real

So, who has paid for it and what are the revenue arrangements? It's been presented to fans as if it is, to some degree, a potential money-spinner for OAFC but if the revenue arrangements are that a number of parties outside OAFC receive the revenue, then that is something that should be transparent in my opinion. Much like the car park revenue should be.

There are many instances of joint ventures; the term is often used in the public sector - for example I believe that Manchester Airport (MA) is reported as a joint venture due to its ownership by all of the former GMC councils. Each owner (e.g OMBC) reports the impact of their share of MA in their own accounting returns.

So, the key question is which revenues from the new stand will be paid to OAFC and which to Brassbank? SC & BO have often said that the new stand will give 7 day income, but if the club only get the match day revenue (and that's assuming they get ALL of it) then they are just spreading the exisiting gate receipts across 4 stands instead of 3. Equally, who gets the car parking money? I've been told that it may be brassbank that gets this money, but it is presented to the car park users as if it's OAFC that gets the money.

He said he hoped we'd lose the next 10 games so LJ would be sacked, IIRC.

OAFC (2004) is one company, with £6m of shareholders debt/loans whatever. Brassbank is a comletely separate company which owns the ground and land. They are not 2 parts of an umbrella company, they don't (afaik) even share any directors now. Blitz (& maybe Gazal) are directors/owners of Brassbank. Corney is director/owner of OAFC (2004). The ground/land is not on the agenda unless someone can find enough to pay for it - £7-10m? The club is apparently on the agenda, but the £6m of shareholders/directors loan/debt is un-secured and exceeds all assets (probably by £6m) so it's not really an issue as such, unless a clause is added at any sale.

I think it is in your interpretation. Equally I find the "bless" comment from oafc0000 grating too. And as for the thread descending - have a look at when that happened. I find a bit odd that when I see Barry on TV/in interviews, he seems to be careful with his words and takes time to ensure that he gets the right message across. But starting a response to dissatisifed fans with "born of ignorance" ; "not as easy as it looks" and "be careful what you wish for" all suggest a superior attitude. Anyone who uses "ignorance" in a sentence when addressing a stakeholder needs to brush up on their communication skills.

I have to admit that this is actually true - you don't respond to people regardless of whether they have been rude or not. Even the most straightforward and polite request for factual information is ignored. If you'd like to call me out on this, please do so.

Brilliant work. Essentially you are saying that you don't like criticism. You use the excuse of "rudeness" but your very first contribution to a POSITIVE thread started by OAFC0000, which had remained entirely POSITIVE, was to refer to people as being "ignorant", suggest they need to be "careful what they wish for" - which equates to saying they are not fit to decide; and then cry out for volunteers. Said volunteers will clearly have to tread a "very tight rope" with you, given the way you react to the slightest criticism. It's a shame you don't respond with the same level of energy to requests for information. I think you have however opened people's eyes to the job in hand.

I was a member. I stopped through apathy and lack of visibility of what the trust was supposed to be doing and how it was supposed to be representing members/supporters. The idea that an election of the board across a 2 year period for a 3 year tenure represents some sort of cavnassing of opinion is a bit farcical.

The £6m debt is not connected to the land. The land is held by a separate company. OAFC has an entirely separate deb of £6m to SB. Paying off that debt does not mean the club would own anything more than it currently owns, which means it would still not own the land or ground. It currently gets to use the ground & car parks rent free afaik. Not sure who's getting/got the money for the NHS thing or the houses that have been built.

So, you buy the club for nowt, invest a bit and get to the championship. If you invest further, you know that if it pays off and you go up, you have to hand over £6m, which will immediately limit your potential to compete at the new level. Essentially the club is not worth £6m, not worth £600k even and having a charge on it would be insane. The £6m invested has gone - they gambled. If they'd won, they'd have reaped the rewards; they lost, so they have to take the hit.

Words are cheap, but a Director's statement has to be honest and correct. A minority shareholder (e.g one that owns 3% of a company) can take legal action against a director that issues misleading statements. But a clause that said "you must pay £6m to Mr Blitz if you get to the prem" would seriously restrict the range of potential bidders and any investment strategy.

From the Trust Site:- One half of the remaining elected directors who were elected when the company was a company limited by guarantee shall retire at the first AGM but be eligible for re-election for a further term of three years. The remaining elected directors from before the time of the conversion shall retire at the second AGM after the conversion and shall be eligible for re-election. Elected directors shall serve for a period of three years and shall then retire and shall be eligible for re-election, as laid down in the Rules. So if half the directors were elected at one AGM, for 3 years; and the other half were elected at the next AGM, for 3 years, the third AGM would not require any elections as no one would resign and there would be no opportunity for anyone not on the board to stand for election. Mind you, as we don't know who is on the board other than having 5 names, we don't know when the last AGM was or what happened, and we don't have any detail on any other democratic input that the trust allows members/supporters, how can anyone decide if it's worth bothering. And all this dialogue/dicsussion is pointless anyway as the Trust will not read it. Can you imagine any organisation in the world that had access to a source of information and opinions from its stakeholders, that would decide to just turn its back and ignore them?

I'm sure I recall disagreeing with you OAFC0000 over the trust when you criticised it in the past and I defended it. More recently I had a similar discussion with prozac. Maybe I was wrong, maybe the trust has degenerated into a worse state, but I want to care about the trust, I want to join the trust, but I won't do so unconditionally without knowing that there are prospects for improvement of the trust. The Trust has to show faith in the fans if they expect the fans to respond to their call to arms.

Incidentally Wardle said on 20/02/14 that there would be a trust AGM within the next month or so. That month has now expired. There has been no AGM, nor has there been any announcement of when it might be (I'd expect a reasonable notice period of 14 days). Just seen the announcement on facebook - thanks for that Gemma. I'm not a member though, so I can't attend. When I go to Tesco, they don't ask me to hand over some cash before I know what I'm getting. I've asked many questions (OWTB posts, PM to Barry, message to Richard via facebook), but the questions have been ignored, so not only do I not know what I'll be getting, I have learned that they have a partial attitude to fans. Richard told me Barry doesn't use PMs on here, but it's clear that he does when it suits him. He also asked why I "won't meet a trust board member face to face" - firstly I've never been granted this right, secondly, is this the way to engage with 3-4000 people who are fans of OAFC and are therefore potential trust members? Almost every trust reply is tinged with accusation, resentment and defensiveness, with an added air of dismissiveness towards other supporters - "not every joe blogss can become a director" - erm, wow, you are a superior being are you barry? I'm clearly not worthy. They keep asking people to join and to help out, but other than barry suggesting we might be able to take the minutes of a meeting and post them on the web, there's been nothing. The rest of the ignorance, condescension and arrogance makes me think it's not for me. How do the trust intend to recruit new members? It's not really the best way to encourage people to join.

Can you give me an example of where they have improved communications over the past 2 months? Only yesterday I was told that the only way I can ask questions is face to face. A while back I sent questions to barry via this site and via the trust site - the trust site was hibernated, but there was nothing there to say so. It was only when I raised the non-reply on here that anything was actually done to let people know there is a new site, and that didn't have any communication channels. They posted some news after the court case to say they would act to re-build trust, but they did nothing. In the past few days barry has yet again responded to some and ignored others. They repeatedly claim to have been threatended, had phone calls in the small hours and have had their cars damaged by fans. i seriously question whether they have any evidence of this - one of them is ex-plod FGS, so if they have evidence, do something about the abusers rather than pull up the drawbridge and ignore every fan who cares about oldham. They need to understand that to represent ALL fans, they need to listen to ALL fans, not adopt a siege mentality. They might have good intentions, but what are they achieving?

Exactly the question I've been asking the trust for about 6 weeks now, but you are wasting your time - they do not reply to questions on here, they do not use twitter, they do not guarantee to respond to anyhting in fact apart from face to face meetings which are by invitation only. I started with what I thought was a reasonable approach, asking valid questions about factual information, but I've ended up so frustrated that I think I now consider them a complete waste of time. They are only interested in hearing from people who will never criticise them, and if you do not commit a certain number of hours to the trust you are less than worthy of their time/consideration. But, barry has spent many hours/weeks/years building his reputation at the club so that he can be an effective director. A|t the same time, he has (in my opinion) comepletely neglected the role in which he was elected. But as I say, they don't like this so they will ignore it, as per their management manual written in 1952.

Yeah, good luck with that request. The "Trust" only seems to exist as a crutch to support Barry's position. It has no email contact, no phone contact, no address. It uses facebook about once every 6 months, uses this site sporadically. Only questions or points from selected posters are addressed. Oh, and Barry spends loads of time dealing with Trust issues, but somehow the governance failed and someone was able to take money from the accounts. Still, at least the Trust deals with key supporter issues - that survey about closing the RRE and using the Chaddy only vs Crawley was a great example of consultation wasn't it?

I've been advised that there is a trust meeting tonight, doesn't seem to have been publicised though, and I'm not sure if its open to all or not, although I can't make it anyway. I found out through a Facebook message to the trust

FIFY

Didn't we have a thread where someone defended those feeling negative by saying that despite negativity, none of them would ever be so negative as to wish their team to lose.... ..... not 1, not 3, not even 7... but 10 games?

So just say who you think has insulted you,and why; then they can apologise?

If Corney makes an announcement, does that mean we get some extra points? You spout on about your experience and knowledge in football, but I've never seen a chairman's announcement rewarded with points, but maybe you know different?

FIFY