TOPIC: I know you worry about my whereabouts...

Armo wrote:
I can confirm that yes, he does exist. He's always buzzing in and around reception/west stand area on match days, and is very instrumental behind the scenes with cuosc

Always buzzing about? Doing what exactly? He's an enigma and a figment of our imaginations.

chopper wrote:
All well and good Chopper but surely the point of a fan liaison officer is to, errr, liaise? Pretty hard to do that in the background.

melbourneblues wrote:
Buzzing about doing M&G; stuff, in and out of reception, seems to be linking the back office staff to fans. I can't say what he does exactly as that would be pure speculation, but I can confirm that he is alive and does exist

Yeah in fairness I saw him in tesco once

Problem with the ND and CW appointments are they are club appointments (to be polite).
Someone to ask questions on behalf of the fans needs to be appointed by the fans surely?
Bit difficult now all the fans groups have united around the Trust, who have the 4th amigo stitching discussions with the club up, but there must be some way.
Is Lummy the one to sort this based on what he was lookimg to do previously?

Smile sweetly!!

I'm not that happy with some of the posts on this thread, in my view there is absolutely no need to be personal, or sexist in regard to anything that Claire has done. Please bear in mind that the post she is filling was designed to be exactly what it is, and Claire if fulfilling her role very well indeed. From what I've been told, she hasn't given us half of what she's done over the past few weeks helping out at the club. Now some may say that is not the role of a director of a company. My answer to that is that she is different, her role is different. She is meant to bring the club and the fans together. There is evidence of that starting to happen, for the first time in years, perhaps part of it has come from the players, and Phil and Suzanne as well, but Claire has had her part to play too.

I have to say, I knew this was going to happen, and I was very vocal about it at the time. My view was, and remains, that the role was a smokescreen, something for the horsemen (mainly Mr Nixon) to hide behind. It was created so that some of the flak falls elsewhere. I said that numerous times, and was, at times, berated for it when I said I wouldn't vote. Well look what's happened.

Don't blame Claire, she's doing a very difficult job, to the very best of her considerable capabilities. The trouble here, I'm afraid, is about expectations. What we need now is a sort of terms of reference for the fans rep. She can ask those three any questions we want her to, but if they fob her off, like they would anyone else, it is not her fault, the problem at the club is NOT Claire Winder, it is time everyone treated the poor lass with a bit of respect and gave her the support she deserves.

I did not want this post, but we've got it, why don't we at least attempt to use it to do some good (that doesn't mean she has to instigate some sort of coup d'etat)

I agree to an extent Moorlad.

I think the issues stems from the whole selection process, where she had a family member on the panel, the dodgy emails and those that were critical casted aside. I had no intention of doing the job, I just wanted all my criticisms discussed in the tongue and cheek application. If i wanted any power i would of gone for a trust position which for me is out of the question. However they were others not selected that were equally critical and in my oppion would be doing a better job.

I 100% agree that Claire is hard working, If i was club owner i would have her working for my club, but not in this position. I now feel Claire is part of the club rather than independent as a fans representative. I feel shes falling into the clique and her communications are a little embarrassing.

It's a very tough line to tread Mullen. She has to work closely with Phil and Suzanne if anything is to be achieved at all. In my view it isn't that she's fallen into the clique, because I believe she is prepared to ask the difficult questions. I asked her about that when I met her, and she was passionate about it. She perhaps doesn't get across to everyone exactly what she's doing.

I remember all your misgivings when it was all going on, and there were others who made some great points as well, especially about how the vote was never properly independent. I certainly understand what you've said about the selection process, and remember you saying it at the time.

As for communication, if there's nothing to communicate there seems little point in making posts on here consisting of "nowt's happened". I do think there should be something regular on here and the other board, and if that is somebody cutting and pasting her blog, then fine.

I have no idea who the people were who didn't get on the shortlist mate, so can't really comment on what sort of job they'd have made of it, what I will say is I seriously doubt they'd have got more answers from the powers that be than Claire has. If they're not prepared to talk to Claire, I don't think they'd be prepared to talk to anybody.

I totally agree moorlad. Problem is she started this thread and it was obvious it was gonna atract the comments it has. Theres no other way for people to vent their anger as no one else has the balls to come on here. Does anyone really give a shit about the referees shower curtain!!!

Dancingbear wrote:
Aye, there's been enough water on the floor.

The problem I have is the lack of feedback to questions. I asked a question on here which I wanted put to the club, no response. I then asked Claire directly and she agreed to pose the question, still no response. Now if there was no answer when she asked the question then that's fair enough but at least let us know that the question was asked and the club weren't willing to give an answer. For her not to get back to folk after agreeing to ask the question is poor form in my book.

franksidebottom wrote:
I've also asked questions that got forwarded onto the club, without answer.

Reasonable questions as well.

Mullen what you call reasonable and what the horsemen consider reasonable are probably 2 very different things.

This is something I've heard before as well though, the lack of answers to genuine questions. I think that when Claire asks the questions fans request her to ask, she should maybe do it via email, then she has a record of what was asked, on behalf of whom, and when. The answers can also be matched to the questions and posted on the blog and then relayed here. In my experience people are much more likely to respond to written questions than in conversation.

Its no criticism on Claire's part.

They get forwarded on to the club and don't get answered with no way of chasing it up. If they don't want to answer it i'd rather know.

However i have my suspicions why they aren't answering one of them, i'll keep quiet for now but not for long.

Or it might be that she is not asking the questions.

Stinkyturner wrote:
Claire did email me back to say she forwarded them on, however i wasn't included in any comms to the club if this was the case so taking Claires word. I don't think Claire would say it if she didn't mind, she doesn't come across like that.

ok mullen, I've put the cheque in the post......

For what it's worth, my view is that we have a perception problem here. The role that Claire is filling was created by the owners of the club, hurriedly, in response to a lot of complaints and problems they'd been having around the time they started telling their lies about the billionaire. There are some fans on here who feel that the fans rep role is to go all out to challenge the owners of the club on everything they have done and continue to do. There are other fans who think very differently, and regard the role as far more passive and a way of bringing the club and the fans closer together. There is Claire's own view that she has to walk a line between the two, which means challenging them when she can, and also being the link between club and fans. Then there is the view of the owners that she is there as another inconvenience they've had to put in place, and a buffer to stop them being personally exposed.

What we, as fans, do not have is any idea of what the role actually is, what it really entails and what we actually should expect from it, after all we've never really been told. Worse than that, Claire herself probably hasn't ever been told, and she's having to create a role from scratch. The fact of the matter is the general running of the club, on a day to day basis, is not done by the owners. That is mainly in the hands of Phil and Suzanne, so it stands to reason that they are the people Claire will see most often, and they are the people she will work with, put questions and suggestions to and look to for support.

We all know that very important things go on at the holding company level, but unfortunately Claire has no way of knowing what those things are, and that has bugger all to do with her role, because she has never even been offered that level of access. However, there was a promise of that level of access for the trust, that has not yet been delivered, why not? Have the trust been berating the owners about that? When can we expect to hear that a member of the second largest shareholding is on the holding company board?

If anybody wants to have a go about why the fundamental ownership problems aren't being addressed I suggest it is there they need to look, not to the fans rep. I originally envisaged that the fans rep role would be used as a human shield purely by Nixon and co, to protect them from the fall out from the important questions, but it seems to me that there are people in important positions in the trust are using the role to hide behind themselves, so they don't have to answer the difficult questions.

I'd be interested to know what the range of views of what this role should entail are.

All a fan's rep would really need to do for me is to put questions from fans to the BOD... and to the Trust... and put their responses on here. Just that. It could even be 2/3 different fan reps sharing the role as everyone has other responsibilities.

As we have a Trust owning a percentage of the club, and we have now created a position of a fan rep this should be easy to do.

All questions should be written down.. on this board for example and given to the fan rep/reps... and all answers written down... anyone without access to email/twitter/this board etc. can surely find someone who is. If the board refuse to answer a question the fan rep can say that board refused to answer that question.

I'll start with my 2 that I would like to be asked on Thursday.

a) Are we going to be using this media exposure to advertise the potential of the club and the fact we are looking for investment. And if not, is there a reason why not?

b) Has the billionaire or representatives of the billionaire been in contact since the floods? Surely some sort of note of sympathy or congratulations for getting the ground back in working order must have been expressed.

This is all the fan rep needs to do. If they decide to help the club in other ways that is very admirable and I'm sure it would be appreciated by a lot of fans.

I've read on here a few times that if it is true that the BOD invented a story about a billionaire to discourage genuine investment, they shouldn't be allowed to get away with it. A good way of fans and the media of being able to gain a picture of the truth is from questions made by the fan rep. We've already learned more this year than we have in the last 10.

The specific roles of the fan rep haven't been made clear... but would anyone disagree that this is all it really needs to be... A regular list of questions from fans asked to the Board and Trust by the fans rep and answered/refused to be answered... I'm pretty confident there won't be a regular Fans Forum being set up anytime soon so we need to make the most out of the creation of this fans rep position while it is here.

Problem is there are two boards, the holding company and the 1921 one.
Claire is on the 1921 one and can only ask questions there.

Exactly Flatcap. The 1921 board is the operational side of the club, the holding company is what controls the whole thing. Claire only has access to the operational side of things. Holding company issues certainly are not in her spectrum. Those 2 questions from UKBlue, are serious questions, and it would be nice to have answers to them, but those are questions which need to be put to the holding company's board of directors. That needs to be done by the trust really, and not by Claire.

You see the problem? The waters have been muddied, deliberately I have no doubt, and Claire is in an almost impossible position.

Irrespective of the board she has access to, the people Claire currently deals with are the people who know the answers to those questions.

As a fans rep she can ask those questions. If its a no comment from them to a lot of them, it seems like there isn't much point in a fans rep... although many people have obviously felt that from the start.

We shouldn't muddy the waters further by saying what we should and shouldn't ask and can know. We should just ask her what we would like to know is going on with the club. The BOD are obviously within their rights to say nothing... and If all we hear about is when the toilets are getting upgraded etc.. it's still more than we were knowing before the role was created.

The fans rep shouldn't be a position the board can hide behind.. and also the fans rep shouldn't be in a position where they are receiving abuse from fans for not doing enough.

I think it's fair for the role of the fans rep to be to attend meetings and ask the people in charge of our club questions on behalf of the fans. That would be absolutely superb for me.

I

ukblue wrote:
That's just the point though, she is. At an operational level only. She has no access to anything strategic. Are you saying that the fans rep should be on both holding company and operational boards? Where would that leave the trust?

Hi

I forwarded on the original email and as i said at the time i wasn't going to be the go between. They have been extremely busy and if they've decided not to respond to your query that would've been their decision.

Sorry i cannot help any further with this.

Can't be arsed reading all of this thread (sums up my opinion on the position) but oh my days, what a thread title that is! I thought it was a wind up originally!

Why hasn't Claire done the obvious? Gone direct to Nixon and Jenkins and asked them straight what the hells going on with the billionaire. Or is that to simple?

thats question should be asked...thats what the masses want to know.. iits ridiculous now not knowing . Trying to divert to mention other stuff isnt cutting with a lot of us..

[censored] me we need to hire mulder and scully at this rate.

Sent from my GT-I8200N using Tapatalk

BlueAl wrote:
Why don't other folk? They're visible enough at Home games!

CCU wrote:
Because they don't answer
Threaten you via your work
Or worse set the wife on you

One thing you always get on here is a laugh like.

Mullen103 wrote:
Let it go man!

CCU wrote: To be fair ccu it's easy for them to dodge the question when asked in person at a match. They can just laugh it off and speak to you like sh*t. They need to be asked the awkward questions by the fans rep in an official capacity where the answers are clear for all to see/hear.

She claims to have pulled Steve Patt up on the Keith crack but she clearly hasn't. What she needs to do is ask at a meeting who this "Keith" was and the answer needs to be recorded on the minutes, it's the closest thing we'll get to a proper answer as we'll never get the c*nt on the radio and there'll be no fans forum.

loser wrote:
That's the point though pal, it doesn't matter if you, me, Claire, local Media or anyone else asks the question. The answer is highly likely to be the same.

Unless there's an outside appointment to the Holding Board who can ask, it'll never change either...

Don't think they should be let off the hook. They said there was a billionaire, then assured the fans it was genuine some months later. It has dragged on for how long? Still think the fans are owed an update or an apology.

We already have supporter representation on the board via the Trust.

Given they have a shareholding to protect they should be the ones asking questions to the rest of the board and giving answers to the supporters (of which they now represent around 1,500) about the current farce regarding any kind of takeover.

It's hardly Claire's fault that because they are so utterly inept in doing so she is now expected by some to doing stuff the Trust should have done months ago.

In my opinion the stuff she listed is exactly the kind of stuff a Fan Rep should be doing. If you want to blame anyone for not giving the fans any kind of clarity as to what is going on then try blaming the Trust or the rest of the board. They are the ones responsible.

Do the Trust know whats going on themselves? I find it unbelievable that as a major shareholder they have not been informed about the billionaire illusion? It must be breaking some kind of corporate law?

Deano seems to be well into this trust malarkey, can he not bridge the gap between us and them?

Mush wrote:
Yeah, the cold doesn't bother me now

Anyway, just putting a few of the many reasons why people feel they can't speak to our owners.

Have you seen Nixons wife, scary.

Yeah, the cold doesn't bother me now

You'll never be frozen with them woolly cardigans.

The question is like answered is what colour was the shower curtain and did Claire have a free reign to buy whatever she wanted?

The trust should be asking the big questions regarding ownership but sadly norman steel is to comfy in the board room. I really hope when he stands down they elect someone who will rattle a few cages

The club can get rid of the fan rep role whenever they choose they cant remove the trust.

The questions will have been asked and the answer will probably have been that it was a matter for the Holding Company Board and not that of the 1921 board.
Problem is only Jenkins and Nixon are on the Holding Board.
Nice and easily sidestepped.

If everyone, including the press, are refused an answer what chance has Claire got?

I know its frustrating but we are stuck in a cul-de-sac.

Its like George Oswell's Animal Farm - All fans are equal but some fans are more equal than others. Whoever gets on the inside enters a clique!

CCU wrote: Aye it probably would be, but at least it would be out there for all to see and hopefully open up more people's eyes to what utter f*ckwits they are.

Ask Steve Patt at the match and when he smirks in response or comes out with some cocky remark, only people in the vicinity will see.

At least if he was asked in an official capacity whether it be in the radio, fans forum or in an official meeting he probably wouldn't have the gall to attempt to smirk it off or say something snidey, and at least if he did it would just make him look far worse than if he did it on a one on one basis with a fan.

Very interesting thread. It seems the trust are the key to what's going on. Why haven't they been vocal in asking direct questions of the custodians and reporting back to the fans ? Seems to be one big clique.

The Trust is a clique,they don"t represent the fans blah,blah.
Oh hang on, we want to find out something from the board,why aren't the trust asking and telling us?

It's not just posters on this board or fans in general that want to find something out it's members of the trust High Street.

High Street wrote:
The trust is the second largest shareholder in the holding company, and therefore the second largest shareholder in the football club. The other owners of the holding company: John Nixon, Andrew Jenkins and Steve Pattison have decided (without involving the trust) that they will form the board of directors of the holding company from among themselves. As a bit of a runners up prize they've allowed the trust (who own more than a quarter of the holding company shares remember) a seat on the football club board, which, of course, all three of them also have seats. After the dropping of the Lapping bid and the ridiculous happenings during the summer the holding company board, in desperation decided to allow the trust a seat on that board, it was a matter of public record, along with the 5 - 10 days and all of that.

That has never materialised. Why not? Are the trust not bothered? Are they chasing it up at all? Are they happy with the status quo? There is new blood in the trust, a lot of new members, there are also new people on the board of the trust, and they obviously want to change certain things. Are things changing? It doesn't seem like it, everything is still so slow, and very little gets done unless the new board members get off their arses and do it. So the trust is a clique, certainly at the top. They should be forcing their seat on the holding company board, the fact that they aren't means they aren't representing fans at that level, it also means they can't ask the questions we want them to ask and make it a matter of record.