Greacen2000

Christmas Pop UP Shop & Signing Night takes place this evening! - Greenock Morton FC Nice to see the club putting this sort of thing on - it's a shame it only seems to have been promoted on the day of the event (unless I missed an earlier announcement). Hopefully it is well attended and makes the club a few extra bob from Christmas presents. Sadly I wont be able to make it down as I live out of town and need more than a days notice

Thanks for the update Toby. It’s good to hear that this stuff is in hand, especially when there is so much else going on. I appreciate the time you guys are putting in

@MCT Team @Toby @BishopBrennan could one of you please advise what the process & timing will be for reviewing current MCT representation on the GMFC board & nominating new rep(s)? I am just a bit concerned that at present only 1 of 4 GMFC board members are MCT reps. Adding Laird into the mix, we effectively have 3 Dalrada nominated people of influence involved in day-to-day running of the club & only 1 from the clubs owner. Secondly, at the time of the Dalrada deal being agreed, a commitment was made to hold a review meeting in January to assess the situation & discuss options. Now that we are into December, it would be good to know when this will be taking place. Thanks

Hopefully it goes the same way as the first choice of players that their finances have afforded them.

Pleasing -both out of my disdain for Ayr and my aversion to partick winning the league. I fully expect my schadenfreude to come back to haunt me tomorrow but will enjoy it for now

Corrected - thanks for pointing that out. But seriously, which one is black?

Do me a favour please and lemme know which of these is blue and which is black (taken from the shorts in the photo that was sent out with the vote) specs or no specs the club need to do better here. Almost everyone I spoke to about this thought that option b is black & yellow. Add to this the fact many will be reading their email on a phone screen. It would have been nice if they had provided slightly better images

No idea - I expect the info on season ticket holders etc is held by fanbase but they must have some sort of database on the back end to support tontv subscriptions etc. MCT have purchased a CRM tool (sheepCRM) but apparently the work on fully implementing it was paused when all the stuff over the summer happened. This needs to be resumed as a priority now things have settled down and the new board is in place as it is key to how we engage with members and manage membership & fund raising efforts. In lieu of this I’m guessing the best case scenario is that its probably being run on a spreadsheet

The meeting started with the news about Remi and a minutes silence. MCT will be working with the club in agreeing on what is appropriate in terms of for the family, hospital staff, charity etc. Apologies were given with MCTs current representatives on the club board being absent from the meeting. Then followed a board update giving high level overview of what has happened in the past year in terms of overall financial contributions to the club, members who have joined & left the board. Not a huge amount of note here. The turmoil of the summer was mentioned but not discussed in detail It was confirmed that all nominees have been approved to join the board. More detailed financial breakdown was then given. Overall contributions from MCT to the club have dropped by about 20K in the past year. This is attributed to a 50k per annum contribution from a benefactor coming to an end, which has been offset by a slight rise in member contributions. A further 10K was given to MCT as part of the estate of a member who passed away and this money has been given to MITC to go towards match tickets for deprived/low income people in the community. 2 amendments were put forward - the first one was just correcting an error in wording replacing "charity" with "company", which passed with ease. The 2nd amendment was proposed by Stuart Duncan around revoking membership if payments are stopped. Stuart pitched it as a way of protecting MCT income by discouraging people from cancelling/reducing contributions. This was faced with a fair amount of questions and disagreement. In general people seemed to agree that work needs to be done in this area, but that kicking people out of MCT probably isn't the best way to go about it in the first instance. More needs to be done to generate new & increased contributions while looking at ways of allowing people who cannot afford £10 per month to be involved - both tiered memberships & payment holidays were mentioned alongside providing more incentives for people to join & contribute. Gordon Richie highlighted that in its current form, the proposal would lead to a benefactor who has contributed over 100K to MCT being at risk of losing their membership if they cancelled a £10 direct debit. Stuart was given the opportunity to withdraw the proposal but did not take it up. It went forward to the vote and was not passed. The new board will take the action to look into this area in more detail before coming back to the membership with further proposals. During the discussion on the 2nd amendment a lot of other information came out. It seems like due to legacy issues with gaps in admin/process when MCT was first set up, we do not know exactly how much any given member has contributed in total, and aren't even exactly sure how many non paying members there are. Work on implementing a proper CRM with a database of all member details was stalled due to the turmoil over the summer but should be resuming now that things are settled. This work needs to take place before we will have the ability to run targeted funding campaigns or implement tiered memberships etc. All in all it was a pretty constructive meeting with a lot less fireworks than might have been expected. I would say that the news of Remis passing would have understandably been a factor in some of the discussions being a bit more muted.

Both guys are Aberdeen legends and have a greater legacy with them than they do with us (both in terms of games played & honours won). As such, it was inevitable that they would get an especially warm welcome from their fans, and it’s only to be expected that they would reciprocate. I agree that it’s not a great look but for me the mistake was in bringing them out at half time, or indeed having them as guests for that match in the first place. That said, a bit more self awareness from them would certainly have helped

I think Tidser will be a great signing for Montrose. Even at his peak he was never a guy who was blessed with much pace, so I wouldn't imagine being 35 will hold him back much once he gets match fit. I would even go as far as to say that I wouldn't have minded us signing him if we didn't already have a full compliment of veteran midfielders.

Yup, and going by the amount of folk I saw walking down Sinclair st eating pies at full time, they must have had a bunch of unsold stuff that they gave away again. How much is a pie - £3 or £4? So going by my back of a fag packet calculations, if they sold only an extra 25 pies, that saved wastage would be enough to cover the cost of another 2 members of staff (assuming 3 hours at minimum wage). Seems like a bit of a no brainer

just for TL/DR purposes, here is an example of 1 way we could revise the offering based on my above suggestions (notwithstanding other things that could be done on the entertainment & catering front) - Tier 3 - Access to Douglas Rae Lounge, Pre match pie & pint, half time pie & hot drink, paid bar - £35 (£25 for season ticket holders) Tier 2 - Access to Douglas Rae Lounge, Pre match pie & pint, half time pie & hot drink, paid bar, 3 course meal - £70 (£55 for season ticket holders) Tier 1 - Access to Douglas Rae Lounge, Pre match pie & pint, half time pie & hot drink, complimentary bar, 3 course meal - £110 (£90 for season ticket holders)

I have enjoyed the experience whenever I have attended and honestly think £100 per person for 3 course meal & bottomless drinks is pretty good value for money. That said, if it is undersubscribed then the onus is on the club to come up with some ideas to freshen up the offering & generate more interest I suspect more could probably be done to bring in more corporate hospitality as the last few times I have attended it felt like most of the tables were taken up by punters. Aside from that, maybe offering more pricing tiers could get bums on seats. At the moment the only offerings are £79/89 for paid bar & £99/109 for complimentary bar. For starters I would say they could do with dropping the paid bar price by 20 quid. Then maybe introduce another tier below that - Pie & a pint for £20/30 as they have done on occasion in the past. £10 discount for season ticket holders also feels a bit snidey. A matchday ticket costs £22 so the discount should be more proportionate to that, Maybe also offer some tie-ins to incentivise season ticket sales and/or MCT membership such as a voucher for 1 discounted hospitality package per season for each season ticket holder/MCT member or even a weekly/monthly draw to win free hospitality. The last suggestion doesn't directly generate more hospitality income but it gives an extra incentive to buy a season ticket or join MCT, and if I win a free hospitality day there is an increased likelihood that 1 or 2 of my mates will pay to join me there. This is just a few things off the top of my head and I am sure loads more could be done. I do also agree with the above comments that big Andy retiring is a huge loss as he was great company and very entertaining

where on the site can I find this?

It was worth taking a punt on Davies with the number of goals he had scored in the Welsh league but from day 1 just never looked like working out for him here and I am glad we have managed to come to an arrangement that lets him move on & frees up some of our wage bill. As others have said he cannot be faulted for his efforts so best wishes to him on his next move. Would be delighted with Brophy & Jones. Not so fussed by O'Halloran but am willing to trust the gaffers judgement on that one - hopefully doesn't end up another McGinn type figure if we do sign him.

Yeah I’m not disagreeing with you. I think it’s just semantics. I think it’s important to observe the difference between restricting the number of options he has available vs holding onto his registration and actually restricting his ability to move (as was the case pre bosman). I do wonder if St Mirren or any other interested parties tried to negotiate a fee with us. I get that they might have been scared off by the prospect of it being a 6 figure sum if it went to tribunal, but I would imagine that we would be pretty easy to deal with and would likely agree to a much lower fee.

Telfer was 19 and had played 1 senior game for Rangers. Admittedly he had represented Scotland at u18 & u19 level but I still wouldn’t say his situation was all that different.

I get that, and like I said the fee will likely be putting clubs off from signing him. But this isn’t comparable to Bosman because other clubs are free to register the player. Maybe this is just different shades of grey - I just felt it’s worth highlighting the difference.

Not sure if it does restrict the players movement as such - if it goes to a tribunal I believe that the new club can still register & select the player in the meantime. Telfer was playing for Dundee Utd for about 6 months before his tribunal was settled, so unless something has changed Keay is free to sign for another club & be registered to play for them. Of course in doing so the new club is taking a risk that they will be hit with a hefty development fee if it goes to tribunal so that will likely be limiting the number of offers he gets

I suspect that we would have offered him the deal regardless of whether or not Imrie wanted him (purely to protect the development fee). Now that he has rejected the deal, he is in the same boat as every other player who doesn't have a club. The only way he is coming back is if the gaffer decides he wants to sign him.

Different Kian Taylor - the 24yo plays for Shrewsbury. This lad is 20

If fit then I think both could be good options. Our squad is looking decent but at the very least still needs an experienced defender, another option in midfield & another striker (in that order of priority) so this could potentially tick 2 of those boxes. I know it has been mentioned by a few that Lamie didn't look great last season but let's not forget that he was playing in a pretty poor team. From my POV he is exactly the sort of player that is needed as the final piece in our defence. Commanding presence & loads of experience. Telfer was very good for Falkirk & Airdrie and apparently was close to signing for us again until Ross County came in. Clearly that didn't work out for him but it shows that the gaffer must rate him if he tried to sign him once before. That aside, his legend status is already confirmed for his role in Falkirks 2019 relegation so I would be ok with us signing him even if he is mince or perma-injured.

Even if fully fit I don’t think he would offer much to the team. It’s 10 years since he has been in any way prolific in terms of goal return. And as Dunning says above i don’t think the optics would be very good. Fair play to him for coming out and saying this. I hope he gets his life back on track and gets a chance somewhere - just not here.

Reece Lyon scores a hat-trick for Queen of the south against Edinburgh City