The Well Society

[Dezz]

Just a thought on the double ur money, I've just been tidying my house and picked up £1.63 in coppers. If we all looked out our dross and put it in a bag, could we arrange a drop off one home game? This could amount to a couple of hundred pounds which Les would then double - maybe not a lot but every penny counts.

Was there not a bit of chat about a bucket collection at upcoming home games for people to chuck a few quid into? Not much help if you don't go to games I guess but I'm sure the club would take any form of donation.

 

It's a good idea though. We have 9 home games before the end of the season, if 2,000 home punters put in £1 each that would be £36,000 once Les doubles it! I think that's around 25% of the annual We'll Society income so not an insignificant sum.

[rambunctious]

I'm not sure if this would be feasible or even allowed, but could the club ask fans if they would like to make a £1 donation to the 'Well Society when they are making a purchase in the ticket office and club shop?

 

I know Dominos pizza ask if you'd like to round up your order price to the nearest pound on the app when making a purchase with the extra going to some charity. The hotel I was staying in on my recent holiday asked if we'd like to make a donation to a charity when we were checking out. If they do it why shouldn't we?

 

There must be thousands of transactions each year in the office and club shop (10,000+ maybe?) and those would be great opportunities to ask for a donation. It's definitely harder to say no to someone when you are just over the counter and have to look them in the eye.

 

Even putting those charity collection thingys (like the ones you get in shops) on the counters for folk to put their change in would generate a bit of extra cash.

[numpty]

Even putting those charity collection thingys (like the ones you get in shops) on the counters for folk to put their change in would generate a bit of extra cash.

This seems like a good idea to me. If people just chucked their copper change in there whenever they bought something it would soon add up.

[Kmcalpin]

My calculation is very rough and based on assumptions I know but I reckon we can now knock off about £430k from Les' debt after the transfer window and some £215k from John Boyle's debt. On top of that say we, the fans, raise £130k this year through donations etc and Les doubles that I think our outstanding debt would be something along the lines of:

 

Les: £870k

John Boyle £115k

 

Thats not bad progress with the prospect of more transfer income to come. I wonder how the split will work after JB has been paid off?

 

Some good fund raising ideas coming up and we really do need to maximise this in the next couple of months or so to take full advantage of Les' double your money offer.

[Last post by:]

My calculation is very rough and based on assumptions I know but I reckon we can now knock off about £430k from Les' debt after the transfer window and some £215k from John Boyle's debt. On top of that say we, the fans, raise £130k this year through donations etc and Les doubles that I think our outstanding debt would be something along the lines of:

 

Les: £870k

John Boyle £115k

 

Thats not bad progress with the prospect of more transfer income to come. I wonder how the split will work after JB has been paid off?

 

Some good fund raising ideas coming up and we really do need to maximise this in the next couple of months or so to take full advantage of Les' double your money offer.

This situation of the income from Marvin transfer and the debt we owe former owners is like getting a big PPI rebate, checking your balance and still being overdrawn to f*ck!

[Lobey_Dosser]

Did 60% of the income generated from Erwin, Hall, Leitch(?) and the initial Marvin transfer go to Les and Boyle?

 

While I'm happy we are on the right track, I wonder how much of the debt relates to Les' excessive spending on a 30+ man squad during his first 6-9 months.

[Kmcalpin]

This situation of the income from Marvin transfer and the debt we owe former owners is like getting a big PPI rebate, checking your balance and still being overdrawn to f*ck!

I don't think its quite that bad. Yes, we're still overdrawn but are paying our debt off and the outstanding sum is reducing considerably. Plans are in place to repay the remainder of the outstanding sums.

[superward]

Guess it depends when all the money comes in also. We could be getting in instalments from the other clubs.

[stuwell]

Was there not a bit of chat about a bucket collection at upcoming home games for people to chuck a few quid into? Not much help if you don't go to games I guess but I'm sure the club would take any form of donation.

.

I'm sure at most home games the youth team have buckets so wouldn't like to deprive them of income.

[Burn_Broomfield]

I still fully expect Les to never call in his full debt. Proving we are sustainable enough to pay wìll see it wiped out by the family.

[superward]

Saw Les and his wife sponsoring something at the Bothwell Scarecrow festival last week. So he is still about.

[Busta Nut]

Fucksake did I miss the scarecrow festival?

[Shaka]

WTF is the Scarecrow festival and is it a popular thing? Was driving through Brora last week and wondered why there were scarecrows in every other shop & garden. Just thought its cause they a bit backward and rapey

[Brazilian]

Saw Les and his wife sponsoring something at the Bothwell Scarecrow festival last week. So he is still about.

Was there some doubt over his existence?

 

He was at the Hearts game, looking well enough

 

Unless Irma has caught him

[Jay]

Sorry guys, for some reason the forum isn't letting me multi-quote this morning so bear with me while I up my post count by three or four...

 

The other way to look at it is 1.56 million is all it took to save our club.

 

When you look at the money thrown around in football, it's peanuts - but could have put us under.

 

Slightly more than half a Marv.

 

I do think this is a good way to look at it. At the end of the day, the lack of progress made by the Well Society - for whatever reason - meant Les having to step in. As a result, we now have a fan-owned club which is stable, largely on the up, and has a little bit of debt to pay off to a man who, by and large, has the club's best interests at heart (even if he did go a bit daft with transfers etc!).

 

[Jay]

Was there not a bit of chat about a bucket collection at upcoming home games for people to chuck a few quid into? Not much help if you don't go to games I guess but I'm sure the club would take any form of donation.

 

It's a good idea though. We have 9 home games before the end of the season, if 2,000 home punters put in £1 each that would be £36,000 once Les doubles it! I think that's around 25% of the annual We'll Society income so not an insignificant sum.

 

This was something that was meant to be in place for the first home game of the season. It doesn't seem to have come to fruition so it's something I've chased up this morning. You're completely right - on the face of it, a handful of change from the odd punter doesn't seem like much, but it all adds up and this is something we should be pursuing.

 

EDIT: There are already plans for this to happen at the Aberdeen cup game to begin with, and then we will take it from there. Volunteers are sought for it though so if anyone doesn't mind holding a bucket for a wee while pre-match give me a shout!

[Jay]

I still fully expect Les to never call in his full debt. Proving we are sustainable enough to pay wìll see it wiped out by the family.

 

From a purely personal point view (ie. not the views of the Well Society!), I tend to go along with this. As difficult a character as Les seems to be at times, with first hand experience from recording the podcast with him, I don't think there's any doubt that his priority is the well-being of the club and the success of the Well Society. The very fact that he proposed the Double Your Money offer suggests that those aspects are far more important to him than getting back his money. How much he receives back in total, and how much is wiped out if any, remains to be seen - but if ever we were going to owe a relatively small amount of money to someone, I can't think of better circumstances than owing it to a man who is mostly concerned with the success of the fan-ownership model.

 

That said, we still can't underestimate the Double Your Money offer and it's pretty much about now that those who have dithered over the Well Society should hopefully be nailing their colours to the mast.

 

The Well Society now invests in Motherwell Football Club. It's easy to sometimes forget that clubs in Scotland still have investment, because we're told so often how little cash there is in the game. But the vast majority of clubs around us have benefactors - Ross County have Roy McGregor dipping into his pocked every January if the side are struggling, Partick Thistle have the lottery-winning Weirs, you can essentially go through the clubs and highlight those who invest crucial amounts of money. The Well Society is now on that list.

 

The Well Society invests six digits every year which is a huge amount of money for our club. This is an answer to a question about finance on the Well Society website (so it's nothing secret):

 

The money which is given by the Well Society to the Club is an investment, as owners, into the running and the improvement of the Club. As it stands, the Club currently invest approximately £2m into the playing and football department, which include players, scouting, coaching, young players, management, and medical team. The Club also currently invests approximately £130,000 into the Youth Academy. Over and above the footballing aspect of the Club, there are significant costs committed to the stadium upkeep (£110,000), Pitch Improvements (£123,000), Stewarding, Policing, Ambulance etc (£200,000), and training facilities and travel (£115,000). The list is not exhaustive, however it does indicate the level of expenditure required.

 

So the vast majority of money the club has (around £2m) goes into the playing and football department. Although we can't say for certain where John Smith's fiver a month specifically goes, it's logical to assume that if the Society provides over 5% of the club's total income, then about 5% of the playing budget is paid for by Well Society members. That's Cedric Kipre's contract extension, or Liam Grimshaw's one year deal. We're talking about proper game-changing amounts that we all then reap the rewards of as supporters.

 

If every 'Well fan at an average home game was putting in a fiver a month, there'd be about £100,000 extra for the Society to invest. Again, that's a huge sum and suddenly our playing budget looks far better, or more stadium improvements can be undertaken, or whatever else is deemed necessary.

 

We're now past the point of "is the Society viable?" It is, and it's currently working well - as I think is evidenced by what's going on both on and off the park at the moment. However, the more fans now sign up to the Society, the more money the Society will have to invest, and more prosperous our club will be. In the past, it was quite difficult to ascertain exactly where a member's money was going (which is why I paid £300 in 2012 and didn't start repayments again til fan-ownership was actually secured) but now you can actually draw a line between the money that you pay into the Well Society and big Kipre getting offered a contract extension. In fact, given the club's more sensible way of budgeting now, you can probably draw a line now between the money raised by Well Society members and staying in the division.

 

There are still doubts over those involved with the Society, still criticisms over how the Society itself operates, still a lot of improvements that could be made. But the basic, fundamental truth is that the more money the Well Society raises in a year, the more money our club has to spend on the playing squad and other aspects. If the Society succeeds, the club succeeds - it's as simple as that, and that's a message we're going to be hammering home in the next few weeks.

[mio]

I still fully expect Les to never call in his full debt. Proving we are sustainable enough to pay wìll see it wiped out by the family.

 

"The Family"???

What have we got ourselves roped into? What next? Dom Thomas waking up with a Horses head in his bed?

[daver]

So does the Double your Money arrangement double the amount going towards the running of the club or reduce the amount owed to Les (which I thought was the case)?

[Goggles & Flippers]

Only criticism I have is Les announced this in what March? We're now in September and I've yet to see some concerted and tangible effort to capitalise on this offer. You'll appreciate Jay, I've brought this up with you directly too.

[Kmcalpin]

So does the Double your Money arrangement double the amount going towards the running of the club or reduce the amount owed to Les (which I thought was the case)?

Les's "double your money" offer will be deducted from the amount he is owed. In other words he is willing to accept less.

[superward]

Fucksake did I miss the scarecrow festival?

It missed you mate

[superward]

Was there some doubt over his existence?

 

He was at the Hearts game, looking well enough

 

Unless Irma has caught him

Nah, I just meant I hadn't heard much of him recently. Not that he had popped his clogs!

[Jay]

Only criticism I have is Les announced this in what March? We're now in September and I've yet to see some concerted and tangible effort to capitalise on this offer. You'll appreciate Jay, I've brought this up with you directly too.

 

Absolutely. We'd probably disagree on how much has been done in that regard (7s tournament, whisky day, negotiating large one off donations from certain members, auctions, revamped benefits package & recruitment campaign, MFC Podcast book etc) but there's no question not enough has been done over the calendar year. In truth, it is essentially impossible to ever get to a "did enough" point with such a thing, so work can always been done to raise more funds.

[Big Stall]

 

Absolutely. We'd probably disagree on how much has been done in that regard (7s tournament, whisky day, negotiating large one off donations from certain members, auctions, revamped benefits package & recruitment campaign, MFC Podcast book etc) but there's no question not enough has been done over the calendar year. In truth, it is essentially impossible to ever get to a "did enough" point with such a thing, so work can always been done to raise more funds.

 

 

The recruitment campaign is where I struggle to see tangible differences between what is being done now and what was done before. I've noticed tables with fliers on them in the east stand and some other fliers in the toilets but really thats about it.

 

As for the rest of the things, they are all well and good but if the recruitment campaign is not correct and not touching the fan base then how are we going to capitalise on the opportunity that Les has presented. I dare say that there are plenty of 'well fans who have no interest in playing 7 asides, whisky, podcasts may be beyond them and they are not 'high rollers'. Have these guys really been thought of and targeted?