to be worthless.
2) Agree - great support. Time to use that to make things change and bring about a real solution, not the pretense of one where the same incompetents stay in power.
3) We've already seen that in the past - they're proven capable of selling our greatest talent and will do so again if the price is right or when they need to pay off the remaining overdraft again.
4) Perhaps we should have been paying those prices instead of relying on Mr Bennett's pledge gimmicks. But a good salesman can fool people again and again - even the term 'pledge' carries emotional weight, they know exactly what strings to pull and they're doing it again and again, whilst the due diligence of checking whether selling your only material asset will impact your banking arrangements was neglected, leaving us in the position of requiring a new pledge.
5) No intention amongst those who think there's another way out of this to see the club die. Instead of just giving money to people who by their own admission have brought the club to death's door, perhaps we should be putting it together to save it from them.

We are all passionate about the Bulls future, but paying to have the people who have humbled the club and stripped it of pride and dignity continue in that role without even the prospect of having a stake in turning that around is a ridiculous proposition, but their guilt trip and careful attention to marketing seems to be working.

We shouldn't rant and rave we should begin the process of taking back the club.

Superb post.
This is the third 'pledge' and it is likely that in september Mr Hood will announce another one for next years season tickets. It is a request for trust to be placed in the board. Yet this is a board which have played fast and loose with our trust for years. In public they have stated we were financially secure when in truth they did not have the finanancial support of the shareholding to run the club and have traded upon the sale of assets and the overall reduction of the business. The mailout says sponsorship is at an all time low. That's because the profile of the club is at an all time low.

Furthermore, and this is one which has annoyed me for years. They have cloaked capitulations in 'confidentiality agreements' and 'undisclosed fees' and then dripped information onto this board in a manipulative and deceitful way. Decent posters and lifelong fans have tied themselves in knots explaining THEIR lies on this board and yet not one scintilla of responsibility do they take.

THINK. What are we saving? Another round of cost cutting measures and surrepticious asset sales blamed on someone or something else. The club is effectively unsaleable prior to administration due to the mutual detestation of the shareholders and whether it is now or in september or next March, administration is where this club is heading and whilst their is no realistic expansion club in waiting and the RFL aren't entirely sick to death of us, we need to do it now.

Re: Peter Hood says Bulls on brink of going bust. : Wed Mar 28, 2012 7:20 am  

All that will happen is the Bulls will have this whip round. If enough money is not raised. All that will happen is you will go bust and then go into admin.

Then start as a new club with a 4 point deduction.

Have faith in that salesman who runs your club.

Stop worrying.

Re: Peter Hood says Bulls on brink of going bust. : Wed Mar 28, 2012 7:25 am  

M@islebugs wrote:

Superb post.
This is the third 'pledge' and it is likely that in september Mr Hood will announce another one for next years season tickets. It is a request for trust to be placed in the board. Yet this is a board which have played fast and loose with our trust for years. In public they have stated we were financially secure when in truth they did not have the finanancial support of the shareholding to run the club and have traded upon the sale of assets and the overall reduction of the business. The mailout says sponsorship is at an all time low. That's because the profile of the club is at an all time low.

Furthermore, and this is one which has annoyed me for years. They have cloaked capitulations in 'confidentiality agreements' and 'undisclosed fees' and then dripped information onto this board in a manipulative and deceitful way.

They have simply took us for mugs.

So what do you propose? We let the club fold becuase we are too stubborn to help? Then what? Reform in division 2, with all the players gone, and with no hope of ever realistically making it out? That's what you are proposing.
I don't disagree with you, but in the SHORT TERM, we have to find this money. The way you want to do it, the club won't be here in Septemeber to issue another pledge, but at least if it survives now, there is tome to organise, to mobilise and to change things. As I said, I had major reservations about pledging, but I had to. In the end, I didn't see a realistic alternative.

Re: Peter Hood says Bulls on brink of going bust. : Wed Mar 28, 2012 7:29 am  

After sleeping on yesterdays events, I now feel I need even more answers.

How can the club be allowed to sell our only real "asset" to the RFL without checking with the bank that it wouldn't effect anything else we do? Completely shambolic. A mistake as bad as this would probably result in a sacking / resignation at the very least in the world of "normal" business.

I have the upmost respect for what Messers Hood, Duckett, Duffy, Bennett et al do in terms of trying to run the club in very difficult circumstances, but an error as large as this needs someone to put their hand up and then fall on their sword.

The one worrying comment I have seen from Hood is that we need the £1m to fulfill our fixtures for the rest of the season. Bennett and Duckett have mentioned this "sustainable business plan". Anyone seen it? Thought not. It will probably revolve around the same methods and processes that got us into this mess.

What happens if / when the club raise the £1m? We might fulfill our fixtures until the end of the year - what happenes then? Although the pledge works in terms of getting official "bums on seats" (the reality is a little different) it seems pretty clear that this messes up all cashflow for the rest of the year. The club are reliant on walk up and away fans to generate any significant cash throughout the season. The home games this year haven't seen the same number of travelling away fans of yesteryear. Money is tight for many with the cost of petrol a major factor in people's budgets. Travelling to away games isn't something that most people have time / money to be able to do in the current climate.

A new "pledge" in relation to season tickets needs to be thought up. Although there may be additional revenue in the advertising generated by "guaranteeing" 10k season ticket holders seeing your advert, I'm not sure that this is necessarily the best way to go about things cash flow wise. We are getting cash up front at the beginning of the year and then appear to be blowing it all in the first 2 months of the season. We might be better selling 3,500 memberships at £200 rather than 10,000 at £70 for example. Even when we were at our lowest points under McNamara we were averaging 8k? Surely that makes more money than the current method? Are we actually selling much more beer in the ground for 10k people? Never seems to be a queue of any sort when I go for a beer. Also, we know pretty well for certain that alot of people are picking and choosing their games for the season membership. Games against the bigger teams such as Wigan, Leeds, etc will pull people in. The games against London for example when it's throwing it down and on tv will not.....

Where has all RFL cash gone? Did that not pay off short term debt? Where did the Lynchy money go?

OK, the bank may have pulled the plug on the overdraft, but I don't recall the last accounts showing anything resembling a £1m overdraft needing to be paid off. I know things change and the accounts are a snapshot at a certain point in time and things can spiral downwards very quickly. However, all the noises coming from the club were that we had no issues financially after the sale of the lease.

I've not received a letter through the post yet, I imagine it may come today, but just the fact that the club have had time to do a mailshot, set up the website, line up the T&A etc means they have known about this for days, possibly weeks. To me, and many others this smells of another marketing campaign to a degree.

My main concern is that we (the fans) will end up throwing all this money into the club to see it survive short term. In another 12 months we could be in the same position and this process will not be possible as you can only go to the well so many times before it runs dry.

How has a figure of £1m come about? What does this £1m actually pay / guarantee? Do we need to have a bond with the bank? Do we need to pay suppliers? Do we need to pay wages? Do we need to pay a tax bill to HMRC? £1m seems to be a very round number - personally I imagine the required amount of cash would be less than £1m, but it makes for a better marketing campaign and "shock value" than saying we need £800k - still a significant amount of money, granted, but not the same level of delivery when doing the interviews.....I imagine we will fall short of the £1m target, but somehow "survive" and then carry on as before with the same apparant level of incompetence.

What I would like to see would be some sort of fans involvement on the board. Everyone who contributes to the fund has a vote to appoint a member to the board. This person can be involved in some level of decision making, or at the very least, be aware of situations within the club that it can then relay to the members allowing us to have greater transaparancy with the dealings within the club.

Won't happen, but one can dream.