Leeann Dempster

We have been trying to establish information on a 'zone' and also ticket information but to be fair to our people, this has proven somewhat difficult although we now have some info to share. The latest today is that our supporters will be able to enter the match for free. What that means in terms of getting a ticket for free and using it, or turning up on the night and just getting in - we are not clear (we have asked obviously). Whatever happens, we will have staff members on the ground from tomorrow (late afternoon). Alan B will post the info as we receive it therefore look online for more information. It is my understanding that we will be given actual tickets on Wednesday evening when we attend the training session. So Jennifer, myself and Alan Marshall, if all going to plan and what we are being told is accurate, should have some tickets to give out for free from Wednesday evening. Failing that, we'll make arrangements to meet supporters at the ground and sort it out. Leeann

Proxy votes will be allowed as normal, Alison just working through those who can attend and those who cannot. Expect another piece of communication from her in the next few days. It is important that if you are a member that you vote, on the night in person or by proxy - both just the same value. The next challenge will be for the 4 nominated to appoint a chairman etc from the 4 and then get co-opted directors on board from groups such as disabled supporters, Trust and or association etc etc No, 22 people applied for consideration and all 22 are up for vote as per the articles of association.

For some reason my post has joined together words, blaming my laptop but anyway I hope you can read and get what I was trying to type. I have just moved from PC to Macbook and not a happy transition....

Morning All, There are some points that the club require to clear up for some supporters. I have read the comments on forums and I have been emailed or contacted on twitter asking the same questions or indeed accusing the club or mishandling the situation. The protocol is: If we have a match abandonment situation, our first and most important decision is to decide whether it is an emergency situation or if the evacuation can be a 'controlled evacuation'. At the United game, it was clear that the match could not proceed however the situation was not an emergency one therefore we put the necessary protocols in place that allow us to issue tickets to supporters for the next game. If an emergency situation then we obviously would not do this however as a controlled exit we clearly have the opportunity to organize entry into the next match. We are not a club that has moved towards an all ticket environment yet. Supporters gain entry into the ground via either season tickets or pay at the gate. That being the case, if we have to empty the stadium in the circumstances that we did for the United game, we do not have the luxury of differentiating season ticket holders from those who have paid at the gate for that particular game. Messages become even more confusing and supporters get delayed in their exit. It is far easier to give MA tickets to all and then deal with the relatively small number of issues we have post match than to have to try and differentiate at the point of exit who is ST holders and who paid at the gate. This is simply not practical and to assume that this would work seamlessly is just not sensible. The protocol is clear and has been rehearsed many times and includes what we learned from the abandoned Hibernian game of last season - that is to issue MA tickets to ALL supporters. There were at least 3 announcements - using the police tannoy system - to advice people to get a MA ticket before they left the stadium and that season tickets would not be valid for the next game. We do know however, because some supporters have told us, a small number of stewards were not following the protocol and were advising that entry to the rearranged game would be by seasontickets. This was not correct and caused some confusion to those who were told this. The fact remains however that the vast majority of people received vouchers and are content with arrangements. It is therefore not practical or appropriate to now change our mind and use ST books to cover the minority who were given the wrong information. It is much easier to deal with those supporters, on a one to one basis, and this is being done by either calling the ticket office on 01698 33 33 33 or by emailing wendy.macfarlane@motherwellfc.co.uk There is NO need to come to the ticket office in person if it not convenient for you to do so, the process can be done remotely. A call or an email stating your name and seat number or numbers if a family or group is all that we require. Ideally ALL our stewards should have been on message, they were not and we are dealing with the security company on this. I will stress again that those stewards were very much in the minority and that the club is sensibly and quickly dealing with issues around tickets without drama or fuss, all you need to do is call us. I get very downhearted when I read the comments on the forums - descriptions like 'shambles', the people who make such assertions have no experience of what it takes to run a football match and most likely less of what is involved in an evacuation. Our match day is one of the best rehearsed and I would suggest currently one of the safest in the SPL. The people involved are expert at their jobs and make decisions ONLY with your safety and security in mind. Amongst the many things that have happened in recent years, they saved a supporters life last year when he took seriously unwell in the cooper stand. If that gentleman had not come to the match that night, he most likely would not be here now. importantly the right people making the right decisions and quick intervention by our on-site paramedics with the right equipment, doing what theyare all trained to do. The same people who it would seem whose decisions are now being referred to as shambolic. To summarise on tickets: If you attended the game and do not have a MA ticket then let us know and we will sort for you, ideally before the day ofthe game. Email or call Wendy at the number or address above as soon as you can and Wendy will sort. If you are a season ticket holder who did not attend the match for any reason, or were stopped before you entered then obviously you can attend on the 7th - using the original voucher given you did not use it on the day. I hope this helps to put into perspectivethe issues faced and decisions made. The only way to avoid this situation in future is to move to an all ticket gate. If that is the overwhelming wishes of supporters then we can look at this quicker than planned. As ever, best regards Leeann

I don’t really know where to start to be honest; I suppose the first question for clarity needs to be: Is the original post the official position of the MFC Trust and the board or are the comments contained within it essentially the position of one individual? My view for what it is worth is that these types of comments really achieve very little and smacks of ‘my da is bigger than yours’. I may be missing something really fundamental but surely anyone involved and giving up personal time to put themselves forward, whether it be from the Trust, the SAC or indeed the Association, all pretty much want the same thing. That is for supporters to be involved and bring forward ideas - GOOD and BAD – and for those ideas and feedback to be considered and debated. If that general point is accepted then surely it does no good whatsoever to be ridiculing some the very people who have put themselves forward in the first place? Given everything positive that is happening at the club at the moment and remember, with the backdrop of some very difficult times for Scottish Football, surely it is now the time for us (SAC, Trust and Association) to be galvanized and not to create more distance between supporters. This is a call for unity; it is high time any old issues are put to the side and for the 3 organisations to merge into one, stronger and more effective group. That is my view for what it is worth. Leeann

http://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/2011/08/26/open-meeting-%e2%80%93-monday-5th-september/ Hopefully an interesting link for you all to read. Get your questions ready for the 5th September and don't worry if you can't make this meeting, there will be others announced throughout September and early October. See you on the 5th. Leeann

Thank you all. We much prefer it this way. Over and out for today.

I am posting this on behalf of the hospitality team here at the club. Diane and Wilma have asked me to say the following. A great night in the Cooper last night with the Banter Thiefs playing and Matt with his tunes. It was marred however by the theft of our club badge signage which sat at the top of the stairs and SCREWED to the wall. Some of our revellers with sticky fingers helped themselves to it and we'd like it back please.............by 4pm today if possible as it is required for tomorrow! No questions will be asked, we just want it back. If you were there an know the individuals involved perhaps a quiet word to say that stealing from the club is not the best of ideas..

Evening All, On the gap ie A6 and A7, we have left these as undesignated for either regular tickets OR family depending on demand. These sections WILL be Motherwell sections. Leeann

Given the huge interest and debate regarding tickets we have been keen to get the basic information out but you'll notice that we have not been specific on allocation / sections and that the website still requires some tweaking however the BASICS are there. I have instructed the team here to go live now but there are still one or two elements to finalise from the clubs perspective. We have now been offered a unit within the Brandon Parade that will take some pressure off of the ticket office here so we can adjust the sale as we go. If we feel we can run general sale and ballot together, post ST sale then we will do that and now with the second point of sale it may well be the case that we can manage the demand to allow this. As for ballot, we will be cross referencing those who apply to try and minimise any non Motherwell sales. We will also be offering an allocation to the supporters association as per normal procedure for matches such as this. Tickets have not been supplied to the club - the first batch is due in from the SFA on Friday. Please refer to the website for updates. Leeann

I am listening to your comments but the fact is we need to have some structure to the sale. We either try to do it in as 'fair' a way as possible, and i am open to other ideas, or we do an open sale to all. What would our season ticket holders say to that? I suggest we'd be slated for not allowing a pre-sale. Also, by offering an option to purchase as a season ticket holder if you buy a ticket for next year then that can only, in the long term, be a good thing. If it means we get another 100 or 200 ST for next year then that has to be positive. I don't suspect that this will take a significant amount of tickets out of circulation but it WILL encourage supporters who are perhaps thinking about a ticket to consider this option more seriously. The ballot, question here is what stops opposing supporters buying from the ticket office direct? It is as difficult to manage that as it is if someone came in to the office in person. The nature of this type of game means this will inevitably happen and we just need to be able to deal with it on the day. As far as the club 'letting you down' in segregation, the further cannot be from the truth but we also can't legislate for opposing fans buying and that is a fact. As for the shambles chat, we have all put a lot of time and thought into how we do this sale as fairly and sensibly as possible. We could have taken an easy route and got ticketmaster or ticketsoup to sell, all online but I took the decision to sell to OUR supporters, to the people we see day in, day out. Will you be disappointed, I hope not, will we get all the tickets we want? Possibly not but we are certainly trying to get the allocation we want. Number of tickets for each season ticket holder to buy? We are considering 4, depending on the final allocation and that will be confirmed very soon. Happy to answer any other questions.

Evening everyone, sorry for the lateness of my post. I was intending to post on Friday to give you all an update in terms of status on ticket sales. Basically we still have to work through final numbers with the SFA. It will be Wednesday before this is agreed at the earliest. There will be four ways you can purchase a ticket: as a season ticket holder (preference sale) if you become a new season ticket holder (preference sale) by ballot online general sale post ST and ballot if any tickets remain The plan at the moment, and I STRESS at the moment, is to do a pre-sale to season ticket holders from the 2nd May, probably for 5 days. Because the demand for the remaining tickets is likely to be very high, we have created a micro site which will be available this week for non-season ticket holders to register - essentially this will be done as a ballot. Please just refer to the website as all info will be posted on there as soon as complete. We will be selling from the stadium and this will be done from a few points with the ticket office and other areas opening for late nights and available for telephone sales. We are planning to manage this in such a fashion that we minimise the waiting time as much as possible. On a separate note, I am meeting with the powers that be in the local authority this week to work together to see what can be done to capitalise on the feel good factor locally. I am told that in 91 you guys turned the town (and other areas) claret and amber. We'd like to get the momentum moving on this again as a great time to reinvigorate supporters and get youngsters interested. Competitions for the best dressed shop, house, pub....maybe someone could start a thread with ideas that we could try to pull together. We simply can't miss this great opportunity to motivate and importantly have some fun....a memories photo wall, we could pin photos to the web and there are loads of other fun things we can all do. Finally, we have are in the process of booking buses to leave from the stadium. 23 left for the semi final, just over 1200 people; let’s see if we can improve on this for the final.

There are a few reasons for this I guess but the main one being the ratio of stewards and police required for adults versus juneniles. Before I arrived at the club we did a deal were juveniles got in for a £1. I won't go into the nuts and bolts of it but we found out, to our cost, that we had to have a really high ratio of stewards/police to children in the ground. It is because they are essentially unsupervised. It is a long and quite boring story but we simply can't do it, the costs involved to the club, and I must stress this is not loss of ticket revenue but additional stewarding and police make it financially impossible. We also don't want lots of young and unsupervised children in the stadium and I am not being a killjoy or stopping kids from supporting the team but were there to be a problem, an evacuation etc then it would be simply unsafe for us to have a high number of unsupervised youngsters involved. This is why we are proposing the deal where under 12's are supervised. I know it is worst case scenario planning but as a responsible club, we must think along these lines. As regards say 14 and above, I think there needs to be a cost involved of some description hence a really competative price around say £60/£70 a season.

I just don't think it sounds right...I don't know why. Happy to take the view though.

Ok, we know that 78% of those who answered our survey said that they had come to FP before they were 11. Indeed the overwhelming majority were between the ages of 5-11. They were 'lifted over' by their folks or other family member of friends. What is we tried to bring a modern approach to this - importantly we need to be bringing young people & juveniles to the ground. It is just common sense. We are thinking about introducing new layers of pricing. So maybe a free 12 or under ST when an adult or concession ticket is bought, thsi is purely for ST, would not be replicated for PATG. Then a standard price - say approx £70?? for all 13-16 year old tickets, irrespective of where you sit. We'd maintain the current cooper deal as I really want to push the family stand. We have not done this before because we want to encourage families into the Cooper stand however, after listening to feedback, we are considering the above as one aspect of our new pricing. If we do this - we need a name for the package. We want to get the nostalgia of lifting your son or daughter over the turnstile without clearly having to do it. There are more ideas but that is the first I will share.

In respect of ideas and opportunities for next year, I have been working along side the Supporters Advisory Committee to look to refresh what we can offer to supporters to encourage them to renew and importantly to bring along lapsed fans, families and young people. I am happy to give you a flavour of what we are considering if you are prepared to feedback in a constructive way. We have been looking at the responses from the survey and speaking to supporters independently to get some insight as to what we could be offereing, what ideally people really want and importantly what the club can offer. Although not ready to be fully shared with everyone just yet, the results of our supporters questionnaire confirmed much of what we already suspected. I have detailed a selection of answers below that relate to season tickets. FYI, over 900 people responded so a robust number. · 78% of all ST holders came to their first match before the age of 11. · 55% were between 5-11 years old · Overwhelmingly ST holders said they came because a family member of friend brought them and they were ‘lifted over’ · Only 3% came via their schools (this is clearly an area of massive opportunity to improve) · 92% of ST holders said that tickets were either Excellent (23%), Good (39%) or Fair (30%) value for money · Overwhelmingly (71%) of non ST holders or non renewals said that the reason they did not buy was because they could not go to every game · 21% of Non season holders said they were too expensive Our ideas for pricing and initiatives have been focused around these results and obviously our learnings from previous years.... I will post some of what we are looking at if I get some honest, constructive feedback.....deal?

Joeboy - you raise an interesting point, one that we have struggled with a bit in recent seasons. You'll probably know that Sunday was the first time, certainly since I arrived here in October 08, that we have done something like this. We decided to do it for a number of reasons. It was a little bit of a test to see if there was any demand, we wanted to offer supporters the opportunity to try something different, we wanted to see if there was a market for such days and if there was incremental revenue we could drive through the bar and I guess we knew that there would be supporters who for one reason or another, would not travel and would watch in a local pub. There is no correct view, my own for what it is worth is that those who wanted to travel did travel and the feedback from the staff who worked on the day is that they suspected most who showed up on the day would most likely have watched at home and were not the usual local pub crowd. Not sure if we will do it again.....hopefully 'when' we get to the Semi Final.... it will be a minor headache to decide....

Germination covers. Specially designed, they allow for light and growth.

I have to say, probably not very PC to do so, but I laughed at this post. An excellent film! Leeann

Given the frustrations of today, I felt it appropriate to post. Of course we are not happy about the way Mike's loan has played out. I can tell you with certainty that this is perhaps one of the most disappointing days I have had here at the club since I started. Should we have waited on the ITC (player paperwork clearance from the SFA) before we went live with the loan news? With the benefit of hindsight? Absolutely. This has been a harsh lesson learned for us all. The truth is that we were too keen to get the 'good news' out to our fans first, via our own media channels before it was tweeted, put on facebook or posted on news websites by others so, with what we genuinely believed to be a relatively straightforward registration, we published without clearance. We all know how this has turned out in the end and it is not pleasing in any way. I will say that I think many of the comments posted here in relation to this loan to be really harsh on the club and the people involved. I understand your frustrations but I would urge some perspective. We have taken positive advantage of the cross border technicalities very much to our benefit in the last 2 years. Darren Randolph, Chris Porter, Giles Coke and others. But on this occasion, we missed the fact that an emergency loan within another association counts as 'played for' when it would not have if it had been here in Scotland. I am really disappointed we missed it but it has happened to us and we are not the first and nor will we be the last to find that we have interpreted the rules incorrectly. This is not an excuse – just the truth. What I would say to you all though is that I believe our club is in a really positive position in respect of contracts length, players tied to the club and a strategy that sits alongside this transfer planning. There has been a conscious change in direction on length of deals offered, positions and overall development. I am saying this tonight not to balance the above situation but to highlight that we do have a plan in respect of our squad and we do know where we are going with it. With the best will in the world, mistakes, oversights, rules that are misinterpreted happen. So to move forward, we have an open forum on Monday night – if you want to come along and air your views then I would urge you to do so. Cooper Bar, Monday 24th at 7pm – main topic League reconstruction but clearly other issues will be covered. We are the first club to speak directly to our supporters in respect of the SPL reconstruction so come along – after the main discussion there are no topics off the table as far as I am concerned. I will happily answer, to the best of my ability, any questions you have. I have been quietly reading these boards now for over 2 years and in that time I have tried to utilise this direct route to supporters positively for the club. The posts generate vigorous debate and ultimately offer insights and ideas that we might not have occurred to us. I do think though that some people wait for something, anything inside the club to go wrong and then thrive on the opportunity to cut us down. The posts and debate can be hugely positive but also sometimes hugely demoralizing. I am not saying that we don't want to be criticised or questioned, far from it. I mean this now as much as I ever have - please speak to me directly, either on match day, by email or by phone and I will answer your questions. You may well not like what you hear but I will do my best to answer you. I will finish off by saying that tomorrow we have a match here against Hibernian, we need to focus on the game now and give Stuart and the team who are here our full support to help them win on the day. We are trying our very best to get players in before the window closes but we will wait this time until we have the clearance before we tell you all – a harsh lesson learned. Leeann

Thanks for the tips on listings, I have had a few emails to tell me pretty much the same thing so thanks again and we'll change it for the next items. On the subject of email...I originally said emails to bids@motherwellfc.co.uk Sorry, put an S in the email that should not have been there. Correct address is bid@motherwellfc.co.uk Onto the shirts, they are doing really well with quite a few watchers so I expect these to finish strongly. We'll get other bits up too well before Christmas. Leeann

Mmm, I have had a few emails already to that address. Let me check. In the meantime send any questions to commercial@motherwellfc.co.uk Leeann

Match sponsorship - accept the comments. We might try a different tact here in future. Alan has been tasked with putting these items on twitter and facebook as well as online. We will start to promote in the match programme and also make note of the auctions where appropriate. No doubt we'll get better at this as the weeks go on, we don't actively sell on ebay so we are seeing what works. I plan to hand this project over to someone soon to develop. Some of the items we are considering which would raise more considerable funds are listed below. These are only topline ideas at this stage so don't email me if you don't see all of these through the year! Mmany more 'iconic' type items are to made available to buy. The rest of the poppy shirts will be available and in general you can make an offer to the club via bids@motherwellfc.co.uk if there is something specific you would like to try and buy. I think that if we choose well and if managed properly we could generate thousands of pounds across the year, all much needed funds which can go to developing key areas of the stadium and also will help our kit man Alan purchase some items he needs. In terms of using ebay - you can buy and pick up locally, pay locally etc so avoiding postage and fees. Other options would be cheque or direct card direct to the club. However popular our own website is, ebay is more appropriate and has a bigger reach hence the descision. I have discussed this, looked at the pro's and con's and we think ebay is the way forward. Become a registered player amateur player with the club (squad number, website, programme etc) this is dependent on SPL rules but we think do-able Official renaming of a stand (The Robert Smith stand) for a year Train with the team for a day / Be a player for the day Assist the kitman for a day Assist the Press Officer for a day Travel on the team bus to an away game / get hospitality Be a player in the official squad photo in 2011/12 Have your own personalised trackside advertising board Be the PA announcer / DJ (I.e. bring your own music / announce the teams etc) Be the very first person to have a new kit Matchday VIP (Ground Tour, meet the players and manager, Meals and Tickets and pick your MOTM)

The match sponsorship did not work so we won't try that again. Some shirts to grab your attention. We have 16 of these available. We have selected Stephen's and Darren's shirts for the live auction. Others available as described. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...=STRK:MESELX:IT http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...=STRK:MESELX:IT If anyone wants to put a link onto FirParkCorner then I would appreciate it. LD

Evening, I am more than happy to answer any questions on ticket numbers directly. The answer to the question regarding number of season tickets sold is as follows: Just over 3,200 sold this year, up an amazing 13% yoy, much of which is down the the reinvigoration of the cooper and the family deal. I can't remember off the top of my head tonight the split by stand but I will check this at some point next week and post. Our overall strategy to include supporters, the relaunch of all things community and generally working to bring new supporters (importantly kids) is starting to look as though it is working... Happy to comment if you want more info. Leeann