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Obviously you don't want every decision to have to go through two boards so the Well Society reps on the club board need to be able to use personal judgement on ordinary club business. However if it's an issue which is in conflict with The Well Society constitution such as ending fan ownership then they should 100% be going to the Well Society board to get an agreed position.

You think they'd get in? 🤣🤣

The Well Society Board do not seem to realise they have the power to stop this in its tracks. Instead of newspaper interviews it is time to call general meetings of the Society and the football club to get things in order. Why has the club been able to dictate to the well society the time table of the vote? If the board of the well society don't think the timescale is prudent take official actions to change it. The Well Society Board need to realise they have legal powers and protections. They have said this is an existential issue for the society and the club. But they seem scared to put a few noses out of joint and do what is necessary to stop this.

Dickie is a chartered surveyor, not accountant; he counts bricks for a living, not money. 😅

Hopefully one that scores lots of goals 🤣

Sadly even he can't stop passive, narrow tactics from the manager that play right into Germany's hands. 🫠🙄

Is Kelly in the Scotland squad? If only the club had posted some content for me to realise.

You're not the only one San. 🤣

Me too

Thanks for this Derek. A welcome update. Irrespective of the details its encouraging that there seems to be a willingness to talk and negotiate about external investment generally. The recent debate has been a bit polarised and your tone may just help to heal some rifts. We don't want a divided support.

Obviously you didn't read the article where they mentioned the inadequate valuation of the club as one of several reasons they were against the proposals..

Myself and Phil Speedie had a chat with Ben Banks about Erik's proposal. https://www.glasgowworld.com/sport/well-society-opposition-to-motherwell-investment-proposals-explained-4666102 More than happy to answer any questions here should any members want clarity or a bit more info into our reasonings and the next steps.

Feely. Sounds like one of the dwarfs who got cut for being naughty. Along with Humpy and Gropey.

Yes, agreed. I've spoken to a few folk with decent club sources who say the management team rate Ox quite highly. If that's the case it does beg the question why we didn't bring him in instead of Kelly at points, but I guess if we said you'll get next season as #1 and us playing Kelly gets us Euros cash to bolster the shambles that played in front of him, it makes a bit of sense. Someone said on P&B or here, I forget which, a couple of weeks ago (or days, what a fucking week it's been) that we'd missed out on 4 keepers. One of them was that Brentford lad that went on loan to St Mirren.

I believe this situation might be getting a bit confused. From my limited understanding, here’s how it works: There are two seats on the club’s executive board reserved for Well Society board members, allowing the Society board to have representation. Currently, Tom Feely and Douglas Dickie occupy these seats. When a proposal like this comes up, the Society board votes on it. In this case, they voted to reject the offer by 6 votes to 3. Following this, the Society's representatives on the executive board should have voted in line with the Society board’s decision, which was to reject the proposal. This doesn't necessarily mean the executive board would have voted against the proposal, but it would not have been unanimous. For instance, McMahon, Caldwell, and Lindsay could have voted in favour, while Dickie and Feely, representing the Society board’s views, would have voted against. Their role on the executive board is not in a personal capacity but as representatives of the Well Society board, reflecting its views. Here’s where it gets interesting. I've read that while Caldwell and Lindsay have been added to the executive board, they haven’t been given voting rights yet. If that’s true, then the voting members of the executive board are McMahon, Dickie, and Feely. This means that if Dickie and Feely had voted according to the Society board's decision, McMahon would have been the only one voting in favour of the proposal, resulting in the proposal being rejected by both the executive and Society boards. However, by Dickie and Feely "going rogue" and voting based on their personal opinions rather than the Society board’s decision, the narrative changes completely. Instead of both boards rejecting the proposal, it appears that the executive board unanimously accepted it, despite the Society board voting to reject it. At best, with Caldwell and Lindsay having voting rights, it would have gone in favour by 3 votes to 2. Which is a hell of a lot closer than a "unanimous" verdict. Quite a different perspective, isn’t it? It's important to remember that this vote by both boards is not about actually accepting or rejecting the offer, but rather making a recommendation. There's a difference there. The executive board voted unanimously to recommend accepting the proposal, while the Society board voted to recommend rejecting it. These are just recommendations that the wider Society membership (the majority shareholder) can consider when making their own decision in our upcoming vote. This brings me to my main point. How confident would you be of the proposal being accepted by the Society's membership if the official stance from the club is that both boards recommended rejecting it? It's very different from us going to the vote with the understanding that the executive board voted "unanimously" to accept, while the Society board members voted against it.

If we get these two in (I doubt Burns would put his name to either if we weren't) and sort out a left wing back I think we're doing pretty well. I would love to get another attacking mid type, along with a winger or two; that way we have some options to change shape/switch it up if the 3-4-2-1 / 3-5-2 isn't working.

I’m going with…. If I had the wings of a sparrow….

Ah just like you then

No Scotland no party 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

On this particular deal? It really depends how the MOU is structured (assuming there is one), and how any NDA's involved are framed. It could be that the club and Society aren't legally allowed to discuss the intricate details of the deal. Barmack, for all that he's being active on P&B, isn't actually saying all that much of substance. I've been reading most of what he's posted, and the only takeaway that I've got from it all is that he's come to his valuation of our club by using a rough approach that involves what Newcastle United is worth and that he's trying hard to sell himself as an honest guy with our best interests at heart. Which may be true, by the way. I doubt it, though. In my experience of dealing with investors and VC over the past ten plus years I have found that these guys aren't coming in and burning through the one commodity that they treasure above all else, which is time, to pursue a deal where they don't get much upside. That's simply not how they work. I find it hard to believe he simply woke up six months ago and decided he wanted to work with the fan ownership group at a club he'd never heard of before, all to help said club consistently finish in the top six. There's an end game here. And that's not a bad thing in itself. But, I'd much rather work with an investor who lays it all out and says "This is what I'm proposing, and the reason for that is because the club will benefit in X way, and I'll benefit in Y way, then I can move on to the next investment opportunity a richer man, and leave you guys in a better position." Again, I'm only going by my experience, but when investors start talking about "enthusiasm," "working alongside ordinary supporters" and so forth, especially when that kind of language is used without an actual plan? It sets alarm bells off. At the risk of sounding like a bit of a prick, do fans really need to be able to under the technicalities of the following to know it's a bad deal? The plan that has been suggested at the moment, from what I can see, basically consists of the following: Barmack "invests" £1.95 million over six years. For this, he will receive 49% ownership, with 8% ownership from the beginning The Well Society has to invest £1.35 million over six years. For this, we will lose 25% of our shares. Barmack also becomes Chairman with the deciding vote in any tie. So, he invests £1.95 million to see an increase in shareholding to the tune of 49%, while we, the fans, invest an additional £1.35 million to lose 25% of our shareholding. I've never been involved in any business deal where that kind of thing is suggested. Ever. Why? Because it's ridiculous. In any normal business setting, it would be laughed out of the room, and the party suggesting it would be roundly ridiculed. Oh, and on top of the above, we also need to agree to write off 50% of our loan to the club to the tune of £434,000. That is money that fans, including pensioners and people who are not well off, have paid to the Society in good faith, by the way. Almost half a million pounds of our money, just written off. Gone. So, with all of that said, what do we get in return? A multi-page business plan that shows why we need him on board? An exciting vision of the future under his chairmanship? No. We get talk of "infrastructure and long-term strategic projects rather than short-term player acquisitions" and incredibly vague chit-chat about "increasing broadcasting revenue, seeking additional investors and utilising artificial intelligence." Do you want to know what I think? I think that the above would be considered derisory by any competent board in the world of business. But, Barmack has found a well-run entity that's involved in a league that is looking at an uptick in TV and sponsorship money coming over the next five or so years and has realised it's "fan-run." Which, in the mind of an investor and businessman from Los Angeles, as the club board keep describing him, means that it's run by simple folks who won't understand all the technicalities and who, in his likely view, are simply too fucking stupid to understand exactly what all this means. He wants the club on the cheap, and not only that, he wants us to actually pay for much of it. If you add in the money The Society would be losing on top of the contributions we'd need to make, it would actually mean that our total financial contribution over the six years would be £1,784,000 for the privilege of losing 25% of our shares, while he contributes £166,000 more than us over the same period for an increase in 48% of shareholding. You want an honest assessment? He thinks we're mugs. And sadly, going by some of the responses I've seen, he's correct to an extent. I always feared that while fan ownership is a good thing, it does leave us open to business predators who simply see an asset that is owned by a large group of people who, for the most part, aren't business-savvy. As he said today on P&B: "By the way, I think the offer has a better chance than many of you do -- if you follow politics closely, as I do, you can see examples on Twitter and message boards of a block that clearly don't like a proposal or politician, and are certain that their points are unanimous, only to see the quieter side of a voting block feel differently. As one touch-point, there was a poll on Twitter about our offer, and I believe it was 30 for / 70 against, and I think you have to consider a bit who's voting on a Twitter poll to realize that the fan-base might be more divided than this thread suggests. So, I'm not throwing in the towel." You're damn right he's not throwing in the towel. This could be one of the more lucrative deals he makes in years. Not because the club generates large sums of money but because he's basically securing a top-flight football club for less than the price of a three-bed house in Wishaw. I don't agree. The reason why he's pushing for this deal with us is because of the decision-makers and structure of the club. Could you imagine him going to someone like Roy MacGregor with an offer like this? Or even better, let's send him round to speak to Anne Budge and Hearts with a similar offer. So no, he knows that if he went to another club that was owned and run by someone from the actual business and investment world, he'd get laughed out of the building.

Of all the things to fire at me after the last few days, when you've seen my contributions and comments on all of this, really?

I made this point on P&B the other day and I am by no ways or means defending their decision when I say this, but by voting for the investment to go through, the two WS reps on the board were technically following the wishes of the Society membership. The results of the vote earlier in the year made it clear the membership was interested in hearing options that could dilute the overall shareholdings below majority stake. So they've carried out the wishes of the Society by putting it through. My biggest issue with all of this, is the terms which come with it and how it seems to the vast majority if not all of us that it's a poor deal. It is also starting to become apparent that the two WS reps on the Exec Board haven't represented the views of the WS Board as a whole, or at least stopped the feedback from the WS board getting to Barmack based on what EB has been saying on P&B.