Not more CTWD bulls**t. I actually forgot they existed until I had seen another sh*tty thread on them.
In some ways it is not dissimilar to Union membership. If you join you have a vote on whether any actions are taken on behalf of it members. When you vote you may or may not vote for what the majority vote for, but you have to accept the majority vote outcome.
That top point Obi is the job of the club and the chairman. Something Ass' Allam didn't really grasp in his 'negotiations' when he expected the fans to do his work for him, for free of course, as his recent tirade proves. A question for CTWD similar to Filey's - what if a majority of members wish to begin a campaign to unseat Ass' Allam himself? CTWD have always firmly backed the owner.
Ah, I see the multi account **** has returned to disrupt another thread... Not wanting to disrupt the thread further, quick question mods - why has he been allowed to remain considering you ban every other multi-accounter?
Just to say, the responses to the points raised about the Trust and its aims/objectives will be answered together this evening from the CTWD account. We don't have time available for live debate. Obvious trolling will receive less attention.....
This thread has been set up specifically to allow fans to ask questions and seek clarification of details with regard to the new supporters trust. If you have no questions you'd like to ask, I'd appreciate it if you would not post on this thread.
Not really, there's room for individual negotiation in both cases and unions have lost a lot of members for following their own agenda over a member driven one. It's far better if the group represents a significant proportion and can demonstrate they do. I'm not convinced that some 'groups' at the current round of meetings do.
At the end of the day, NO organisation can represent EVERY fan's view on every issue, all of the time; it's just not possible. Is that an argument for having NO fan representation? I'd argue that no it is not. I'm happy with this initial draft of aims etc, hopefully CTWD will be keeping us updated with progress and so on, so that we can see how things are coming along in the coming weeks/months.
Totally agree, that's why I feel it's so important for a fans group to make sure it has a system in place to demonstrate the level of backing it has from the fans it's set up to represent. Sometimes, an issue will affect a minority of members, but be so significant that it would benefit from support from the group as a whole. That's strengthened if it's clearly demonstratable the group backs it.
It's quite a while since I have had any negotiation with Unions, but at the time when I was part of these meetings, what I found was generally the most militant were members and drove the agenda, and may others couldn't be bothered to attend meeting and just went with the flow.
I was involved with unions a few years back and even then, many of the more opinionated and informed (as opposed to to militant) argued from the outside in. I've found that's even more the way since as Unions push to help smaller groups for more political reasons.
There is one thing here that I would like to make clear. It's much easier to get members behind a campaign, than it is a supporters trust, as people are simply less motivated to get involved. Most supporters trusts have hundreds of members, rather than thousands, though most are generally supported by the fan-base as a whole, even if they can't be arsed to actually pay to join. I mention this, just because there have been a few comments on the numbers and suggestions that the majority will need to be members for it to work, but that's simply not realistic. Even if you look at a club like Arsenal, the membership numbers are relatively low, they currently have 1,098 members in their trust. The only times trust numbers get really high, is when there is some sort of campaign going on. One of the most famous supporters trusts, The Spirit Of Shankly got their numbers up to 18,000, but that was mainly due to the campaign to oust Gillette and Hicks. The Manchester United trust, which is several times the size of all the other trusts combined, actually have hundreds of thousands of members, due to their ongoing campaign to try and generate enough money to try and take control of the club from the Glazer's. The Pompey Supports Trust has 2,300 members, again that number was achieved while generating the funds to take ownership of the club. I just thought that I should point out what is normally achieved by a trust, to avoid people getting carried away with what is realistic and indeed what is expected.
