TOPIC: Shame on CUOSC

As Mullen says on the CUOSC forum, it looks like the trust have fallen into bed with Andy Bell - total disgrace. I was of the belief that the trust was to keep a certain amount of independence from the club!

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This is mine, and others I must add, take on this.

We don't have a home game until the 19th.
The investment plans have gone to the trusts board.
As has been rumoured, the investment is from bookies.com(Andy Bell) and AN other.
The trusts board are looking into the investment, I don't know how it affects the trust in terms of share or percentages etc.
To sweeten the trust and move things along Andy Bell offers 3 VIP tickets for Welling, he could of waited and put money into the club.
Odd as well that the match is being sponsored by him, why not give cufc the money rather than Welling.

FFS

Sounds to me like when you get blown out by two dolly birds on a night out (Lapping & billionaire deals*) and you end up settling for the big fat gripper, in the kebab shop on her todd...


*In no way do I ever believe there was a billionaire.

It does start to look a little incestuous when you stop to think about it. What I really want to know is why did the trust not just laugh at the proposal, and tell Nixon and Jenkins to piss off until they were willing to give the trust a seat on the holding company board as promised.

If there is absolutely any truth behind the rumoured amounts involved, and if the trust accept it then there appears to be something seriously wrong.

Oh excuse my mistake, I thought Andy Bell said that there was a billionaire, not that he was the billionaire!

Presumeably if the trust board see the proposal acceptable they will be recommending it to the membership for a vote? It was said after laffy's dilution was approved that it didn't necessarily carry over to any other offer?

That's my understanding mate. From what I've heard from others too the issue of new shares, which would result in a dilution of the trust's holding, would have to go through the trust for approval. Turkeys voting for Christmas in this case, if they go for it, it would seem.

So the Trust voted in favour of the Andrew Lapping plans yes? Now they have been approached by the board with a new investment plan which again needs their permission to dilute their share?

Obviously this will not be the "billionaire", but something AJ,JN and SP have found?

Massive call for the trust this one.

If this is actually what has to happen, to be honest I'm lost with it all!

How do Lummy, good to meet you on Saturday.

I have no idea whether this is another plan that means the trust need to dilute their shares, I haven't seen any great detail on this particular proposal. As I understand it, there isn't a substantial amount of cash involved (rumour has it that it may only be £150,000 or so). It seems to be a proposal involving Andy Bell and at least one other person from what I have been told.

I asked on the other thread if there was share dilution involved and got ignored. I assumed there was, why else approach the Trust?

......but, if there is, how the hell can the board of the Trust go and knock the request back or accept (with or without the requirement for a vote) without consulting their membership? The board are supposed to be reflecting the fans not arbitrarily making decisions on their behalf.

Armo wrote:
hasn't stopped them making decisions in the past. When is norman steel due to stand down.

Two years ago.

Ahhh but this is the "new" trust with their 5 year plan. Anyone remember when this 5 year plan was first mentioned?

Ten years ago.

Someday somebody will write and amazing stage farce based on our club. You have to laugh....

Northumbrian wrote:
Dont think itd take much writing. Its like a live episode of Eastenders this season

Had a look on the EN&S;, I know it was kicking around for long enough before then but apparently it was introduced in July 14.

I wonder how far along they are in raising their £1m , £250k should of been raised by now according to my reckoning.

Northumbrian wrote:
It would never be able to reach the stage, nobody would believe it. Honestly you can only rely on people to suspend disbelief so far.

Just shows it is correct “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.”

It buys time and takes the spotlight off them, that is all.............

That's a point. Deano, have the Trust been able to schedule a suitable date with JN & AJ yet?

5 - 10 days armo.

from today Moorlad?

From the last meeting.

That means they might hear something in July I believe.

28th Nov, that means we'll all have our answers by the 8th at the latest

Aye, if you mean the 8th month mate.

Surely your not implying that the Trust would say out without standing by it Moorlad?

Good Lord no. I was implying that the directors of our football club's holding company might have told the trust 5 - 10 days and that the trust may have taken the lying bastards at their word.

shame, they're made for each other

They may have changed their name but nothing else appears to have changed.

The trust have gone very quiet, not just Mike who has a job but anyone of the other board members.

They were doing so well and back down to the gutter i'm afraid.

HAVE SOME BALLS!!!!!!!!

That will be the day!!

Seems this has all came about from the interest in AJs shares.

If AJ sold his shares the party involved along with the trust would have a controlling interest making SP and JN redundant.

Adding Bells small investment for a little dialusion of shares and SP and JN would still have a major share if AJ sold his shares.

Mullen103 wrote:
Think you are right again Mullen! JN being a snake and using the dilution situation to benefit himself, obviously keen to keep his FA privileges!

Did anyone seriously buy into this new trust organisation and how things were going to change it never was its still all the same cliques under a different name a perfect storm of sh1tc**tery shafting real fans with bits of tokenism here and there .
For what its worth i hope the trust dilute their shares and lose any power they have now because they arn't worthy of it anyhow they' are a complete waste of space .

As Jenkins said about Lapping' s proposal, it would just be a sticking plaster.
Well this offer must be just basically licking the blood away!

Been ridiculously busy at work today - I'm doing somebody else's job as well as my own this week, so literally just nipped on this morning to post the details on the CUOSC sub forum. To answer a few queries.

I got a phone call yesterday evening (5pm) from one of our board members (Carol), asking if I would call somebody from Bookies.com (not Andy Bell). They'd received a message, but as they were unavailable at the time, wanted me to deal with it.

I made the phone call about 7pm last night and was given the details.

Bookies.com do sponsorship for various clubs, Welling and CUFC to name a couple. Given the game in question, they chose to sponsor it; and as part of that sponsorship package, are given 6 VIP tickets. Unfortunately nobody from Bookies.com is available to attend on Sunday. The person I spoke to yesterday knows one of our board members (Carol), and thought that we (CUOSC) may appreciate using the tickets. Hence the giveaway.

I'll flick back through some comments above which I've not read yet, and answer any queries I can.

Mullen103 wrote:
The tickets weren't offered by Andy Bell. It was a suggestion from somebody else who works at Bookies.com, and presumably Andy Bell agreed.

As I said, Bookies.com do sponsorship deals with a number of clubs, including Welling.

Bruntonpasty wrote:
Correct, as with any proposal put forward by any potential investors, it would be put to the membership to vote - if we felt the proposal was in the best interests of the club. The agreement to dilute shares to 10% was ONLY for the Andrew Lapping proposal, and absolutely no other proposal. This position has not changed. Andrew Jenkins and John Nixon are fully aware of this, and accept that this is the situation.

To be fair, i've been fairly harsh in some of my comments above but just wanted to mention that none of this has been directed at you personally Deano.

The problems predate you by a long way and you've always seemed to be approachable and answer what and when you can.

Armo wrote:
Sorry Armo - I can't discuss the finer details, and didn't honestly know how to respond to your question without putting myself in bother one way or another. I cannot say whether there is share dilution involved. There are multiple proposals on the table.

Armo wrote:
From what I'm led to believe, the 5 year plan was due to be released just before the Andrew Lapping proposal was put on the table. That blew the whole thing to pieces, and when the deal looked to be going through, it was put on hold with a view to re-writing it. Since the deal got knocked on the head, there's been changes in personnel on the CUOSC board, and a re-brand. It's been back on the board meeting agenda - at least at the most recent board meeting it was. We're meeting next week to (finally!) finalise the roles/responsibilities and that goes hand in hand with the 5-year plan.

Armo wrote:
I'm not involved in the follow-up meeting. I work full-time, so it's not in the best interests of CUOSC/the club for me to be there. I would only delay the arrangement of a meeting, unless it was done on an evening/weekend. That said, and I said this to the CUOSC board too, I felt there were other board members more suited than me (more experience, financial knowledge, knowledge of previous proposals i.e Lapping) to attend. When we discussed the proposals on Saturday at our board meeting, our aim was to meet with AJ/JN this week.

Arragorn wrote:
I'm honestly disappointed that you feel that way. I feel your frustration with the way things have been done in the past. I joined the Trust with the aim to bring about change over time. I wanted more communication. I wanted better representation of the fans. Most importantly I wanted change within CUFC. I thought communication had improved over the last 3-4 months. There are some things that cannot be discussed at this stage, we simply cannot tell you everything. It wouldn't be in CUFC's best interests to do so. There is a business side to the club too - it's important to remember that.

Unfortunately he's not the only one who feels like that Deano, i think everybody can see you're doing your best to improve communication, but as long as Steele is at the helm i will never have anything to do with it.
You are to the trust what Claire is to the board i 'm afraid.

Just read this thread.I have to note that nothing has changed and Deano is doing his best to hold the higher ground.

The fact is the Trust continues to hold the cards in any negotiation.Deano is correct in stating the vote to dilute was for the proposal I put forward.No other proposal.

The Trust have a fiduciary duty to evaluate any proposal that is put forward to promote the well being of the Club-to accept a small offer of new funding would be difficult to support for obvious reasons.The sticking plaster quote is a good benchmark.

Can I therefore suggest we let the Trust take their time and assess-I know Norman extremely well and he is very aware of the responsibility the duty placed on him by the Trust shareholding and controls.

Andrew

Armo wrote:
I don't take it personally Armo - not all of it anyway. It does frustrate me at times though. As I said above, and as I touched upon to Moorlad on Saturday, there have been occasions in the past few months when I've sat down and questioned whether all the time and effort I put in, is worth the abuse/negative comments. It would be far easier for me to just turn up on a Saturday afternoon, have a few pints, watch the game, go home and spend time with my daughter. But I joined the Trust to make a difference - I hope I've been a positive appointment from fans points of view. I'll always make myself available and always answer what I can. I am always at BP from 1pm on match days for anybody who wants a chat over a pint.

Well done for your work deano and good for you for keeping your council and keeping us up to date with work going on behind the scenes.
There was quite a simple explanation for the tickets and nothing to get excitable about.
Fans feel like they have been deceived and lied to so often that any small issue seems bigger than it should be and just another part of the boards failure to communicate.
Keep pouring water on the fire until the current owners actually tell us what the hell is going on !

VIP Treatment = get your own arse there at short notice.

Aye, right.

Could not the holding company sell some of its shares in CUFC 1928 rather than in the holding company itself?
That way all four parties in the Holding Company would retain their percentages.

They would retain the percentages in the holding company, yes, but the holding company's (and therefore theirs) holding in the football club would be diluted in the same way.