Re: Fans Meeting Monday : Mon Jul 02, 2012 11:57 pm  

Bullpower2012 wrote:

Adey - will Bullbuilder be getting involved? or you inparticular? you have wealth of knowledge which will be too valuable for words in this current situation.

I wonder if some of your vocal detractors on here will show up?

time to for the Bulls fanbase to act as one, time for petty squabbles and arguments later

Well I went. And observed and listened. There was limited opportunity to contribute, and other than on one point I kept my own counsel.

In fact there seemed limited interest in our established, fully-empowered supporters' trust amongst the organising group. And little appetite it seemed to me for what I and my colleagues might be able to contribute. I'm quite relieved at that, though. I've spent 12 years seeking to try and help engage with the club through BISA, Foundation and Bullbuilder, and my missus was dreading me saying I had gone and got roped in again. My time has passed; its time for others now.

Re: Fans Meeting Monday : Tue Jul 03, 2012 12:29 am  

AdeleMC wrote:

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC81vGY_FaVUqajNW24-8xfg

i recorded some of the meeting if anyone couldnt go...

Is that Terry Tibbs with a wig on? Defo looks like a syrup anyway.

Re: Fans Meeting Monday : Tue Jul 03, 2012 12:36 am  

I really feel for the Bradford fans as it appears you are powerless to do much other than let this situation play out.

One thing I will say is IF YOU ARE A SEASON TICKET HOLDER don't pay again for the next game to keep the club afloat.

That ship sailed when the 500K was raised in good faith and spent by the club.

The admin has suggested the RFL will pay player wages so any further funds just go into the pot for administrators fees and the creditors.

Its just throwing good money after bad.

If you want to support the club maybe pay it into a trust which is what in hindsight should have happened with the pledge.

Re: Fans Meeting Monday : Tue Jul 03, 2012 6:57 am  

I wasnt at the meeting last night, but thanks to those of you that were, and who have posted on here to keep us up to date!

I think Guilfoyle is one smart cookie! He sacked the staff yesterday knowing that the NOble rumour mill would start, and that would bring out a lot of anti Caisley feeling. He knew that a lot of emotions would be running high and that he could avoid or side step some deeper questions that he might not be comfortable answering.

There seems to be a lot of talk on here of a consortium involving the owners of greenwoods. Hopefully that comes to fruition. BUt heaven help us if Hood is involved. A club with Hood is better than no club, but only just. how long before we come down this road again?

Hopefully a new investor with no ties to Hood or Caisley will emerge, or even better a fan based ownership!

Re: Fans Meeting Monday : Tue Jul 03, 2012 7:18 am  

Though I couldn't even get in myself it sounds from the posts above that meeting unfortunately lacked any structure. Cannot help thinking if the fans had organised after the initial warnings started sounding by now they probably could have tabled an alternative plan and perhaps avoided some of the current carnage being inflicted.

However I know there are several contributors with some knowledge of the dark art of insolvency so maybe they could say if this is a fair summary of what the administrators game plan is: company in admin, all back office sacked, players wages funded by league? special no rent period agreed by grounds owners who just want the seasons fixtures played out - so bulk of the costs giving the monthly black hole vanished. On the other side I presume we will have 4 home games presumably all entrance pay on the gate - say min 25000 admissions at £20 = £500,000, maybe some sky money for the rest of the season. So no ongoing losses to support and at least £0.5m in income. So in such a situation creditors likely to get about £1 and Guilfoyle £500,000 in fees - then the rescue party rides in and picks up the remains for what I suspect would be a sum less than the pledge?

If only a fraction of the support and goodwill shown by fans, and the efforts of the team and coaching staff could have been organised we could have been in a much better place. As it is if a lifebelt is thrown to the remaining survivours at the end of the week I think the current farce will inevitably shrunk the fan base and main source of ongoing income even further.

Re: Fans Meeting Monday : Tue Jul 03, 2012 8:25 am  

Adeybull wrote:

Guilfoyle said the £800k was in the form of soft loans, NOT investment. Was that what people thought Mr Caisley was bringing?

Bear in mind though that we do not know how near or otherwise the Greenwoods deal was to being agreed before the Intervention, nor do we know if the due dilligence identified impediments or concerns, and nor do we know how likely investment would be now.

Something that has been really bugging me since the meeting: all the talk was of needing only a fairly modest amount to see out the season. A far cry from the £1.2m that was being talked about before. Then when someone asked about the £800k that was supposed to be already sitting there available, Guilfoyle said that was in the form of soft loans (I heard some folk express that it was "only loans") and that these "might be available still" to any supporter-owned investment vehicle.

???

We either needed that £800k or we did not.

If it "may" be available, but all the talk was of engineering a supporter-owned vehicle to invest in the club but not on the scale of £1.2m, then something does not stack up somewhere?

I hope someone who has been party to all this - there seemed to be quite a few at the front - can clarify, since I was quite confused as to just how much money WOULD be needed, and from whom?

Soft loans and 'investment' are not the same thing so someone's lied/lying there. My guess is that they're waiting for Guilfoyle to sack as many as possible and that the 'soft loan' story is cover but I don't know.

We don't know the Greenwoods guy name or anything about him. The 'I've been trying to get hold of you for ages' sounded weird as everybody knows where BG is. Anyway, he has to talk to him now as this is in the public domain. Guilfoyle saying he'd heard nothing about it was equally weird as it appears he's the only one who hasn't. All odd as ****

Surprised nobody has looked at the numbers. The redundancies are to save 600k+ a year with the T and A saying the stadium maintenance guy earned 15k?? Add in the majority working in the shop and ticket office on between something similar and 30k and you're left with certain people earning seriously big figures.

Re: Fans Meeting Monday : Tue Jul 03, 2012 8:29 am  

M@islebugs wrote:

Soft loans and 'investment' are not the same thing so someone's lied/lying there. My guess is that they're waiting for Guilfoyle to sack as many as possible and that the 'soft loan' story is cover but I don't know.

We don't know the Greenwoods guy name or anything about him. The 'I've been trying to get hold of you for ages' sounded weird as everybody knows where BG is. Anyway, he has to talk to him now as this is in the public domain. Guilfoyle saying he'd heard nothing about it was equally weird as it appears he's the only one who hasn't. All odd as ****

Surprised nobody has looked at the numbers. The redundancies are to save 600k+ a year with the T and A saying the stadium maintenance guy earned 15k?? Add in the majority working in the shop and ticket office on between something similar and 30k and you're left with certain people earning seriously big figures.

Difficult to say how much people are paid, but when you add in all the "extra" costs that might be associated such as employers NI, pension contributions, perks such as a "company" car, mobile phone, medical insurance, bonus(?) it can add up pretty quickly. Obviously not all these people will have had these perks, but the "top" earners probably did.

Re: Fans Meeting Monday : Tue Jul 03, 2012 10:44 am  

Bradford Badger wrote:

Difficult to say how much people are paid, but when you add in all the "extra" costs that might be associated such as employers NI, pension contributions, perks such as a "company" car, mobile phone, medical insurance, bonus(?) it can add up pretty quickly. Obviously not all these people will have had these perks, but the "top" earners probably did.

It is difficult and we're not (quite) quite communists but blind hand wringing without knowing what people were being paid seems misplaced. With best will in the world if a really excellent CEO, gardener, ticket office manager is paid 20%-30% above industry standard they are unfortunately part of the problem. This looks very tough on the low paid people but anyone who's been near similar situations will have seen lists with names and figures and the ones at the top being led to their offices by security staff before being hailed a taxi. It's how poor businesses are turned around.

Re: Fans Meeting Monday : Tue Jul 03, 2012 11:00 am  

Sporties wrote:

I really feel for the Bradford fans as it appears you are powerless to do much other than let this situation play out.

One thing I will say is IF YOU ARE A SEASON TICKET HOLDER don't pay again for the next game to keep the club afloat.

That ship sailed when the 500K was raised in good faith and spent by the club.

The admin has suggested the RFL will pay player wages so any further funds just go into the pot for administrators fees and the creditors.Its just throwing good money after bad.

THIS.

Re: Fans Meeting Monday : Tue Jul 03, 2012 7:43 pm  

Okay, so i have had a day to think about the comments made by BG at last nights meeting and although a couple of things stood out (i don't have voicemail, iv'e not been in touch with a coach, but i've found a coach etc.) there was one comment made by BG that has made my mind up that he's a "****" (insert as you wish)

I haven't found his exact quotes but he states that interested parties had been in touch regarding looking into the clubs finances. His response was then that he couldn't provide any information as it was out of date, as a result of the redundancies...... WTF!! (Also this was after he said that he had just saved the bulls "X" per year from the redundancies (but he doesn't have the figures?))

Out of everything heard last night - this has irritated me all day. Is he even interested in finding a potential buyer?

Sorry for the rant, but his comments here were p1$$ poor and it shows me the type of guy we are dealing with!