To be fair the comment Russ made was bang out of order and childish. I dip my cap to the work he and others have done so far but we need to pull together and those sort of comments will only push people away.

Maybe the comments by Russ were a tad offside, but I'm sure that he had the right intentions.  He, Patsy, Sy and Bruno, have worked their bl00dy socks off to get things moving in the right direction. That is of course, not forgetting the amount of contributions from all the Wings supporters - afterall, without us, the club would have folded years ago. 
What concerns me is the fact that the club have been in trouble for the last couple of years and only now have made things public.  How much deeper does it go?
We, the supporters, can only do so much, the rest is down to the club. As for info from the club, I guess if nothing is happening, then they might say nothing. My thoughts are this - we, the supporters, pay our dues, spend money at the club and try to help as much as we can.  We are adult enough to take things on the chin, but need the info from the club.  We do not want to see the club go under, but given the time scale and lack of info from the club, do we assume the worse?
How much more can the supporters give?  It's time for the club to take action.  We do not need threads from Russ about the 'Kennedy' theme. The supporters are doing all they can.  We are not 'rabid dogs', we are supporters that require the basics - news.

Self elected from a small number of attendees Bruno.

As i have said before well done and good work but it doesnt make it right, It was at the start almost launched by the club when WUISA was discredited and bannished from PVR. Long ago now, but is this the reason so few attend?

You have seen with the appeal meetings that good numbers turned up, i believe you would see in between WSU and APPEAL numbers with a supporters trust or association and more support of that organisation.

WSU have done well and many will admit that, the issue is most choose not to get involved with them or attend meetings. Probably as many were in WUISA and saw the way that was run out of town.

The fact the fans came to the clubs aid shows they are there and will help when they want to.

Simple thing get the club to run a vote on a match day like the player of year.

Would You Join a new supporters club YES / NO / MAYBE

Would you pay £20 / £10 / NOTHING to join it

Should we keep WSU YES / NO / KEEP BOTH



Name
Email Address
Phone Number

Give everyone a sheet as they come in and have a bin in the club shop and bar for the forms or a voting table with pens aswell.

A brucie bonus here is you get hundreds? or fans contact details to COMMUNICATE.

You are going to say who runs that .... The club as they want the fans to stay on board and continue the new beginning and they would be getting the start of a mailing list.

JgFc wrote:

---

Self elected from a small number of attendees Bruno.

As i have said before well done and good work but it doesnt make it right, It was at the start almost launched by the club when WUISA was discredited and bannished from PVR. Long ago now, but is this the reason so few attend?

You have seen with the appeal meetings that good numbers turned up, i believe you would see in between WSU and APPEAL numbers with a supporters trust or association and more support of that organisation.

WSU have done well and many will admit that, the issue is most choose not to get involved with them or attend meetings. Probably as many were in WUISA and saw the way that was run out of town.

The fact the fans came to the clubs aid shows they are there and will help when they want to.

Simple thing get the club to run a vote on a match day like the player of year.

Would You Join a new supporters club YES / NO / MAYBE

Would you pay £20 / £10 / NOTHING to join it

Should we keep WSU YES / NO / KEEP BOTH



Name
Email Address
Phone Number

Give everyone a sheet as they come in and have a bin in the club shop and bar for the forms or a voting table with pens aswell.

A brucie bonus here is you get hundreds? or fans contact details to COMMUNICATE.

You are going to say who runs that .... The club as they want the fans to stay on board and continue the new beginning and they would be getting the start of a mailing list.

---

Other than the first sentence, where I don't agree with the term self elected, I agree JgFc.

Cynical it is my opinion that People have put themself in situations IE "i will do this i will do that" Now i have heard people have said this and not done it.

I also stress my point that when the appeals were launched we never had any structure, Russ chaired it and asked for ideas. It was we will get flyers done.... What else please?.

Now i believe we should have said right we want 5 or 6 people as a hub, we want everyones contact details, you can contact us here with ideas, what are we doing this week, whos doing it ,who can help, Meetings set out for this date this date and this date, TARGETS SET.

What else can we do,

Can we email our bosses and work colleagues, can we get a street team of canvassers
Can we get people doing door to door at businesses with these business specific flyers that we will get made among us after meeting with the club to see whats being done already.
Can we get the local train stations covered once a week handing out flyers. The high street on match days.

Can we get a big raffle going and get some big prizes in from companies.

Can we get a business raffle going for the shirt sponsorships and give a second prize of the away shirts.

Can we get people selling hoardings , match sponsorships, match balls.

Can we get a donation link up on the website, we might get lucky with an anonymous ex fan/player or someone else.

Can we sell the stadium name?

Can we get people contacting papers, radio stations, tv stations, websites highlighting our plight amd making people aware.

Can we get a fan with a van to drive round with posters on it.

Now one person cant do this but a committee of a handful armed with the contact details of all of those at the meetings and more from a matchday mailing list could get the ball rolling and ask for help. It also creates a network for communication which we dont have. Which brings in more ideas more skills.

Some of the above people will say thats the clubs job.


With no structure or organisation or contacts or communication were some really expecting people to go and act unilaterally without discussing things and seeking help?

Has anyone on here heard anything in 2 months since the last meeting about what we can do, We seem to have lost the plot lost belief and beecome apathetic and thats filtered down to the rest of the supporters. If those calling meetings etc cant be bothered then no one else can.

Even the WSU how would it continue if there were no meetings no accountability, no votes and they never communicated? Someone throw me a bone here the appeal has ZERO communication, ZERO News, and not much more organisation , its tailed off , gone quiet, slowed down...... Somebody cant just say right well this isnt good we are having a meeting on wednesday and we need people who can get commercially active. Its not done as someone else is running the show.

You base everything on foundations, we had meetings that went on for two hours discussing a flyer, there was never a call for more heads for brain storming sessions or a call for skills and ideas or a committee , never a base for some organisation or direction or targets or needs other than raise money and increase crowds by dishing out flyers.....

Ive heard that the reason for no more meetings is someone thinks whats the point. so again HAVE YOU GIVEN UP?

We may have just aswell have said after the shirt sponsorship, theres the door out you go and raise 55k among you.

WE is the appeal by the fans NOT the club, WE is the meetings, WE is us.

Has anyone gone right, whos in sales, whos in graphics, whos in I.T, whos in media?

We seem to have ambled on with no ideas, organisation, communication, targets, short term goals, campaigns NADA.

And again pray tell me what has gone on in the last 6 weeks since the meeting? Anything?

Have you given up?

We are all hoping the club sorts the investment, but are we all just saying thats it, down to the club now, i cant be arsed cos he cant be arsed and its too much for us to raise.

People have mentioned shares and loans. how the **** can you organise that with no home games when theres no organisation and you have no contacts with the fans because theree are no foundations.

Same old us, we let people say i wil do it, hang on ARE YOU THE RIGHT PERSON and is it the right thing to do?

A mailing list and a donation link on the main site would have helped A get a total or show money raised and B get contacts with the fans so you can communicate with them.

ORGANISATION, COMMUNICATION, MAXIMISING ALL WORK AND PROJECTS ... or we can just have no way of communicating and let sid bet and maureen raise a bottle every 2 weeks and hope to god the club raise 60k.

We HAVE to do things correctly and have a foundation, when you dont.... THIS happens.

Thank You.






-- Edited by JgFc on Wednesday 13th of October 2010 10:25:48 PM

First off, if anyone was offended by my previous post, my apologies as that was not the intention. Neither was it my intention to provoke a reaction.

To further explain:

WSU meetings
I stand by the "WSU meetings are for WSU business" comment. The purpose of those meetings is to discuss what WSU has done, what it is going to do and what it might do and will likely include such topics as recent events, the club shop and future events as well as on what to use the funds raised.

WSU meetings are not the forum for engaging with the club: as both Kev and Bruno have stated above, club officials are present only when WSU requests their attendance or they themselves ask to come along. If a number of people turn up tomorrow evening in order to find out how the club's negotiations with potential investors are progressing they will not get any answers; but they will disrupt the purpose of the meeting. When I was a regular attendee at these meetings I got incredibly frustrated by the chit-chat and tittle-tattle (i.e. gossip) that caused the meetings to take twice as long as needed. It is surely no coincidence that the 'crowd' at WSU meetings at which the team manager attends is much larger than the norm.


Information from the club
My second point was a criticism of the club not the fans. I certainly don't believe the club should tell nobody / only "elite fans" (whatever that means) news. However, what the club told people at Weston did nothing but make a rod for its back; putting the time constraint on the next installment of news created such a fervour for that news (see the first page of this thread) that the club had to make a further, almost identical statement and what did that lead to? More fervour and what will that lead to... Hence my belief that the club should have said nothing.

As Bruno has written above, if the club had repeatedly stated every few days that "negotiations are on-going" would that have made any difference? I suspect not.

Football fans by their very nature have an unquenchable thirst for 'news'; football clubs are generally black holes. The two are not a good mix.

---

I am sure that as the "leader" of the off field supporters drives...

I am far from a natural leader; indeed I gave it 24 hours after the crisis broke to see if one emerged before making arrangements to discuss the situation with the club and then call the first meeting.


Maybe you know a lot more than the other fans

I know only what I've read on here/the official site and what those at Weston have told me.


It has been said many times on this forum that if you want an update then speak to the Hobbins. Even ring them up - they are happy to talk. Now when we do, we are criticised - or at least the Hobbins are for being honest about the situtation.

I've explained above that I was criticising the club not the fans. There's no point making statements every few days that say the same thing.


The information from the club has been really poor throughout this crisis - there are many posts about that. A few lines a week ago was fine at the time but we need to hear more.

But what's more? What if there is no more? Some people have alluded to the possibility that the club could damage the negotations irrepairably by saying too much; what nobody has mentioned is that there are two parties in these negotiations and it's possible the other party wishes to maintain radio silence until negotations are concluded. I have no idea if this is the case.


I thought the WSU meetings were open to all supporters, so why not take the opportunity to brief them on what the WSU is doing and try to enlist further support?

They are and there is no problem with that - it is what I termed "WSU business". But as Bruno pointed out, why the assumption that WSU participants have greater knowledge of the progress of the negotiations?


Russ has decided where the appeal goes and what it does and when meetings happen

Matt and I may have decided when the first meeting took place but at each meeting the date of the subsequent meeting was agreed by those there.


Its probably a good thing that Russ has attacked the fans as it allows those who were biting their lips to have their say and not sit in silence.

I don't want people biting their tongues sitting in silence; neither do I want them sitting and shouting from the sidelines. I want them to get involved - one idea taken through to conclusion is better than a thousand shouted from the sidelines.


WUISA was sabotaged

WUISA was not sabotaged, it imploded.


We have failed the club in their hour of need and i am ashamed i sat here and never demanded organisation and communication from the start because the last 2 months have been laughable as supporters.

Why not help to provide that organisation and communication?

The fans failed the club long before the current financial problems; likewise the club has long failed the fans. When the current situation reaches a resolution, whatever that may be, both the club and the fans need to take a long, hard look at themselves and think about what could have been, what should have been, what can be and what should be.

-- Edited by Russ on Wednesday 13th of October 2010 11:10:54 PM

My own view as it stands arrange a meeting at PVR or local for people who want to get up close and personal, who can give time and who want to bounce ideas with like minded and can, as a team go after their goals or eachothers.

With the time scale remaining that will be commercial activity plus trying to get investors and sponsors. I would specifically call it as a hands on meeting where people have time or even money and would imagine you would get a handful maybe a few more there.

Also to have a meeting Open to all shortly after (within days) IF we come up with plans that could include others and to see if others have ideas.

We have to think that no investor will come forward and if we can raise finds thatcould get us close enough to get an extension.

I am not sure if those views sit well with others or if there are other plans being discussed.



-- Edited by JgFc on Wednesday 13th of October 2010 11:22:49 PM

Everything is back on serve Bertie.

Okay just to set the record straight you only have one commercial manager, I withdrew my services a while after the WSU meeting Richard and I attended, when it became very clear that things were not right, those who stayed well after the meeting will be aware of my reservations about structure, boundaries, communication etc etc

I have to say you WSU guys and girls are doing a fantastic job, I just hope it's not in vain and that you get the investment and new owners worthy of your support.

As previously stated, we have two very capable people waiting in the wings ( excuse the pun ) to take on the role. They have spent time and energy in the fund raising more than most - get them in now!!!!

LOL

Thanks for that Simon, and thanks for all your efforts and fund raising and communication.

Simon wrote:

---

Jgfc you're venting your frustrations at the wrong person, I suggest you refocus this towards the job in hand or the individual(s) who've got you in this mess.  I don't see anyone accusing HMRC of beng heavy handed or incorrect in the action theyre taking?

What discussions I've had with the club or Richard, if any, with all due respect, are not your concern or that of an Independent Supporters Association.

I wish you ever success in the future.

So, looking between the lines, you are blaming mis-management at club level for our troubles?

---

 

LOL

Simon, i think we would have been better with bill & ben as commercial managers.

Flobble obble ob

I could have trained you if you had only asked and gave you some pointers. Good luck at Bexley Borough FC, will watch their rise up the pyramid with interest and wish you well.

I have to say i think your posts are full of innuendo, critiscm and pointing fingers at the club and the supporters. I wont even go into the pms youve sent which are more scathing and not what i would expect for a former Commercial Manager.

Sorry I'm not criticisng anyone (well apart from you now) let alone the supporter's!

Are you Adrian Durham in real life!

Fair comment JGFC, but I'm desperately trying not to blame anyone.

The reality is that the club needs major invest and once that has been injected you'll have sponsors and advertisers falling over themselves to get involved, clearly the clubs predicament and the wider financial climate menas small businesses in particular are very hesitant, whether you have a good relationship with them or not

The clubs an attractive if not lucrative proposition, fantastic manager and young squad, proactive supporters and a ground with development opportunities, albeit limited

Not sure what the sticking point could be lol 

Lol yeah okay Adrian


I'd knock the welling side down and start again, two storry, gym, resturant, Kitchens, one internal/one external, two bars, offices for Commercial Dept/Management/administrators extend all the way to Danson end with seating in fron (eg Dulwich Hamlet)

The key is to exploit every income stream, the club needs to be open and abused 7 days a week.  

Now you;re being nice to me I'm going a bed.....