MCT Team
-
Posts
72 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
2
Posts posted by MCT Team
-
-
18 hours ago, TONofmemories said:
Interested to know if the feedback above, and elsewhere, RE. The Q&A, or lack of, is being monitored and taken onboard. Youll note this isn't just a few folk on a dark corner of the Internet disappointed with the Q&A, its a mass discontent. Since it went live it has largely been lambasted. I'm sure thats disappointing for MCT. What plans are in place to address a clear fraction between MCT and the fans?
Hi there, since I was appointed onto the MCT board and started to post regularly on the forums to respond to fans I’ve said that everything said on here is seen, taken into account and forwarded onto the relevant parties, whether MCT board or club board. That will always continue, no matter the topic. It’s difficult to keep up at times and reply to everything but please rest assured it’s being seen and raised.
On another point, we’ve seen the reaction since the club board Q&A and we’re already working on putting plans in place to have in-person events to be able to meet fans. We’ll share details on those when they’re finalised.
-
1
-
-
22 hours ago, 9 Strathblane Crescent said:
I have a question for MCT. Why is Crawford Rae listed as a director of GMFC Property Ltd?
This is in the process of being changed.
-
- Popular Post
- Popular Post
2 hours ago, Toby said:I've got some concerns surrounding last night's match that I think are worth looking into.
First of all, a boy I was speaking to had got a comp from someone at the club before kick off and was refused entry at the Cowshed turnstiles and told he had to sit in the stand, before returning to the ticket kiosk and get it swapped for one that would get him into the shed.
A couple of issues with this- I get that it's the done thing in football, and I've benefitted in the past and will probably benefit at some point in the future from this. But the club's owners are shelling out £245 a season/£20 a game to watch Morton, whilst players/officials' pals are getting in for hee haw, whilst the club pleads poverty. Perhaps limiting this might go some way to improving the bank balance?
And also, if you're going to give out free tickets for a game in a ground which is 20% full, is there any need to be so stringent with segregating fans who support the same club? It only goes to piss off fans and comes across as if the club are deliberately going out their way to make things difficult for folk. There's no need.
I was more concerned however with the stewarding towards the segregation fences in the Cowshed though. It was great to see so many weans at the game, and particularly because so many of them were cutting about in the Joma Morton trackie tops. Possibly a sign of the club's community work bearing fruit. However, at one point in the first half, a young lad, no more than 11 years old, was frog marched past me by a steward, with his pals in tow protesting his innocence or begging for leniency. The pals returned, but not the boy who was the subject of the steward's attention. I don't doubt the kid was probably misbehaving, but what actually happened to him? Was he taken to a quieter part of the ground and supervised by a steward? This would appear to be a pointless waste of resources for a pretty harmless wee kid. Were his parents contacted to collect him? Or, was he ejected from the ground and forced to fend for himself? I certainly hope it wasn't the latter, but suspect it may well be.
Of course I've got no issues with adults being ejected if they can't behave themselves, but if I were the parent of a kid that was flung onto the street alone on a dark, rainy Tuesday night in October, I'd be wanting answers.
I’ve checked in with the club on this. They’re required to give out a certain amount of comp tickets for every match, they mainly go to the families of players from both teams. There hadn’t been any feedback given internally on that specific example you mentioned unfortunately so I can’t give any more than that general point around comps.
Two young children were throwing bottles at Thistle fans, were asked to stop, didn’t and were removed from the Cowshed and taken to the safety office. Their parents were called and they arrived to collect them.
Hope that helps! Thanks for flagging.
-
3
-
We've just sent round an update to members which you can also find here
https://mortonclubtogether.co.uk/latest-news/24-member-update-22nd-october
-
I’m passing every piece of feedback received on here to the club board.
I’ve been informed that this format of Q&A was suggested to them, and so I’ve certainly made it clear that there’s a big appetite from fans for a live, in-person version to be held soon too. We’ve had discussions at MCT board level for anything we do in the way of Q&A’s/events will have options for fans to attend in-person or online options for fans who can’t attend.
-
7 hours ago, irnbru said:
The problem is sharing with members isn't community or fans being involved. It's a group doing stuff. It's being told, not contributing. There needs to be more engagement all of the time. Otherwise you've got animal farm in football form.
Of course we want more member involvement, but there’s also an element of the board has been voted by the members and there will be aspects where there isn’t always member involvement with decisions. If members believe there’s things missing in our plans going forward then that will be addressed and fed into it, absolutely. That’s where the member involvement comes in here in this example, just at a different stage of the process. The board has kickstarted the discussion and then taking that to members.
5 hours ago, irnbru said:Also, why are we taking stuff to the club to answer? Aren't we all supposed to be the club and part of the same thing? Everything that's been said gives the impression that there's a hierarchy with people in an ivory tower who think it's fan funded rather than fan controlled.
This is one of the key points that needs to be clarified and explained much more going forward. MCT and the club aren’t one and the same, they’re separate entities. The club is community owned but not community run. MCT members own the club, there’s a majority of MCT representatives on the club board but it’s not these individuals who run the club on a daily basis. There’s staff at the club who do, led by the General Manager.
If MCT members and fans see things happening or not happening that they want to raise, MCT can take this to the club to find out why it is or isn’t happening.
-
1
-
-
7 hours ago, The Bewilderedbeast said:
Maybe a small thing, but we've heard about more people subscribing to MCT since the take over was finalised. However, the MCT website still shows the membership at 850 and has done since long before the finalisation.
There could be people out there who may well be thinking of joining and could be encouraged by seeing the membership rising.
Doesn't need to be done every day, maybe once or twice a month.
An oversight following the switchover in individuals involved and the capabilities of the website. I've now been able to update it. Almost hitting 900
5 hours ago, irnbru said:Agree with this. A fortnightly update with a link to a feedback form to encourage members to contribute shouldn't be a big ask.
Leaving it ad-hoc means that it's up to the comms person to decide what's important or not. All members might be interested in different things.
Not sure what you use to email but having an unsubscribe option for different categories of mail could be an options, i.e. to weekly updates, events, all.
Is there a reason there's not been any engagement with members ahead of a strategy session? Surely there needs to be input from everyone and not just the board.
One of the agreed actions discussed last night was bringing back the feedback loop that members can input into and we'll take to the club for answers on, so that's certainly on the radar.
I'll explore whether that option is available on our email platform, thanks for that.
On your last point, it was an initial strategy session that we'll be sharing the output of with members once we've collated everything. At that stage, just like with comms around the deal and the community ownership prospectus produced previously, it'll be open for members to digest and provide any feedback on.
24 minutes ago, Madton said:No post match interview with Gus after Montrose, no pre match with Gus on Inverness. New owners, same old shite.
Thought half the new board were Marketing experts??
There has been pre and post-match interviews going out across the season so far, I'm not sure why there hasn't been anything this week unfortunately. This is a good example of the type of thing that can input into that feedback loop when it's reinstated. I'll raise this with the club and see why it hasn't been the case this week.
-
11 hours ago, vikingTON said:
I have to say I don't understand why that decision has been taken. Unless the idea is that the club will be taking over the role of regular communication, it seems to me that MCT should still keep its members in the loop on a regular basis. Particularly if there is an ongoing drive for new subscribers to join as well as the (arguably tougher) task of convincing people to let their DDs roll over and not to chuck it.
The issue I have with an ad hoc communication strategy is that it is easy to let things slide when people are busy and there is no fixed deadline in place. This then snowballs and suddenly you have rumours growing arms and legs that wouldn't have arisen in the first place with effective communication - followed by an ad hoc rebuttal from MCT or the club anyway. We've already seen that play out a few times over the summer.
I appreciate that providing regular updates is hard and/or an annoying use of time, but simply scaling back the schedule of updates to a fortnight or even every month - and to view them as a chance to pitch what changes are being made and why they matter - seems a much more sensible response to that pressure. I also appreciate the engagement with the forum but the reality is that this is only a fraction of the fanbase and probably MCT's membership as well.
If GMFC will be taking up that task of regular engagement from now on then great, but I don't think now is the time to appear to be disengaging with the fanbase in any way whatsoever. Getting and keeping the fanbase on board through this difficult campaign is still a serious obstacle that this ownership model has to overcome in order to simply function, never mind flourish.
Thanks for the really valuable feedback @vikingTON
It’s definitely about finding that right balance between what the club is doing or planning to do, coupled with what we then do and whether we over-communicate and annoy some people versus providing something for those that want updates even when not a lot is happening. While the regular updates were appreciated by a lot of members, we got some responses from some who didn’t want to be updated that regularly believe it or not.
The intention isn’t to stop communicating, it’s just to not put something out on that strict weekly schedule. We’ll definitely have something to share from an MCT perspective in the next couple of weeks after a strategy session we held this week but there’s actions off the back of that that now need to happen to get us moving following all the recent changes. We’ve also got the club board Q&A coming soon too so from that high level perspective they’ll be things coming soon.But I do completely take your points on board and we’ll figure out something that works best to update members and fans.
-
In case you haven’t spotted this yet on the SLO’s social accounts, the club is arranging a Q&A session with the new GMFC board. It’ll be recorded and put out across club channels. There’s certainly appetite for a live, in-person event so I’m taking this as an action to make sure our first MCT event gives fans and members that opportunity to attend.
If you have any questions you’d like to ask the club board, don’t hesitate to ask them directly to the SLO or ask them here and I’ll pass them over to him. -
We've emailed round members and posted on our social channels that we'll be stopping the weekly updates now the takeover has gone through.
As and when we've got things to share we'll be doing that. Still here and on email at communications@mortonclubtogether.co.uk for any questions anyone has at any time.
-
18 minutes ago, 9 Strathblane Crescent said:
Thanks for that, I'm assuming that in time that Companies House will be updated with all the relevant detail concerning the three companies?
It certainly will be
-
3 hours ago, 9 Strathblane Crescent said:
Can someone from MCT explain what the ownership of club and ground now looks like under the new agreement? If the ground has been protected under this new agreement if, god forbid, the club runs into financial difficulty how does that work from a legal standpoint?
Is the ground being held by a separate company or does ownership of the ground now fall to MCT?
If so have we effectively separated the ground from the football club i.e. GMFC no longer own Cappielow?
That being the case does this dilute the value of shares in Morton Football Club given it no longer owns its only asset, its only worth being its registration with the SFA?
If the above is correct then it would be incumbent of someone to explain this to the 10% of GMFC shareholders who have been kept pretty much in the dark and should be approached to join MCT which would be to their benefit.
Got an answer for you which you can see below that hopefully explains everything you've asked.
The new company structure consists of three linked limited companies. A limited company is treated as a separate legal entity, and so although the three companies are linked, they are still three separate bodies.
The parent company is MCT Ltd - the same company that members have been contributing to. There is now a new mid-level limited company, which owns the stadium. This property company is 100% owned by MCT. The third company is Greenock Morton Football Club Ltd. That company owns the SFA and League registration and membership.
Under this system, if the football club runs into financial difficulties, any creditors or administrator cannot get their hands on the stadium, as it is not an asset of the club.
As a result, GMFC Ltd no longer owns Cappielow. However, it did not (from a practical point of view) own Cappielow before the takeover. At that point, although the club held title to the stadium, there were securities in place for the club debts which meant that, effectively, Golden Casket controlled the stadium. Currently, the stadium is owned by the membership of MCT.
The value of the remaining 10% of shares in Morton should not be significantly affected by the deal. It is true that they no longer own a share of Cappielow, but the write off of club debts is equal to or greater than the value of the stadium. As a result, the club’s balance sheet will have lost approx £2m in debt from one side and a £2m asset from the other. The overall value of the club has probably increased slightly (a £2m debt never looks good on a balance sheet), but the value of each share is so small that in practical terms there should be no real difference to the value of each share.
It is our intention to provide existing shareholders in the club with a full written resolution of the movements at the club as soon as we receive it from our solicitors. We anticipate that this will be circulated within the next few weeks.
-
- Popular Post
- Popular Post
Quick flag from me that we've been able to get PayPal links set up as an easier way for international fans to join MCT and contribute monthly, and that our PayPal address is now an MCT one rather than Stewart's personal email address.
The links can be found here https://mortonclubtogether.co.uk/members-tc
Just £10 and £15 links set up for the time being, if you wanted to contribute more each month then give me a shout and we'll get a move on and get it set up quicker
-
3
-
An update on the international members issue. Our PayPal account is now membership@mortonclubtogether.co.uk rather than Stewart’s personal account and I’ve asked the team to create the various links required to pay monthly like Motherwell have here. Will give another update when that’s all set up and good to go.
-
1
-
-
- Popular Post
- Popular Post
Just wanted to say I’m following along with the back and forward. It’s great to see some fans engaged and enthused, and I think we knew there would still be some that weren’t quite on the levels of our almost 900 members yet.
Anyone from MCT is willing to speak to any fan who has questions about anything, or any fears they’d like to be heard. We may not have been perfect at every step of the way but when things have been raised with us we’ve done our best to sort them as quickly as possible, if we could.
Our club is now community owned, its debt free, and Cappielow has been retained by the club. Stripping everything else away that’s three huge plus points in my opinion over the space of two and a half years. That hasn’t just been down to those running MCT, it’s been down to the fans who’ve signed up to back MCT and community ownership as the way forward for the club.
We’re in this for the long haul.
-
4
-
11 hours ago, TRVMP said:
I haven't yet subscribed not because of any reservation over MCT (all of these I've had have been met) and not because I disagree with the model. I haven't subscribed because there's still a ton of hoops for overseas subscribers to jump through that I frankly can't be bothered dealing with; and the Direct Debit system is managed by an individual using a personal email address, rather than something properly governed. It's a Hamilton Accies/Nigerian prince situation waiting to happen, and I'd rather MCT get that sorted before it occurs. If that is done, I'd happily sign up.
This is something I’ve been pushing to get sorted for some time now and I’ll make sure it’s still being worked on by those involved in that side of things. Thanks for flagging again.
-
1
-
-
15 minutes ago, Mortonbug said:
This is really great news! Actually found out with STV News on in the background earlier and the club badge came up on screen, wasn't expecting this so soon after the last update! I think this could genuinely be the best news many Morton fans have had in a long time.
We've witnessed quite a few false dawns as a support over the last 20 years since Douglas Rae stepped in to save the Club; with some fleeting moments of joy along the way of course. More than a few charlatans coming in and offering their expertise for hire but ultimately being chancers only interested in their own advancement. Hopefully no more.
It has felt like hundreds, if not thousands, of floating fans had gone for good. After being let down time and time again. I really hope that, despite the very uneven performances lately that things can improve and that, whatever the weather, we can get in a good crowd for Arbroath on Saturday.
Like a fair few other folk, I had been very reluctant up until now to join, but I have happily signed up for MCT tonight. I don't think anybody is expecting miracles overnight, but with good people using their skills, for the most part voluntarily and with just a sincere interest in doing right by Morton as their motivation, surely we can have real cause for optimism. Hopefully the start of something special.
Well done to everybody who has worked so hard to inch this closer and closer to fruition.
C'mon the Ton!
This is brilliant to hear @Mortonbug, great to have you on board!
-
Sorry I couldn’t reveal sooner, strict embargo!
Now the hard work properly begins! Thanks to all of you for your patience.
-
2
-
-
1 hour ago, 9 Strathblane Crescent said:
What are these "things" and when are we going to see them in action? It's alright talking about what you would do but until people see these "things" in action then we are not that much further forward. You have an army of volunteers, so I'm told, time to put them to some use and get these "things" up and running where possible. Fans want to see action and uncommitted fans still need to be convinced that MCT are going to make a difference compared to how the club has been run in the past. A lot are frustrated that not a lot appears to have changed, you need to change that perception if your to attract new members and lapsed fans.
Of course I'd love to get to these things and put them into action. While we might have a group of dedicated volunteers, we're all split into different areas. For example, the current MCT marketing team is just me and I have a full time job at an English Premier League football club so I'm sure you'll understand that my immediate priority is to recruit some more bodies on the MCT volunteering side to help me out with what we'd like to do to get engaging with members and potential future members.
As I mentioned too, Chris Ross is now running the club on a day to day basis and it's now his responsibility to oversee and put in place some of the changes being made on the club side of things. I'm sure he'd take the time to answer any questions you had as well on this.
-
27 minutes ago, 9 Strathblane Crescent said:
These are all good points you make but I'm more interested on how you intend to make these aims happen. It's all very well having these ideals but how do you intend putting them into practice. We need to increase our fanbase, how do you intend making that happen? We need to increase our revenue, how do you intend making that happen. What measurements will you put in place to judge whether the actions you take are successful? I'm not being negative here I just want to see the club being more successful year on year. Just as an aside ever thought of having a sponsors day at Cappielow where a company that already advertises at Cappielow can set up a stall, for example, to advertise their products and give out information straight to those interested fans as they enter the ground? That of course should include MCT. No harm in having a "sign up here drive" to try and increase membership.
The proof will be in the pudding. These things won't fix or resolve themselves overnight, MCT and community ownership is the long-term way forward for the club now.
We know things certainly won't be easy on any of these points I mentioned and that you've highlighted as well, there will be ideas on what we should and could do from across the fanbase. They'll be things other clubs do or have done in the past that we can take for ourselves and they'll be things that clubs have never done before that we can hopefully try that tick a few boxes for us towards our overall aims. We'll get some things wrong and we'll try some things that won't work, not everything will be perfect all of the time.
We've gone from nothing to an almost 90% majority shareholding in the club in just over two years. That's just the start. I don't want to speak too much for others and speak on behalf of the club because I shouldn't, I know Chris Ross' career to date has been very focused on revenue generation so I'm sure he has plenty of ideas to add to the mix for the club. My aim from an MCT marketing and comms perspective is to make sure we're doing all we can to increase the membership, that's my sole focus. We need to be speaking to much more people, members and non-members, to find out their thoughts, why they have or haven't gotten involved, doing much more on a face-to-face basis at our home and away matches, and it was mentioned at the AGM as well about advertising in the Tele which I think is a great idea albeit obviously comes at a cost to us.
It's important we're asked these types of questions too and challenged on them. Drives us on to do an even better job.
-
1
-
-
On 9/25/2021 at 11:39 AM, 9 Strathblane Crescent said:
Can someone explain to me how the division of responsibilities between the club, GMFC, and the owners MCT actually works in practice. Who is responsible for what? When MCT eventually take over what is the role of MCT? As we now have the majority of GMFC directors MCT directors does this not conflict with the fan owned not run principle?
How these relationships will work in practice going forward is one of the key areas we'd like to make sure fans are aware of in the coming weeks and months.
The club board is responsible for club matters, of course. I'm sure there will be more comms from the club on this soon and as mentioned at our AGM, there's certainly a desire to hold a GMFC AGM. The principle of fan owned but not fan run remains, the hiring of Chris Ross as General Manager was key to this point. He carries out his role in overseeing club operations on a daily basis, managing staff, overseeing ticketing and hospitality, setting standards and putting processes in place to improve every aspect of the club. The GMFC board set out the overall vision and make decisions on some of these points of course, but don't carry out the tasks that align under all of it. While there's been a need for some individuals at board level to get more involved across some things over the past few months, that need isn't and shouldn't be there now that the GM has his feet under the table. Hopefully that makes sense but happy to try and clarify any further points.
Yes there's a crossover in individuals across the GMFC and MCT boards, but they do remain separate entities with some differing aims, albeit some are also similar.
When the takeover happens, MCT's goal does change somewhat, but not massively. We're still the vehicle for fans to pay monthly to contribute to the club, that has to remain. We'll still be encouraging as many Morton fans to become members and actually it's my desire to do even more on that than we've been doing recently. With the MCT majority on the GMFC club board, the overall vision for the club going forward should have a very MCT feel to it, with focuses driven by the work we've done over the past few years. We want to get even closer to the fanbase than ever before, we want to ensure the club is run in a financially viable manner, with good governance and structures in place, we want to drive as much commercial revenue as possible, we want to build deeper connections with the local community, celebrating the work that Morton in the Community do along with our youth and women's teams, we want to ensure our membership's views and ideas are heard, discussed and then implemented if they make sense to do so.
That's just a flavour of things, and like I said, there's some crossover between MCT and the club there, but everyone working together and pulling towards the same goals can only be a good thing going forward to make sure the club we all love is a success on and off the pitch.
-
1 hour ago, TRVMP said:
I am still very curious as to what these continued delays are with the takeover. We've heard about the taxman and we've heard about the land deeds. Is that all of it? Is it all just technicalities or are there points of negotiation?
Given the number of times the Raes changed things during the pre-negotiations, I don't think I'm being too cynical in thinking there are substantive issues holding this up, and that they're trying to claw back more of "their" money. If it was still all down to the taxes and the land, I think they'd have said so.
Yeah we understand the frustration around the delays but since our weekly updates began a couple of months ago we’ve done our best to share what we can around what’s being worked on behind the scenes. The land deeds have been extremely complicated to tackle due to all of the changes to how those are registered now.
There hasn’t been any changes to the details of the deal.
-
1
-
-
Not an eventful update overall this week but the new MCT board met officially for the first time and there has been some movement again on the takeover. Have a read
Dear members,
Following on from our AGM last week we have had a lot of really positive feedback and messages from members about our progress, and also wishing outgoing MCT board members Graham Barr and Ivor McCauley well. We'd like to thank everyone who got in touch, it's always great to hear from you.
If there are things that you'd like us to raise with the club as well then please do get in touch. We've also had some members in the past couple of weeks getting in touch with us with suggestions and ideas they'd like to see implemented in future.
A reminder that you can email MCT with feedback or questions at any time to communications@mortonclubtogether.co.uk
The new MCT board met for the first time this week for an introductory discussion. As we said last week, there's still a lot of hard work to do to move Morton forward and make the club a success in the long term, and how MCT and our members contribute to that going forward.
Takeover Update
We are now very close to the takeover being completed. In the past couple of weeks, since our last proper weekly update, the work has been continuing behind the scenes on both sides and there are now just a couple of outstanding points to resolve.
Once the final documents have been signed, our members will be the first to know.
Again, thank you all for your patience while we've worked through the technicalities of the takeover.
Club News
The past four league matches haven't gone to plan but the Championship remains as unpredictable as ever. The club has another huge match at Somerset on Saturday against Jim Duffy's Ayr United. We hope you enjoy the game if you're making it along.
The biggest update off the pitch at the club is that hospitality is now back open and is available for the next home match against Arbroath on the 2nd of October. Fans can email the club or get in touch via the enquiry form on the website.
Cheers all
-
As you say @The Bewilderedbeastthe finances involved in drawing one of Celtic or Rangers in a cup will be a huge positive for the club.
From a fan perspective and the point you raise, it's a very tricky one to police when tickets go on general sale once our season ticket holders have had the opportunity to get their tickets. What you've had to endure at past matches shouldn't be happening at a football match and if they unfortunately did happen again then the club should be taking action on that kind of behaviour.
All hypothetical at the moment of course, but from an MCT perspective we'd be looking for the club to take action and put steps in place to minimise the risk of away fans being in the home section.
Morton Club Together Updates
in General Morton Chatter
Posted
We've just sent an email update to our members to let them know that unfortunately Aidan Tracey has stepped down from the MCT board.
Aidan's family circumstances have changed in recent weeks and as such he's not been able to dedicate the time to MCT that he originally thought he was able to, and wanted to, do. We're sure you'll respect his privacy and wish him well. He remains a big supporter of MCT and if his family circumstances change again in future he'll be back involved in our wider team.
Our articles state that we don't need to replace Aidan on the board, but we want to. That process will be similar to what we just recently went through for the AGM, where the opportunity is open for any of our members to put themselves forward to become a board member, and they must be supported by nominations from 12 MCT members. The candidates will then be put forward to a vote at an EGM, where members in attendance will vote their preferred option onto the board.
Members who wish to put themselves forward, and the supporting nominations from fellow members, can email business@mortonclubtogether.co.uk to indicate their interest.