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Post by Al on Nov 23, 2017 22:37:32 GMT
That’s most disappointing that a question about the accounts protection didn’t get an answer. I shall wait for further info before saying anymore on the matter. I would be very grateful if someone could post a summary of the meeting on here. Not a question for an informal meeting apparently. I'll ask it again next month. Budget wise, Bignot basically confirmed we fucked up putting all that Sam Hughes money in the budget. We stay up this year budget is SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCED, go down and again it's significantly refused. Our budget this year would be mid table in Conference North.. |
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Post by Deva Chanter on Nov 23, 2017 22:42:41 GMT
Very interesting to learn that despite the fact that we have 560 car park spaces filled on match days charged at £2 a space, we are only bringing in £340 in parking revenue per match. 560 spaces at £2 a pop should be bringing in closer to £1,000 a match - Mark Maguire said he is "investigating" the £600+ shortfall - sounds a little bit fishy to me.
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Post by Firestick Frank on Nov 23, 2017 22:45:02 GMT
Should LK not be investigating that, given what happened last time?
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Post by Firestick Frank on Nov 23, 2017 22:48:42 GMT
Actually on second thoughts are the club forgetting about the car park season ticket holders? Presumably directors, some staff, players etc can park for free too? Probably answers the question and saves MM and LK a job x
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Post by Al on Nov 23, 2017 22:48:59 GMT
Very interesting to learn that despite the fact that we have 560 car park spaces filled on match days charged at £2 a space, we are only bringing in £340 in parking revenue per match. 560 spaces at £2 a pop should be bringing in closer to £1,000 a match - Mark Maguire said he is "investigating" the £600+ shortfall - sounds a little bit fishy to me. How many of the 560 have Car park passes? |
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Post by Deva Chanter on Nov 23, 2017 22:52:49 GMT
Very interesting to learn that despite the fact that we have 560 car park spaces filled on match days charged at £2 a space, we are only bringing in £340 in parking revenue per match. 560 spaces at £2 a pop should be bringing in closer to £1,000 a match - Mark Maguire said he is "investigating" the £600+ shortfall - sounds a little bit fishy to me. How many of the 560 have Car park passes? No idea and it wasn't clarified whether the money from those passes is included in the match day total - but Maguire seemed a little perturbed by the figures himself. |
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Post by Al on Nov 23, 2017 22:56:04 GMT
How many of the 560 have Car park passes? No idea and it wasn't clarified whether the money from those passes is included in the match day total - but Maguire seemed a little perturbed by the figures himself. Going from the figures he's mentioned I would hazard a guess that the majority of our car park users are ST holders and car park pass holders as well. Would explain the low match day income for the car park yet relatively high number of cars. I don't think they've thought of that being the reason behind it (yet) |
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Post by Maravilla on Nov 23, 2017 22:56:57 GMT
How many of the 560 have Car park passes? No idea and it wasn't clarified whether the money from those passes is included in the match day total - but Maguire seemed a little perturbed by the figures himself. Maguire isn't the only one perturbed. 560 cars on the car park bringing in circa £350 means only around 175 cars are paying to park? 385 car park passes/staff/directors/players? Not a chance. |
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Post by Al on Nov 23, 2017 22:58:31 GMT
No idea and it wasn't clarified whether the money from those passes is included in the match day total - but Maguire seemed a little perturbed by the figures himself. Maguire isn't the only one perturbed. 560 cars on the car park bringing in circa £350 means only around 175 cars are paying to park? 385 car park passes/staff/directors/players? Not a chance. You'd need the club to confirm how many passes were sold pre season. I bet it's higher than you think, especially as we have just over 1,000 ST holders. Most will get their parking pass same time as they get the ST |
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Post by Maravilla on Nov 23, 2017 23:09:43 GMT
Maguire isn't the only one perturbed. 560 cars on the car park bringing in circa £350 means only around 175 cars are paying to park? 385 car park passes/staff/directors/players? Not a chance. You'd need the club to confirm how many passes were sold pre season. I bet it's higher than you think, especially as we have just over 1,000 ST holders. Most will get their parking pass same time as they get the ST You saved about £2 taking the option of buying a parking pass with your season ticket - unless you knew you could make every game and would park in the ground for every game, it wasn't a worthwhile investment. Maguire's reaction suggested that there was far more to this. |
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Post by cfcforme on Nov 23, 2017 23:10:10 GMT
That’s most disappointing that a question about the accounts protection didn’t get an answer. I shall wait for further info before saying anymore on the matter. I would be very grateful if someone could post a summary of the meeting on here. Not a question for an informal meeting apparently. I'll ask it again next month. Budget wise, Bignot basically confirmed we fucked up putting all that Sam Hughes money in the budget. We stay up this year budget is SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCED, go down and again it's significantly refused. Our budget this year would be mid table in Conference North.. Sorry if I'm misunderstanding, but are you saying that with the Sam Hughes £100k in this year's budget it's still only considered mid table in conference North, but MB is saying we shouldn't have put that £100k in and made it even worse?  |
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Post by Firestick Frank on Nov 23, 2017 23:27:39 GMT
I take that to mean the Sam Hughes money had already been spent in the summer by an incompetent fool, to quote a well-known fellow Deva Chatter. Bignot probably referring to HIS budget re: mid-table CN level.
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Post by spencerwhelanleftpeg on Nov 23, 2017 23:32:56 GMT
Firstly thanks for the info. So it seems even if we stay up this season the future isn’t particularly bright. With reduced budget we are likely to struggle again next season unless something miraculous happens. Not wanting to be negative but it’s hard to positive on the basis of that info
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Post by Harry Lime on Nov 23, 2017 23:34:20 GMT
Not a question for an informal meeting apparently. I'll ask it again next month. Budget wise, Bignot basically confirmed we fucked up putting all that Sam Hughes money in the budget. We stay up this year budget is SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCED, go down and again it's significantly refused. Our budget this year would be mid table in Conference North.. Sorry if I'm misunderstanding, but are you saying that with the Sam Hughes £100k in this year's budget it's still only considered mid table in conference North, but MB is saying we shouldn't have put that £100k in and made it even worse? No. He is saying that there will be no Sam Hughes type of extra money that could be added to the budget for next season. Therefore, all things staying the same, the budget will be lower by that amount. £80k. So if you thought this season was tough! As I posted a while back, next season will be almost impossible in this division. Unless MM can open new income streams, such as Stagecoach. Or us supporters put our hands on our pockets, it impossible. Unless something changes we will eventually drop to a lower level. Similar to a team in the lower half of the Premier League, you can't compete and over time you get eventually get relegated. |
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Post by Deva Chanter on Nov 24, 2017 0:18:15 GMT
I personally don't buy this level of doom and gloom. I appreciate that the board and the CEO have to make us aware of the financial restrictions we face as a football club - we know them as well as they do - but money isn't everything.
The words "budget" and "financial ceiling" kept getting used again and again tonight as de facto excuses for us to be perennial relegation fodder. And yet at the same time, they are going on about Wrexham having a £900,000 a year budget and Eastleigh having a budget of over £2,000,000 a year. They were seemingly unaware that Wrexham are top of the league whilst Eastleigh are merely a few points ahead of us.
We desperately, as a club, need to move away from this idea that money is the only thing that matters and that every single extra penny raised MUST at all costs go into the playing budget. It patently isn't as simple as that and we are now paying the price for having had this attitude for far too long - throwing good money after bad, chasing impossible dreams whilst we allow our infrastructure to crumble around us.
The fact that Bignot had to stop himself midway through saying that the decision to pump all of the Sam Hughes money into the playing budget was business suicide speaks volumes.
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Post by tarvinblue on Nov 24, 2017 6:45:31 GMT
I went last night and felt that all parties tried to paint an honest reflection of the situation. There were some hard hitting messages but the reality is that our model in its current form is not going to allow us to have the budget to take on two thirds of this division. That's more to do with the ludicrous spending of others, rather than our model in general, but if we are to compete then MM has to raise substantial investment commercially.
MB made several references to poor recruitment in the summer in terms of squad profile and the lack of any formalised pre-season planning in terms of fitness. The new fitness coach at Vale clearly has much to learn on the topic.
MM certainly wears the trousers at our club and there were no board members that stepped up last night who showed me they had steel or balls to make tough calls. Our trust very much has to be in MM and MB to turn our club around with the support of the board. That feels slightly the wrong way around to me.
There is clearly a real need to galvanise support to move forwards. I think the issue lies in the fact that after the JM debacle a lot of trust has been lost in our board. There was no acknowledgement of that and for me it's going to take a significant amount of time to rebuild that trust again between the board and fan Base in general. Only then will CFU membership increase. There clearly is a perception amongst many that the club only communicate with fans when they want something.
Interesting meeting anyway. There is certainly a clear vision at the club and both MM and MB are working towards that.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 24, 2017 6:52:16 GMT
I personally don't buy this level of doom and gloom. I appreciate that the board and the CEO have to make us aware of the financial restrictions we face as a football club - we know them as well as they do - but money isn't everything. The words "budget" and "financial ceiling" kept getting used again and again tonight as de facto excuses for us to be perennial relegation fodder. And yet at the same time, they are going on about Wrexham having a £900,000 a year budget and Eastleigh having a budget of over £2,000,000 a year. They were seemingly unaware that Wrexham are top of the league whilst Eastleigh are merely a few points ahead of us. We desperately, as a club, need to move away from this idea that money is the only thing that matters and that every single extra penny raised MUST at all costs go into the playing budget. It patently isn't as simple as that and we are now paying the price for having had this attitude for far too long - throwing good money after bad, chasing impossible dreams whilst we allow our infrastructure to crumble around us. The fact that Bignot had to stop himself midway through saying that the decision to pump all of the Sam Hughes money into the playing budget was business suicide speaks volumes. Great post. I was actually involved in chasing the dream in the early years. We got good quick and it was intoxicating. With hindsight we spent a lot of the money we earned on players and capital projects that could have been spent elsewhere for a longer term good. I hope that we are learning as a club. A 4G training pitch behind the Harry Mac would surely bring in more weeknight revenue than Stagecoach, is a long term benefit to the club amd community and would maybe attract some grant funding? Was any of the Sam Hughes money put into the provider of the player, the academy? Again as much as Swetenhams Chemists are wonderful benefactors to the academy, we should be looking long term to stand on our own two feet, and shoring up this infrastructure? Were the disabled supporters facilities mentioned? Again this is a massive regret to me that we never used the Sarcevic £££s to sort that. We should look to our board, not our CEO, now to issue a series of rallying cries. They should be helping our CEO to get people involved in data work, email shots, creative ticketing offers, walking round town, pubs and schools with leaflets etc because as basic as that may be, it works. I heard some of the stream on how we need to become more commercially decisive and clinical. The financial situation dictates this, but we must never forget what makes our club different to other businesses, the fact that we are borne of the people, owned by the people and operate for the benefit and enjoyment of the people in this city and its surrounding communities. If we dont shout that message out at every opportunity we will nust become another average local non league side. |
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Post by Captain Duff on Nov 24, 2017 6:56:04 GMT
I went last night and felt that all parties tried to paint an honest reflection of the situation. There were some hard hitting messages but the reality is that our model in its current form is not going to allow us to have the budget to take on two thirds of this division. That's more to do with the ludicrous spending of others, rather than our model in general, but if we are to compete then MM has to raise substantial investment commercially. When it comes to our model of ownership it is perhaps worth pointing out that a certain club with an identical model of ownership just down the road is currently 2 points clear at the top of the table... |
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Post by tarvinblue on Nov 24, 2017 7:05:49 GMT
I went last night and felt that all parties tried to paint an honest reflection of the situation. There were some hard hitting messages but the reality is that our model in its current form is not going to allow us to have the budget to take on two thirds of this division. That's more to do with the ludicrous spending of others, rather than our model in general, but if we are to compete then MM has to raise substantial investment commercially. When it comes to our model of ownership it is perhaps worth pointing out that a certain club with an identical model of ownership just down the road is currently 2 points clear at the top of the table... With a much larger fanbase. We have to accept that on a good day we will get 3,000 fans whilst on a good day they will get 5-6,000.They are able to pay wages that we currently can't. We don't need to be paying ludicrous amounts like some clubs but we need to be able to pay the average going rate. |
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Post by Al on Nov 24, 2017 7:07:09 GMT
I went last night and felt that all parties tried to paint an honest reflection of the situation. There were some hard hitting messages but the reality is that our model in its current form is not going to allow us to have the budget to take on two thirds of this division. That's more to do with the ludicrous spending of others, rather than our model in general, but if we are to compete then MM has to raise substantial investment commercially. When it comes to our model of ownership it is perhaps worth pointing out that a certain club with an identical model of ownership just down the road is currently 2 points clear at the top of the table... The difference is, they are far more aggressive with sales and marketing, they hammer all forms of social media with news, updates on their budget builder, opening a pop up shop at eagles meadow, they actively communicate with the locals. They absolutely hammered it the other summer with the #myracecourse fundraising. What do we have at the mo? Mr "Marketing is in my blood" says he's looked at all the data and he's approached the kids behind the goal and asked for their help to get more kids in.. We need action, again this database which was touched upon by MM against last night needs to be made into a workable asset. When you talk about a tool for advertising and marketing then that is huge for us. We can send email shots out once a week advertising games, special nights for fans, quiz nights, car boots, squad builder, 50/50, Seals Lottery, Cestrian10, Season Tickets, Junior Blues, Sponsorship. We are nowhere near aggressive enough. |
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Post by Al on Nov 24, 2017 7:33:35 GMT
There was a great example during the Q&A session actually as well where a question from the floor suggested putting little collection buckets by the turnstiles or on your way into the ground to ask for money towards the Bignot Budget.
The reply from Barry Hipkiss I think was "we already have them, little blue boxes around the stadium"
How often do we advertise that fact? A. We don't.
If you can't even advertise or plug the stuff you already do have/do then what chance have we got? It just needs a weekly update online, via email and even Cleggy plugging it on a matchday.
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Post by sarge123 on Nov 24, 2017 7:38:57 GMT
When it comes to our model of ownership it is perhaps worthf pointing out that a certain club with an identical model of ownership just down the road is currently 2 points clear at the top of the table... The difference is, they are far more aggressive with sales and marketing, they hammer all forms of social media with news, updates on their budget builder, opening a pop up shop at eagles meadow, they actively communicate with the locals. They absolutely hammered it the other summer with the #myracecourse fundraising. What do we have at the mo? Mr "Marketing is in my blood" says he's looked at all the data and he's approached the kids behind the goal and asked for their help to get more kids in.. We need action, again this database which was touched upon by MM against last night needs to be made into a workable asset. When you talk about a tool for advertising and marketing then that is huge for us. We can send email shots out once a week advertising games, special nights for fans, quiz nights, car boots, squad builder, 50/50, Seals Lottery, Cestrian10, Season Tickets, Junior Blues, Sponsorship. We are nowhere near aggressive enough. There are many faults with the model that both our teams have but you need to make the most out of the situation.... totally agree with what you say... things that we have done within the last week include all members receiving raffle tickets to sell for big Xmas draw...pop up shop in Eagles Meadow... half season tickets for 2018 fixtures but launched now with us top of the league... a promise to ring fence any income made from the crowd above 3900 in our 2 Xmas fixtures at £10 each direct to Build the Budget for use in January ie if crowd in 4900 for each game 1000 above then £10000 a game (could well be more) goes straight to Dean ....a lot of this work is done by volunteers helping the paid staff and this work is much appreciated..... these people are in direct contact with the fans both on social media and directly something i feel is lacking at your club |
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Post by sarge123 on Nov 24, 2017 7:44:44 GMT
Sorry slightly incorrect post i made above....its for our home games on 2nd and 23 rd December... Dover on 23rd... May well be extended though...
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Post by Harry Lime on Nov 24, 2017 8:35:10 GMT
I personally don't buy this level of doom and gloom. I appreciate that the board and the CEO have to make us aware of the financial restrictions we face as a football club - we know them as well as they do - but money isn't everything. The words "budget" and "financial ceiling" kept getting used again and again tonight as de facto excuses for us to be perennial relegation fodder. And yet at the same time, they are going on about Wrexham having a £900,000 a year budget and Eastleigh having a budget of over £2,000,000 a year. They were seemingly unaware that Wrexham are top of the league whilst Eastleigh are merely a few points ahead of us. We desperately, as a club, need to move away from this idea that money is the only thing that matters and that every single extra penny raised MUST at all costs go into the playing budget. It patently isn't as simple as that and we are now paying the price for having had this attitude for far too long - throwing good money after bad, chasing impossible dreams whilst we allow our infrastructure to crumble around us. The fact that Bignot had to stop himself midway through saying that the decision to pump all of the Sam Hughes money into the playing budget was business suicide speaks volumes. Not sure I agree with this. I expect MM and the Board to tell us straight the financial realities. To do anything else would be disrespectful to the membership. The fact that we are a few points behind Eastleigh says more about them, than us. Not every penny we make should go into the playing budget. But the vast majority of it needs to. Otherwise the quality of player we can attract gets lower and lower. MB have an example last night of a player he was hoping to bring in on loan, but we couldn't match the financial offer from a Unibond club. Given that our playing budget is £450k, up from £370k last season, and presumably back to £370k next season? How much do you wish to divert to the infrastructure? If we move £50k, that would be 2 less players for less season. Making a budget of £320k. That's a 30% decrease in budget. We can blame JMc all we like. But I doubt MB or anyone else will move us forward on that budget. In fact, he'd be more likely to leave for a club that can give him the funds to succeed. MB's reference to the Sam Hughes money being spent in one go, was I believe, to point out it won't be there next season. When he came he knew the budget. What he didn't know was that it would very likely be £80k lower next season. He knows that now. Far too many supporters don't grasp the reality of surviving at this level. It's as if they're still expecting the chairman to pump money in and sign a new player. Tarmac the car park. Put a hotel and Subway shop in! I share your concerns over whether the Board can deliver what they say. It's been really slow doing anything lately. Let's hope they can, and engage the supporters again. We need to pull together and help this club achieve what we want it to. Last night, it did seem that MM and MB know what they're trying to achieve. More supporters need to join the journey. Whether that is helping with ideas, fundraising, Squadbuilder, getting someone else down to games, or just time. Without our support we won't grow. Too many sit there and grumble but don't actually do anything to help. |
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Post by onetrevorstorton on Nov 24, 2017 8:48:24 GMT
There was a great example during the Q&A session actually as well where a question from the floor suggested putting little collection buckets by the turnstiles or on your way into the ground to ask for money towards the Bignot Budget. The reply from Barry Hipkiss I think was "we already have them, little blue boxes around the stadium" How often do we advertise that fact? A. We don't. If you can't even advertise or plug the stuff you already do have/do then what chance have we got? It just needs a weekly update online, via email and even Cleggy plugging it on a matchday. Maybe its me but I can not remember seeing any blue boxes inside the stadium but I was assured they do exist last night , I would like to see the small boxes replaced with large blue buckets making fans including myself more aware , make one of the stewards responsible per gate maybe . We need to build Bignots fund because as he said we have a mid-table budget in the league below and that believe you me we dont want to go back down there. |
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Post by Firestick Frank on Nov 24, 2017 9:20:39 GMT
Relegation wouldn't be the end of the world. If anything it'll probably be more lucrative - gate receipts from larger away followings, lots of local affairs to pique the interest etc.
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Post by adrianh on Nov 24, 2017 9:23:10 GMT
There was a great example during the Q&A session actually as well where a question from the floor suggested putting little collection buckets by the turnstiles or on your way into the ground to ask for money towards the Bignot Budget. The reply from Barry Hipkiss I think was "we already have them, little blue boxes around the stadium" How often do we advertise that fact? A. We don't. If you can't even advertise or plug the stuff you already do have/do then what chance have we got? It just needs a weekly update online, via email and even Cleggy plugging it on a matchday. Maybe its me but I can not remember seeing any blue boxes inside the stadium but I was assured they do exist last night , I would like to see the small boxes replaced with large blue buckets making fans including myself more aware , make one of the stewards responsible per gate maybe . We need to build Bignots fund because as he said we have a mid-table budget in the league below and that believe you me we dont want to go back down there. There were buckets at the wxm game perhaps they’ll be there Saturday too? |
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Post by dmcnally on Nov 24, 2017 9:54:52 GMT
Sorry if I'm misunderstanding, but are you saying that with the Sam Hughes £100k in this year's budget it's still only considered mid table in conference North, but MB is saying we shouldn't have put that £100k in and made it even worse? No. He is saying that there will be no Sam Hughes type of extra money that could be added to the budget for next season. Therefore, all things staying the same, the budget will be lower by that amount. £80k. So if you thought this season was tough! As I posted a while back, next season will be almost impossible in this division. Unless MM can open new income streams, such as Stagecoach. Or us supporters put our hands on our pockets, it impossible. Unless something changes we will eventually drop to a lower level. Similar to a team in the lower half of the Premier League, you can't compete and over time you get eventually get relegated. Wow very dramatic. Burr got us 12th position with a budget 100k lower than this seasons. Bignot has recruited well with no money so I’ve got faith in him he can recruit a good squad. He seems to work well with a small budget. |
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Post by Al on Nov 24, 2017 9:58:31 GMT
No. He is saying that there will be no Sam Hughes type of extra money that could be added to the budget for next season. Therefore, all things staying the same, the budget will be lower by that amount. £80k. So if you thought this season was tough! As I posted a while back, next season will be almost impossible in this division. Unless MM can open new income streams, such as Stagecoach. Or us supporters put our hands on our pockets, it impossible. Unless something changes we will eventually drop to a lower level. Similar to a team in the lower half of the Premier League, you can't compete and over time you get eventually get relegated. Wow very dramatic. Burr got us 12th position with a budget 100k lower than this seasons. Bignot has recruited well with no money so I’ve got faith in him he can recruit a good squad. He seems to work well with a small budget. Come on then Danny. What's your plan to increase the gates? |
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Post by dmcnally on Nov 24, 2017 10:00:42 GMT
When it comes to our model of ownership it is perhaps worth pointing out that a certain club with an identical model of ownership just down the road is currently 2 points clear at the top of the table... With a much larger fanbase. We have to accept that on a good day we will get 3,000 fans whilst on a good day they will get 5-6,000.They are able to pay wages that we currently can't. We don't need to be paying ludicrous amounts like some clubs but we need to be able to pay the average going rate. We require an average gate of 2,100 to break even based on our budget. Wrexham need an average of 3,900. Sums it up there really. |
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