Members' Meeting Notes - May 26th 2010
Last Updated on Friday, 25 June 2010 08:27
Members MeetingFollowing the end of the season and the club's relegation to League One Wednesdayite held a members meeting for all members on Wednesday 26th May in the 1867 lounge at Hillsborough.
Our guests on the evening were Owls Chief Executive, Nick Parker and newly promoted Chief Operating Officer Carol Axe. Below is a summary of the night's events.
Summary of Members Q&A with Nick Parker - May 26 2010
John Gath (JG) started the meeting referring to the events of the past month - relegation which had triggered the questions from members which led to this meeting being called; the rejection of the offer from C9S; the resignation of Lee Strafford; which had changed the nature of the questions and led to Nick Parker(NP) being asked and agreeing to attend the meeting along with Carol Axe.
Apologies from Richard Davies, Paul Holmes, Darryl Keys and Diane Cockayne were announced and the following message from David Blunkett was read out:
"Please forgive me for not being with you at such a crucial moment.
I've had to stay down in Parliament for the debate on the Queen's Speech and have been on my feet twice today challenging the new coalition government.
I look forward to working closely with fans to try and steer a sensible and forward looking course to avoid plunging us back into an era of conflict and division. Openness, optimism and a vision of the future must take precedence over internal wrangling within the club, and I hope we can join together in ensuring that it is the success of Wednesday on the field and not internal frictions off it, that takes priority.
The politics needs to be confined to the Palace of Westminster and not to Hillsborough!"
Nick Parker then started the Q & A session by referring to the list of questions which had been submitted, and broken down into five headings:
Inquest on last season
Investment
Composition of the board,
Finance
The future
NP referred to the need to make changes at the end of last year and the different approach which Alan Irvine (AI) had brought into the club in terms of the level of work, detailed analysis and player fitness. Alan has been given a clean sheet on paying contracts and he is already planning to bring in a substantial number of new players. The responsibility of the board is to direct as much resource as possible into the playing budget and it is anticipated that the playing budget which will be provided will be one of the biggest in the league. AI is wishing to develop a squad with backbone who can cope with the pressure of playing at Hillsborough.
The board have also recognised the need to re-engage with the fan base with a cast iron commitment to do so. The other board members were unfortunately unable to attend this meeting but have promised that they will do so at a future event.
The three other directors are not executive directors but have committed a lot of their time and experience to supporting the club. They act as a sounding board when issues and plans are being discussed. Geoff Hulley has strong links and good communications with the boards of other clubs, Ken Cooke plays a big part in the Community role of the club which is now one of the leading community programmes in the Football League. The links with schools, the activities related to the up-coming World Cup, NVQ schemes, the Study Support Centre and Summer Clubs all help with the task of bringing in the fans of the future. Bob Grierson (BG) has done a very good job of maintaining good relationship with the bank and ensuring that the club remains financially stable. The club is broadly cash neutral, our admin costs are lower than other clubs and we do not spend money we do not have, unlike some other clubs. BG also helps with sorting players contracts and with day to day financial matters.
The investment issue - C9S, when they first came to the club, were suggesting £20million, then £10million, then £5million and finally £2million with a substantial annual management fee. Their offer was rejected because there are a number of other interested parties actively engaged in trying to invest in the club with a deal which is much better than that of the one from C9S.
With reference to the questions about fan investment and a rights issue, the club is open to this kind of approach but the Board would need to be convinced that £5million could be raised in this way before going down that route so that funds were not spent on administering such a process only to find that the funds yielded were not sufficient to be of benefit. There are other possibilities from other forms of investment from other interested parties.
The immediate cost of relegation on our revenue will be about £2.5million but that will not all come out of the playing budget. The planned playing budget for next season is will be about 15% down on this season.
Nick was asked about the amount of the budget spent on admin, last season and if this had impacted on the playing budget. NP replied that our admin costs are low in comparison to that of other clubs. The admin services which have been introduced during the past season - on-line ticketing and e-tickets and social networking system for example are seen by others as being impressive.
Peter Shaw asked if the number of people on the board, with one executive and three non-executive members, was low and whether there were enough board members who are involved day to day. NP replied that more executive directors would increase costs and that the non-executive directors at SWFC are active.
A question was asked from the floor about the important issue at SWFC being success on the pitch and so why couldn't the SWFC Board have found funds at a crucial time to strengthen the playing squad? The example of Blackpool was quoted - a club with a lower player budget and gates of about 8,500 who are now looking forward to football in the Premier League when SWFC, with an average crowd of 23,000 with the associated additional revenues has been relegated.
NP expressed the view that we had the wrong manager and were put into a relegation position by December. This led to further questions about why the board had not been able to notice the problem - when many fans were expressing such concerns - and taken action sooner. It was suggested from the floor that the potential income from matches in the Championship against Norwich and Leeds would pay the interest on a loan to strengthen the playing squad if action had been taken in time. NP said that money was made available during the loan period but the kind of players Alan Irvine said were needed were not available at the time.
JG asked if local fans with resources were approached to see if funds could be gathered to help the club through the difficult time. Nick responded by saying that funds had been made available at the time.
Question from the floor: We had a turnover of £15million with £5million spent in the player budget, where does the rest go?
NP: £1m admin: £2.1m maintaining the pitch; maintenance of the stadium; £0.6m depreciation; £1.8m on other staff; about £1m on stewarding and police bills; Utilities; IT systems - all listed in the accounts. We are a low cost club and what we spend on admin is less than at many other clubs.
NP added that he had compared the situation at other clubs, similar to SWFC, and to maintain a cash neutral budget, such clubs should not spend more than £6million. Notts Forest, have been given an additional £6m on top of their commercial revenues, giving them a player budget of £12million.
We have now lost £2.5 million in TV revenue which means that our player budget should now be £3.5million. That will not be the case. We are squeezing to the maximum so that resources can be made available for the player budget.
When asked about the cost of trying to attract investment. Over the last year an a half, including flights, ICS, legal fees and everything about £100,000. Nothing was paid to Deloittes last year. From memory, Nick thought that £75,000 was paid to Deloitte's a couple of years ago.
It was suggested from the floor that the mistakes of the past few years, allowing managers to bring in players on flimsy evidence, on unrealistic contracts which have cost the club substantially, despite whatever hard work the SWFC Board members had put in, it would be a good move to replace the existing board with new members. NP responded by saying that the board should not be interfering from day to day on football matters but there is close interaction between NP, HW and AI. Alan makes detailed enquiries about prospective players and he then on is presents his findings and recommendations to the board.
Question from the floor: Would be better to attempt to gain promotion from our own resources and then seek investment as the club might attract more funds as a Championship club. NP replied by saying that the structure of any deal would take into account the need for funding now and then additional funding, for fewer shares once promotion had been achieved.
NP was asked what plans are there for the role of Chairman when HW stands down at the start of the season. NP replied that the date had been initially set when it was thought that HW might be unable to stay longer. This may not be the case and it will be looked at further. There are no plans as yet for anyone else to take over.
In answer to a question about the playing budget and rumours of a figure of £2.6million, NP replied that the figure was much nearer to £5million than £2.6million. A follow up question asked that the type of people making offers for the club should be people who have the best interest of the club as their priority.
The level of input into the Community initiatives from KC was questioned.
How did C9S get past the scrutiny of ICS? NP replied that they had a substantial and credible backer who was identified to ICS and the bank. ICS informed the club that the backer had pulled out before C9S reported it.
NP introduced Carol Axe and her new role at the club - Carol is now the Chief Operating Officer and will be looking after the day to day operations of the club. Carol explained how she would be carrying out this role, bringing her considerable experience to help to continue the processes for cultural changes which everyone has been working on for the last year.
From the floor - fans have felt pulled from pillar to post, now a need for calm and to build bridges, what can the board now do to calm things down and what needs to happen to involve the board and the fan base in pulling together? NP responded by stating that he will be utterly professional and he is sure that the longer serving board members understand where things have gone wrong and they will come along and face the music. Nick said that he fully understands Lee's insistence that the football club should be the hub of the community and there is no way that the club will now lose sight of that. Carol added that the club will continue to focus on making things better for the fans. They will be producing plans to make things better, consulting and discussing. If there are things that can't be fixed straight away, you will be told why.
Nick and Carol were thanked for coming along to the meeting and answering the questions.
JOHN GATH
CHAIRMAN WEDNESDAYITE
Please note - any errors of omission or interpretation in this summary are mine.
