Consortium UPDATE

[BrexitDagger]

The following letters have been sent to all Presidents, Life Members and Full Members and, for information, to the members of the Supporters Club in preparation of this Wednesday's meeting / presentations. The parties involved also wish to make the contents known to the fans.

Dear Member,
Informal Members’ Meeting

You will have received a letter from Steve Thompson dated 17 June, 2016, notifying members that a local businessman, whom you now know is Glenn Tamplin, had approached the Club with a proposal to invest into the Club over the next five years, in return for an immediate 80 per cent shareholding in the Club. You will also have received a further statement from the Club, dated 27 June. It refers to a proposal we have made to the board and gives a broad outline, but does not give any more details.

We submitted that proposal to the board on 22 June 2016. The text of our proposal is enclosed with this letter for your information.

We made our proposal because we care deeply for this Club and we wished you, the Members who own the Club, to have a choice about how it will be structured and run in the future. We have always believed that it should be run for the benefit of all Members and supporters. That would be our pledge to you if you choose to support us. We have asked the board to allow us to present our plan and vision for the Club at the forthcoming meeting on 6 July. Dave Bennett, the chairman, has responded, saying that we may make a presentation, if the members agree to this. We very much hope that you will agree, so that we can explain our proposal to you.

We think that the Club is broken – not just financially, but in spirit. This is a great club that has lost its way. Relegation, as dreadful as that is, is not the only issue facing the Club. Something has happened to its culture – its soul if you like – and that needs to be addressed too. If you support us, it will be our major priority to re-engage with the Members and supporters, so that we can once again all be working together for the good of the Club.

We attach with this letter, a letter from Gerry Hanning, a committee member and then director, from the formation of the Club until his recent resignation. He has given this Club so many years of service and we are grateful for his unqualified support. We hope that we can count on yours.

An informal meeting has been convened for Wednesday 6 July in the Clubhouse at 7 pm. Do please come, if you can, so that you can hear what we have to say and, more importantly, so that your voice can be heard in determining the future of your Club. .
Yours faithfully,

---------------------------------------

Dear Fellow Members and friends,
Investment Proposals

Like you, I have received the letter from Steve Thompson, informing us of a proposed takeover of our Club and I then received the second notification giving further details. I was unhappy about this, as I have always believed that control of our Club should not be in the hands of any individual. I felt sufficiently strongly about the way the whole situation had come about, been managed and then presented to Members at the recent half-yearly meeting, that I resigned from the board of directors. This was not a decision that I took lightly, as I had been a member of the management committee, and then the board, since the formation of the Club

I hoped that my resignation would provoke a response and was delighted to hear of a different proposal by the consortium, whose members have all been connected with the Club for many years.

David Ward joined the management committee as Vice-Chairman in 1996 and he has been Vice Chairman of the current company since it was formed when we entered the Football League. John and Brian East became vice-presidents of the Club in 1997 and the Joint Presidents in 1999. Their late father, Barry, was the first President of our Club and his involvement with the predecessor clubs as committee member, Secretary, Chairman, President and, eventually, Patron of Redbridge Forest went back to 1945.

You all know Lee Goodwin, who played for us with such distinction and loyalty over many years until his career was cruelly cut short by injury. It would be a wonderful thing if he followed Dave Andrews from the pitch into the boardroom. You may not know that John, his father, has supported the Club for long before Lee came to play for us. He is a full member and I am so pleased that the Goodwins are also stepping forward to help the Club.

These are good people. They are exactly the sort of people to whom we should entrust the future of our Club. They have my fullest and most enthusiastic support and I strongly urge you to support them too.
Yours faithfully,
Gerry Hanning

[Diggerthedog]

I really hope the members choose these guys, you only have to listen to the interviews given by Gerry and Lee recently on the radio to understand what the club means to them.

[Chigwellian]

i would support the new consortium ... and would urge everyone who is eligible to vote, would vote for these guys

[dagger4eva]

I personally hope the consortium (AT THE VERY LEAST) are 1. given the opportunity to present to the members and 2. members are given the opportunity to vote on their preferred bid.

I see little or no benefits to the Tamplin offer - it goes against every way the club has ever been run.

Not that outside investment isn't of course welcomed but to be in the hands of 1 person of whom no-one knows anything about other than a rather shitty looking companies house record spells nothing but danger in my eyes.

If this bloke really was 'worth' £45 mil - would / should he or the club have to state such a thing publically? I think not.....

[NBDag]

Is this informal meeting on Wednesday open to non-members then?

And they publicly said what he was worth because of the people on here saying that he was worth £98k. So I'm guessing they were trying to show him to be more credible than what he was being made out to be.

[dagger4eva]

Only open to members .... unfortunately!

[Alan]

Is this informal meeting on Wednesday open to non-members then?

And they publicly said what he was worth because of the people on here saying that he was worth £98k. So I'm guessing they were trying to show him to be more credible than what he was being made out to be.

Nobody on here knows what he's worth. They only know the assets of a company that he owns, which is completely different.

[NBDag]

Is this informal meeting on Wednesday open to non-members then?

And they publicly said what he was worth because of the people on here saying that he was worth £98k. So I'm guessing they were trying to show him to be more credible than what he was being made out to be.

Nobody on here knows what he's worth. They only know the assets of a company that he owns, which is completely different.

Well in the initial thread about Tamplin there were several claims about him being worth £98k. Something seen on a website that has been completely misunderstood.

[Alan]

Yes, somebody read the business accounts and equated the 98k assets of that company to his personal wealth, which is like looking at the accounts of BHS and concluding that Philip Green is skint. The company and the man's personal wealth are completely separate. For example, he owns the premises and charges the companies rent - the premises do not show on any company balance sheet anyone has read. That's a simple example.

[NBDag]

I don't get why you're saying all this, I wasn't disagreeing with you. I only said that they stated his wealth in that letter in order to address what people were saying about him in previous threads.

[Alan]

I realise you weren't disagreeing, but there are people who will read this thread and not necessarily understand that there's a bit more to it than what people are posting, so I was elaborating.

[Auntie Merge]

Really hope the full members are not swayed by money and look at the consortium that wants to do the best for the club long term.
IMO #VOTEGOODWIN.

[Voice of reason]

Really hope the full members are not swayed by money and look at the consortium that wants to do the best for the club long term.
IMO #VOTEGOODWIN.

The 'money' will be illusory. Especially as it is due to be paid in instalments.

[IanC]

Anyone going down to stand outside the club with VOTE GOODWIN banners,or do we think most of our members are of sound body and mind to make the right choice.And if they do make the wrong choice then me thinks they're gonna get dogs for letting us all down and selling our club down the river.

[Alan]

Does anyone actually know how much money the consortium now have to put up? Gerry Hanning mentioned pledges that would more than double the 200k, so I would be interested to know what they now have.

The Tamplin bid values 51% of the club at 796k, so the consortium really need to come up with more than 200k for that share, particularly if they plan to remove Thommo as that will cost money which will come from that 200k.