Why? All clubs make annual losses, even the well run ones. We just need to manage our debt which, Michelle and Co are doing

Unless we can plug those annual losses, then it's inevitable we will have to bit the bullet

I'm sure that people get very busy very fast once on the DTB and some are juggling it with a full time job. Ian (Maverick) still posts from time to time, I hope Simon still reads. The occasional post from both saying they have followed the discussions here and will take relevant points forward would be re-assuring.

Fuck off with your “misguidedly giving away tins of soup in the "community"” slagging off of the DLAG - that’s a despicable slur!! 😒🤮

CM - that's the risk whether the initial buyer is perceived as "good guy" or "bad guy". I doubt we will be able to manage sell-on clauses as that will put off the first buyer.

The club do not give away tins of soup, DLAG, an arms-length organisation like the AFC Wimbledon Foundation, does. It is able to through the generosity of a large pool of volunteers who stand outside supermarkets winter and summer and the generosity of donors. I can put up with a lot of this capitalist guff but bad mouthing DLAG which enhances the club's reputation in the community is a step too far for me.

.. and again, I am not advocating for selling out, the lowest risk alternative is to stay fan-owned and close the structural loss as we then have a degree of security - I am just not sure if that is possible.

CM - I totally agree that selling up is always going to come with that "sell on" risk and I don't see how it can be fully eliminated. Basically, either selling out or not selling out (unless we can close our structural losses) has risks involved, it's all a matter of balancing those. I don't think, though, that pointing to a particular club where ownership has gone badly wrong really adds anything to the debate, as we all know about that risk anyway (if nothing else, from our own experience!).

Christ we have thousands of owners with deep pockets. Let’s sweat that as much as possible before even thinking about selling out

What about if we sell out to a "good" owner of whom mountains of due diligence has been performed on but then whose other businesses/source of wealth goes tits up. He then firesells us to a Reading type owner. Would there be anything we could build in that lets us have a say on any future sell ons or is that unrealistic??

It’s no surprise to me that DTB members elected go quiet on socials once they are elected. They are bound by confidentiality when they join and also I think they realise very quickly how challenging the role is and how busy they are doing it. It’s then a balance of DTB vs work/life balance otherwise they will burn out very quickly.

I don’t often agree with JaW nowadays, however apart from his opening clique comment, I tend to agree with him. As members we can’t do what we want and anything massive has to be done via a restrictive action, which we saw how difficult that was when we launched the ‘Back in Two Ticks’ campaign.

Kentish, not mutually exclusive though

JG, I don't know why you persist on trying to create division where there is none. The vast majority of shareholders are also trust members. Their interests are aligned as they are the same people.

‘John Galt’ - Point of order. We’re a football club. We exist to win football matches, not to make a profit.

Biggles - it's all a matter of opinion whether Reading's problems are irrelevant to us. To my mind it clearly shows that if you sell to a bad owner things could go badly wrong. If someone really hadn't considered that possibility then Reading would indeed be a cautionary tale for them - I just assumed that most people would have the sense to have realised that already. On the other hand, if we don't sell out and don't find a way of closing our structural £1M+ annual losses (and we have seen nothing on that since the rather alarming "meet the PLC" meeting) then things will go wrong (ie we will collapse) under our existing ownership model. Spending time looking at Reading as something not to follow is fair enough, but really not very helpful as they are only one example and most other "owned" clubs aren't in their position.

NW, Reading's problems are not irrelevant to us. Various gobshites here have boasted of their enthusiasm for selling the club to any "rich" self-proclaimed saviour/investor who might happen to come along. Reading's experience shows, yet again, where faith in such people can get you.

TS - @21:03 I am also unable to read these messages. I have given up trying now

Silk - agree with the below - I think that you could see there being two aspects (1) owner willing to provide serious funding (2) being well-run as a business. Only those clubs with both (Brighton, Brentford in particular) can really develop and improve. If you have one or the other you can broadly stand still and if clubs have neither then they decline (Oldham etc). We clearly don't have (1), so the question is whether we can meet (2)

that should be - spend the money for us to be more than remaining a L1/L2 club.

Private owners may be willing to plug our gap but it will not do much more than that. I cannot see most being in a position to spend the money for us to remain a L1/L2 club.

A problem is that there are some supporters out there with a delusional idea of what their club can obtain. I saw a video where they showed that a lot of Derby's problem stemmed from over-spending to try and get in the Premier League. They missed out in the playoffs two seasons running and are still paying the price for that ambition. From when I started following football in the early 80s most clubs are where they were then now. Spurs, despite their shiny new stadium, are still only a cup team, Peterborough are still a lower division team. Only those who have been sugar-daddied have had a major change - ie Fulham. Brentford and Brighton - all have had hundreds of millions spent on them.

Morning. Anyone know when the ESG report of the most recent elections are to be published? I’m sure it’ll be massively redacted, but baring in mind all the issues the DTb had and the ESG itself, I’d be very interested to read what it says

TBK: I am a shareholder. As you and others point out there are only two motivations for anyone to invest in a loss making club 1) to assist a turnaround to profit; and thereby achieve a return on capital or 2) to fund the ongoing losses as part of their hobby and/or to gain some non financial ownership benefit. As a minority shareholder i'm certainly prepared to do the former and possibly the latter. However the members of the Industrial and Provident Society aren't. Clearly our interests are not alihned!

Financial trouble when owned, financial trouble when owners. Do you trust the people making the key decisions? That’s the big question and TBK is here to tell us we’re lucky to have them. Good enough for me.