peasepud

What position, if any, do you occupy within NUST? Are you some kind of designated spokesman? What I'm getting at is whether the various bits of advice and information that you're giving carries any kind of official weight, or whether you're an ordinary member of NUST just giving your own personal perspective. Im an original member of the committee, as is Shellshock and Tom_NUFC, both members on here.

the answer has to be........."the best we consider available at the time" And if they were successful now, who would it be? Getting way, way ahead of the situation here. Exactly, that is off in the future and frankly down to the President and board to decide. No doubt part of their election campaigns would include all of those details so technically its then down to the fans to ultimately decide who we go for.

Thats a hell of a lot of work on your first day Thats what I like to see a hard worker, you'll get my vote when the day comes.

Im with Madras here, the idea of a wage structure is a good one, lower basic with high performance related would be my ideal scenario however you cant just walk into any business and tell the staff they're taking a 50% pay cut, contracts are contracts and as long as there are some there on £100k p/w thenyou'll be hard pushed to convince the big names out there to play for 40k. You can try restructuring peoples pay but it would ultimately have to be seen as a winner for them which in itself would therefore have the potential to cost you a lot more in the long run.

One of the aims of the Trust is to get the club back into the community with football tournaments, plenty for kids etc, a by product of that is the spotting of new talent at an early age.

If you could do that then Id appreciate it, I dont want to appear like an arsey sod but the thought of me having to repeat stuff regularly instead of posters reading the thread is not a good one especially as Im doing this on a number of message boards. Any help in that way would be appreciated.

Im sorry but I cant keep repeating answers to earlier questions, its all there in the thread and in the info we've put up so far.

Do you want to have a rethink of exactly what Im talking about and come back on that?

I think someone hasnt read any of the stuff, we would own 100% of the club

If we did manage to buy the club and you were voted in as President. What would be the very first thing you would do/ change?

Basically, its being ran in two stages, the first is to raise an amount which is seen as a sensible "proof of intent" then we will sit down with MA, do due diligence and agree a price. We will not be held to ransom over this, what will be paid is a fair price for the club depending on its current financial state etc. You're right though it would be far too easy for us to raise £200m and shout about it just to then have Ashley say "the price is £200m take it or leave it". If that happened then we'd leave it, buying the club for over the odds would just mean we'd all be screwed in the long term, ideal scenario is we leave the money sitting there until he sees sense but otherwise we hand everyone their money back and give up. All we've lost is 5% of our deposits so on a £1500 investment that would be £7.50. Thats a gamble Im willing to take. We raise enough to prove we're serious, talk to him, agree a price, raise that, buy the club and then pull in the rest. Obviously we'll already have an understanding from those that have shown an interest as to just how much in total we will have but nobody other than those directly involved would know that.

Like I said in the post above, I too had concerns about that however one member one vote is fundamental to the way this works. If it doesnt work then that just means we have to find more investors or it ultimately fails however from my understanding it isnt failing so far. Most people are just happy to have their vote, those that think £1500 is spare change for buying a drink with dont have a problem in sticking in ten times that. If you base it on the amount you put in then its simply a share issue and the likes of Shepherd etc will walk in pay in £10m and take control of the club again, overriding the fans descisions. If say it was one vote per £1500 then Shepherd would only need to put in £1.5m to have 1000 votes, you me and the rest of us on here wouldnt stand a chance, every vote raised would go the way he wanted. The board would end up being Shepherd, Shepherd Jr, Shepherds brother etc. Even the 6 others on the board would end up being the next 6 that had paid the most. True fans ownership means making all equal, changing that to try and ensure we get the money would (in my opinion) be counter productive and not result in fans having the say they required or the future we see for the club.

Any alternative bid that was made would be a rival bid of course it would. However how that was perceived and dealt with would depend on the bid. If for instance Moat reappeared then, as far as Im concerned I cant see how that would change our plans as we know our model is better for the club. if however some massive businessman came in and said "Ill buy the club and give the supporters 50% for free" then obviously that would need to be viewed differently. It would still need to be assessed to see exactly what was involved. If that's what an acceptable bid would require, then I don't think you are going to see any acceptable bids. We need businessmen running the show not lunatics. By lunatic I mean the benevolent businessman not the fans - just to be clear. You knew exactly what I meant by that, every bid that comes in is obviously a rival bid, thats not arrogance or anything else you want to portray it as. If the fans have raised x million and are in discussions with the owner then we're not going to say "oh forget it then, someone else has come in, lets stop and hope they're going to do things right". Anyone (and that includes us) who buys this club has the potential to be the best thing to happen or the worst ever and frankly we will not know the answer until years after they've completed the purchase. For us to just stop our bid when some multibillionaire appears would be more foolish than not bothering with the bid at all. I used the "give 50% to the fans for free" as an example, something that would be such an amazing offer that we'd have to look at it. not just blindly continue down the path. Does that make it worse for the club by default? I'm certainly not in a position to say anyone is wrong, but I don't know how anyone can know which is better for the club without having complete knowledge of what the other parties are planning and willing to do. I would say it does, heres a "hypothetical" scenario, man pays 30% of purchase price then takes the other 70% out of club over next two years to pay balance, all money during that time is channeled into repaying this, no purchases, more redundancies etc. Club finally repays debt and man owns club outright, man then sells club on for profit on his original stake. Apart from our bid, any potential purchaser does not need to say what their motives are or what they plan long term. Anyone with the cash can come in and do what they like. This bid is obviously different, the fans know what the plan is, the fans own the club, the fans elect who will run it, the fans have their peers on the board and can ensure things are done properly inside. If things arent going right and we, the fans can see that the current President is not competent then there are methods in place to remove them through the correct channels. Thats the difference, if it goes wrong at the moment all we can do is moan about it, make a banner or go on SSN and shout for the heads. Under fan ownership we can simply muster the required number of voters and call for them to be replaced. For obvious reasons that in itself isnt a simple process but its there to ensure that the fans keep control and can remove anyone thats abusing their power or acting incorrectly. Firstly, Id say you need to reread everything and see what other options are given over the coming days / weeks, the minimum investment is £1500 not £2500 although I agree finding £1500 is only a little easier than £2500. The pension option may be something you'd consider or grouping with a couple of family members to get one between you, 5 family members and its £300 each. At the end of the day though theres no problem if those that cant invest dont, as said earlier this isnt meant to be a "go out and sell your car, your club needs the cash" scenario. Those that dont invest are no different to those that dont, we're all fans, all passionate that will never change. You never know, maybe in a year or two's time you will have some spare and think "ok I'll go for it now". The point about why would people invest more than the minimum if its one member one vote? I too was sceptical of this however its true that they do, no doubt over the next few weeks you will see examples of it as celebrity and business fans do just that. Its happened already and will no doubt keep happening. Its pride in the club, its wanting to be part of something and feeling that they can make a difference. At the same time they still get a return on their money so its not even like they're handing it over in a donation. Maybe we need to look at it like a charity, when theres an appeal we'll put our hand in our pockets and pull out some cash. If that appeal is for someone you know or something close to your heart you'll pull out more or sit in a bath of beans to raise more again. A couple of people have asked if theres the facility to pay via Credit Card as the view would be to take out a 0% interest one and pay it using that, I dont know the answer to that yet but will update when I find out.

Any alternative bid that was made would be a rival bid of course it would. However how that was perceived and dealt with would depend on the bid. If for instance Moat reappeared then, as far as Im concerned I cant see how that would change our plans as we know our model is better for the club. if however some massive businessman came in and said "Ill buy the club and give the supporters 50% for free" then obviously that would need to be viewed differently. It would still need to be assessed to see exactly what was involved.

Theres nothing secret, theres just a simple tried and tested method for running campaigns of this size and that is not to pile in with too much info in one go. Look at any public share issue thats been carried out for instance, they never issue a big pile of documentation in one go, the British Gas one ran for months with a simple strapline on radio, television and in newspapers. Everyone knew what it was for but it never gave any more than that away. They all do exactly as we have done, put out the basic overview and give people a day or so to take that in then move into the more in depth information. Today was about giving the press and fans the overview, this is who we are, this is what we plan and this is basically how we do it. Theres no secret conspiracy because the pension experts havent come out and said their piece or the bankers theirs. They will do so when the time is right but rest assured it will be before we expect people to commit anything. Theres six weeks of this campaign to come, dont blow it all on one momentous day.

My understanding is that the minimum pension investment is £25,000. Cash investments are £1,500.

No offence here but you're trying to find fault with this and using the lack of in depth information on day 1 to beat us with. As I said earlier, weve issued the important information to let people see what is involved and what sort of figures we're talking about. Nobody is asking anyone to part with cash at this stage all we've asked for is the name, email and Date of Birth of those that are interested, you dont even have to commit that much at this stage. In return we've stated that we'll send additional information out to those interested so they can see whats what. No doubt we'll be putting that info into the public domain as well but frankly coming across with the whole "this is meant to be a new era of openness and accountability" is a bit crap tbh. We're the only people talking because its day 1, lets see what happens in days 2, 3, 4....14...30..etc before ripping us apart eh?

I can honestly say that I dont know, as far as I was aware these were email addresses that we had collected over a number of different campaigns, the petitions, signups, facebook, twitter that sort of thing. However Im not responsible for the website these days so I will check to confirm. What I can safely say is that N-O have not passed on email addresses thats for sure, I and the other admins on TT would never do that and Im 110% sure that Dave, Phil and those responsible for this place wouldnt either.

To be more exact, they're attempting to do something with other people's money, including big chunks of people's pension funds. In that position, you have to know what you're doing, and to convince people that you know what you're doing. Not exactly true, a chunk of my pension will be tied up in this as well. I wouldnt ask anyone to do something I wasnt willing to do myself. You are right though. When doing something of this magnitude with other peoples money you do need to know exactly what you're doing, which we dont. We do however have the backing of a shedload of people who do this day in day out and are willing to put their businesses names to it, if its not worked out properly then theres a hell of a lot more at stake for them than just personal pride. They believe its doable, theyve worked out the finer points and they are the ones that will be promoting this to their customers and the rest of the world. You have to remember that you're not sending your money to a paypal account for the NUST, its not going to sit in our bank account while we try raising it. Funds will be paid to a top solicitors, regulated by the FSA and audited by relevant authorities. We are merely the group that have put this in place.

There are no plans for anything like this in fact in all honesty you'd have to assume that those that are willing to put £1500 or more into this are more than likely to be ST holders anyway, those that arent probably live too far away to attend regular games. We're not offering STs as part of the deal or giving any guarantees of anything other than a 2% return on your investment.

When I talked about names in the frame though I made it clear that these were experienced business people, I honestly dont know any of the names because Im not involved in the discussions at that level. What I do know though is that these would be people that we would be happy to see running the club. As I also said, these are names that have been sounded out as to whether they were interested, more will appear as candidates Im sure as time goes on. Hell if you know someone suitable then make sure their name is in the frame. None of the current committee have the experience to do this and would not be in there. I can safely say I wouldnt personally vote for them if they were. We need big business brains and a football knowledge. Thats not to say the President would have the football knowledge but you'd expect at least one of the people who surround him to have that. At the end of the day, its the voters that decide the President. 5,6,10,15k Newcastle fans arent going to vote for some daft arsed shop assistant or civil servant over some self made business genius. As I said earlier, this is not a stitch up to get ourselves in there and make a shed load of money. If you want that then give Moat a call and offer him your cash. As far as Im concerned, the day this happens and everything is in place then I will be moving back into working on the Supporters Club side of things and have nothing to do with the football club stuff. Theres many better qualified to sit on the board than the likes of me.

On the 1st question I dont have the answer, I know there are some names in the frame (and I promise you I dont know who the names are) but obviously not all of them yet as we dont know who else will come out of the woodwork as such and we'd be daft to draw up a list based on people we've spoken to and then say "right no more", the list wouldnt be drawn up until election time. As for the salaries, again I dont have that answer, you'd have to assume that they would be the going rate for that kind of position, its no good getting people on the cheap, at the same time theyre not going to be silly money above the likes of Man U, Chelsea etc. I'll ask the question but I would honestly assume that there is no actual figure decided yet. The 2% is guaranteed for the first two years, after that its dependant on how the club is doing. Promotion would obviously see us having a higher income but as we know also higher outgoings. Nobody could say until two years time what the possible figures would be. Again I could do a Graham Roberts and promise 10% as in two years time who would remember? but frankly we're not interested in doing that, all answers will be honest ones not made up to get you to buy in.

The 6 members of the board that come from the Trust (ie not the President and his elected three positions) would be taken from the x thousands of investors. Everyone who has a vote also has a right to stand for election to the board. I think the Barca model is different in the fact that they randomly elect people to the board, that personally doesnt seem fair or totally sensible to me, saying that theyve not done too badly from it like My understanding of our model is that people will stand for election to the board, they will put forward their CVs (for want of a better word) and all members would then decide who they felt were the most able to bring something worthwhile to the table. As someone pointed out earlier, there would be nothing to stop 20 of you on N-O each buying a share and agreeing who to vote for at the time, thats perfectly understandable and legal after all Id assume the person you'd put forward would be sensibly elected on here first. Maybe we'll see a board that has a rep from N-O, one from Toontastic and another from Skunkers all elected in the same way. I dont necessarily see that as a bad thing as long as we're careful who we put forward from each! Apologies if Im not putting it across right, its clear in my head but not necessarily as easy to convey.

Can you clarify why you think its a good thing to do? Im not saying I disagree just personally I feel you'd have to have an affinity with the club to be on the board. If theres 8000 people who have staked their future in this, should they not have more of a right to be there and what would someone that hasnt put money in bring to the table that they wouldnt?

One other thing I would add is that people should notice something missing from our publicity on this compared to everyone else thats ever talked about owning the club (including the current regime). We're not making pie in the sky predictions for the future, we're not saying buy into this and we'll win the Premiership in three years or we'll install Shearer, Keegan, Mouriniho in the hot seat, we'll not promise a giant screen so you can see adverts during the game or tell you you'll get a free season ticket. The board you install may well promise or do all those things but that would be down to them (and you). What we do promise is your chance to make a difference to the football club you love, your chance to say "you were part of something huge" and most importantly we promise to try wherever possible to make our football club a club that you're proud to be part of. Im expecting my first child in January, a boy, one day I want him to run out at SJP, if we pull this off then that day will be a thousand times sweeter should it happen.