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Guest BirdonaMaguire

Summary of yesterday's meeting.

Sheffield Wednesday Supporters Society Limited was closed down by the Financial Conduct Authority as a result of zero returns being made during the Chairmanships of Darryl Keys, John Gath and Charlie Dickens. Annual returns are a condition of Industrial and Provident Society Status, and are the responsibility of the company secretary. Correspondence from the FCA was sent and never received (or lost) by Wednesdayite.

A new company has been formed 'Wednesdayite Limited' which is limited by guarantee, a non profit making company. The directors of the company have all transferred from their previous positions at the Sheffield Wednesday Supporters Society.

Wednesdayite will continue to operate all of it's current services to supporters and the community.

Current membership stands at 552

Of the current membership 88% have mandated the Board to continue asking questions of the clubs current Board of Directors. However it was confirmed thatin the last 12 months not a single request, email or letter was received by the Board asking questions of the club, even though the Board wrote to the club demanding answers about the charge placed on the stadium (despite our being told at the time that it was being done on behalf of members

Less than half of the membership supported making donations to The Wednesday. Cricket Club

Wednesdayite are taking legal advice regarding what happens to the circa £30,000.00 of cash held by The Supporters Society. The Society rules state that this should be transferred to local community causes, but they are establishing whether it can be transferred to the new entity.

The car park takings are up almost £400 a match on average since Paul Holmes started taking the cash payments.

All of the directors stood for re election and all were approved. The directors were asked to outline their contributions during the last 3 years, and what they intended to do going forwards.

Two directors were not in attendance, Peter Shaw was on holiday and Darryl Keys is no longer in residence in the Uk. Peter will continue to do the programme notes on behalf of Wednesdayite, and is looking into organising an event next year.

Darryls position was reiterated that if the society needs to make room for directors coming in he will stand down.

One of the directors is also a key man in the Wednesday. Cricket Club, and was asked if Wednesdayite stopped funding the. Cricket Club would he step down from Wednesdayite. He stated that he would have to consider that should the situation arise.

Can I add that Wednesdayite will continue to have my support while they continue to work closely with the Community and provide great services like coaches, car parks and matchday lounges for families. Can I also place on record my appreciation of the efforts of John Gath, Jeff Williams and Paul Holmes for the incredible lengths they go to in order to provide the services they do to members, the Community and fans in general.

552 members, laughable really, as for getting struck off, that is pathetic, shows that the people in situ were neglectful in their duties to the members.

Makes you question their motives.

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Maybe they were jut fans who were a bit out of their depth administratively or just fans who tried their best but unfortunately got it wrong...?

Not sure of a possible motive to put hours of genuine effort in that many did for almost zero return other than the knowledge that they did SOME good...?

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Guest Deleted member

Not just no return.

Continued abuse from a section of the fan base too ignorant to look into what was the truth about the organisation, choosing to believe the rubbish thrown at them from the old Board

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Guest BirdonaMaguire

Maybe they were jut fans who were a bit out of their depth administratively or just fans who tried their best but unfortunately got it wrong...?

Not sure of a possible motive to put hours of genuine effort in that many did for almost zero return other than the knowledge that they did SOME good...?

 

 

There is an accountant on their board of directors, this form is meat and drink to him, so that doesn't wash, it was NEGLIGENT!

 

Anyway on the £30k, i assume the bank have frozen this?

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Guest Deleted member

I believe the 30k has been transferred to the anual end of season Vegas account .

 

552 members is pretty poor, just out of interest anyone know how many members Wednesdayite had when Nigel and Eddie took the helm ? 

 

Nobody knows Charlie

 

Thats why Eddie and I chose to go with a proper membership system, where people renewed once a season and were properly accounted for, rather than a system you overlooked where members were paying double, some members were accounted for twice, some members were not members at all and hadn't paid a subscription for years, some members were dead, and some had just joined to make sure the vote for the shares to be transfrerred to Milan went through.

 

Hope that answers your query.

 

 

 

Now - why didn't you ensure the returns were made to the FCA?

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Need some answers on the £30k really, that is quite a lot of money that Wednesday fans have paid one way or another to then give away to Prince Charles under the bono vacantia rules. Pay for Prince Harry's bithday pressie I guess

 

Do you need to restore the old company to the register to access this and even then under the articles of the old Supporters Society under the Industrial and Provident Society rules this should be transferred to a local charity, technically can the new Wednesdayite Limited simply obtain this money from what in my mind would be a frozen account

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To have missed one deadline or reporting requirement is acceptable but to have missed several and then permit the company to be struck off when there was £30k in the accounts doesn't look the best. As directors of the company each one takes responsibility collectively, none of the people who were directors at the relevant time can really hide behind others or finger point,

 

You accept the position of director presumably in the knowledge of what the responsibilities are, if you just think it was just a fancy title then I have little sympathy if you then got pulled up or get questioned about a potentially lost £30k

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Guest Undercover_Owl

£30k frozen assets of supporters money, struck off, missed accounts, carpark money being nicked, accusations of fraud (the membership system allowing people to vote who shouldn't, dead people still registered etc).

How, in the name of all that is holy, has the police not been brought in to investigate all this and the entire list of current and former directors banned from having anything to do with the current new company? Its easy to point the finger at others if you were involved then but think you are squeaky clean but IMHO not a single one of you should be allowed anywhere near a public company or funds ever again. You're honestly not telling me that missed accounts year on year, car park funds not tallying etc didn't register with each and every one of you at some point? You seem quick to point out that membership hadn't been accounted properly and that was sorted so why were the actual accounts being shot to crap and all the rest of it? You must have had something about you to pick up on the membership issue so why not everything else?

Your only saving grace would have been if you had called in the police and the press for a full public enquiry at that point. But you didn't. If you had then you could point the finger. But nobody did. You kept running it like a boys club.

For the sake of the few hundred members id say just pack it in now. The carpark is being sold anyway and the funds are frozen. Use all your efforts to try and do the decent thing and get those assets transferred into local charities to go some way to make up for the loss of the good work that you do in local groups and call it a day.

And never get involved again.

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Guest BirdonaMaguire

The silence of the directors who allowed this neglect of the members to happen is astonishing, I assume Daryl's excuse is he was 3k miles away? But distance isn't allowed as a stick to beat him with apparently, Hugeowl what's your excuse? Attica? Grandad? eDDie? Dicky, Pah etc etc

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Clearly major questions need to be asked as to how this sorry state of affairs came about.  The FSA/FCA don't just take action without warning though, letters must have been sent so what happened to them and why were they ignored?

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Nobody knows Charlie

 

Thats why Eddie and I chose to go with a proper membership system, where people renewed once a season and were properly accounted for, rather than a system you overlooked where members were paying double, some members were accounted for twice, some members were not members at all and hadn't paid a subscription for years, some members were dead, and some had just joined to make sure the vote for the shares to be transfrerred to Milan went through.

 

Hope that answers your query.

 

 

 

Now - why didn't you ensure the returns were made to the FCA?

Simples , Because it was not within my remit of being stand in Chairman, i agreed to step in at the request of the majority of the board including Eddie, Dicky, JG, Paul, Jeff, Dave,Darryl, P Shaw  etc  everyone except you i think if my memory serves me correctly. 

 

My agreement to take up the role was with one caveat, and that was that i would not be involved in any admin duties as thats just not my thang and i was assured that everything would be taken care of regarding these matters . 

 

But apart from that most of my time was taken up by two disruptive members of the board and which you Nigel was the biggest culprit, you can guess who the other one was 

 

 

As regards your assessment  of the membership numbers   lol i am  confident the number was  well over 1000 when you took over .

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Guest Deleted member

The silence of the directors who allowed this neglect of the members to happen is astonishing, I assume Daryl's excuse is he was 3k miles away? But distance isn't allowed as a stick to beat him with apparently, Hugeowl what's your excuse? Attica? Grandad? eDDie? Dicky, Pah etc etc

What do you want to know?

I will try to answer anything to the best of my ability.

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Guest Deleted member

Simples , Because it was not within my remit of being stand in Chairman, i agreed to step in at the request of the majority of the board including Eddie, Dicky, JG, Paul, Jeff, Dave,Darryl, P Shaw etc everyone except you i think if my memory serves me correctly.

My agreement to take up the role was with one caveat, and that was that i would not be involved in any admin duties as thats just not my thang and i was assured that everything would be taken care of regarding these matters .

But apart from that most of my time was taken up by two disruptive members of the board and which you Nigel was the biggest culprit, you can guess who the other one was

As regards your assessment of the membership numbers lol i am confident the number was well over 1000 when you took over .

Haha bless you, more spin than Windy Miller....

Speak to anybody at Supporters Direct, and any Supporters Trust in the country and they will tell you numbers went up and were at their highest in times of crisis at their club.

Regards disruption from within, I've learnt not to get involved in pulling Wednesdayite to pieces on here, as all it does is feed the idiots who think it should be disbanded.

.

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Guest Undercover_Owl

1) Have you any proof of who was stealing from the car park money?

2) Is there enough evidence to report it to the police?

3) How is it possible not one director picked up on the fact that accounts were not filed? How did all the directors fail to see the warning letters?

4) Do you consider there to be enough evidence of fraud in the way members were allowed to vote who were not paid members and the amount of members who were registered to vote who were no longer members etc? Why was this not reported to the police and the stock market if this was discovered to be happening whilst Wednesdayite was a major shareholder?

5) Why were AGM's not held when they were supposed to happen annually? AGM's are exactly the place for one director to question the other directors and other staff to find out how the jobs were going, for example how admin was, how finances and books were going and to raise any suspected issues.

6) Do 500 members really represent a high enough number of members to have a mandate to represent all fans under the name 'Wednesdayite'?

7) Why wasn't the £20,000 in credit not used better in community schemes?

8) Do you really think it is in the best interests of the people who gave their money to Wednesdayite to now see that money being potentially transferred into a new Ltd company made up of the very same directors and staff who all were present in one respect or another whilst the old company was busy physically fighting each other, taking out restraining orders against each other, being to blame for the company being thrown out of supporters direct, not filing accounts, not holding AGM's, standing by while tr company closed and funds were frozen in a bank account etc?

9) Does the new Ltd company and directors have any right or legal position to assume the identity of Wednesdayite and assume the funds, members etc of the old company?

10) Why should fans of the club, members, the public or the club hold any faith in the same set of people continuing in their roles, regardless of who thinks they were better than who you all played some part in the downfall of Wednesdayite either through neglecting your duties or not recognising the issues and reporting them or sorting them.

This should get you started.

Edit: follow up question. Do you think I'm an idiot because I think Wednesdayite should be abolished?

Edited by Undercover_Owl
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Some very good questions there 'Undercover_Owl'.

 

But I must pull you up on one thing that slightly discredits an otherwise pertinent post, and that's the utter pigswill about having "...a mandate to represent all fans under the name 'Wednesdayite' ". That mindless cliche is a false and easy cheap shot repeatedly offered during the darkest days under Dave Allen and Kaven Walker for the consumption of the impressionable and dim. And you're clearly better than that.

 

Those with an agenda to see Wednesdayite disbanded needn't be quite so zealous. The lack of political motivation that always increased membership in the past (the club's former chairman was ironically the best recruiter the society ever had) and the endless in-fighting is doing the job for you.

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Guest Undercover_Owl

I have no tenuous links to former directors. And those are all valid questions.

Make of it what you will, it's not me who has any explaining to do.

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