The future of TUST

I'll be happy for us to get a private owner with the club's best interests at heart before the January 31st takeover date for those very reasons alpine quotes me on. I will also happily put £100 in to TUST by that date as I totally agree with midlands that a back-up is better than no club.

It's a pre-share issue. It won't attract anywhere near as much interest as a full one, but TUST and their advisors will read more accurately into what that says about a potential future share issue than anyone who thinks the figure would represent anywhere near the sum total a full issue might reach.

There will be some so daft who will say that is the sum total that can ever be invested or add a small amount for 'illustrative' purposes and dismiss it of course. They're the same ones who look at TUST's present bank account and say 'that's yer lot' now.

I would question whether many of those types who could afford it would contribute to an actual one even if we were in the clutches of a club killing property developer. Seems unlikely. Although some might, eventually. You'd hope so, as long as fear of international socialism doesn't grip them, whilst they are remaining open minded to those nice men from GI, for example.

Maybe the next two paragraphs of my post you quoted gave your answer, GI Joe. Or are you hoping for your mate Roberts to return?

Florida's last paragraph sums up my doubts about this. Just how are TUST communicating with the wider non-football going community in south Devon?
It is common for supporters on the forums to lambaste the board for not communicating, but if their own official representatives can't communicate to a wider public what hope is there for the club?

Jon very succinctly put the situations where community share issues succeed much earlier in this thread. I'd say it is common sense that they succeed in the circumstances he highlighted where they had and wouldn't where at least one of those circumstances didn't exist. In mid-2016 I do recall the Club being fairly vocal in asking fans not to rock the boat. Mid 2015, I'm not sure why you felt that was a good time for doing so? That appears to be when the new Board were just about to take over. Kelvin Thomas times.

Too little too late? I presume this is in terms of anything in relation to the present owners selling, then. Let's hope they are not the present owners come 16th December. Presumably you'll then reset your clock as it being something that might be worth doing at some point in the future rather than not. (eg: where the future of the club is threatened but the then owners aren't keeping you in the dark as to whether it is or not)

I can't help you with your enquiry re publicity as I am simply a member. I got the same email Alpine has obviously seen. Here's a link for you, though. Something in there to criticise having read it, I'm sure. Be it on timing of full share issues or other. www.torquaysupporters.co.uk/pre-issue

It's unfortunate that the cultish fanaticism of a small faction of TUST zealots makes even the most mild of questioning, beyond what they can tolerate.
While their undoubted loyalty is admirable in some instances, it does make any reasonable debate extremely difficult.

TUST seem to feel hard done by, quite possibly with justification, for being turned away by Kelvin Thomas, while the current owners took control of the club without having recourse to the extensive capital that TUST were led to believe was an absolute requirement. However, I can't see that it's unreasonable to simply ask whether TUST might not have done a few different things since then, in order to be better prepared and better positioned now. 

The current Board, never wanted to settle in for the long term, and the moment they could identify a credible replacement for themselves, ownership would be transferred. But only recently, we've seen TUST asking that all other interested parties should be dismissed, and exclusivity granted to them. Yet when asked if they have a completed business plan, the answer was 'No', just as any steps to genuinely get some semblance of an idea as to whether this local community would seriously entertain stumping up cash to get ownership, has been treated as a can that can be kicked down the road indefinitely. Possibly afraid of the response asking such a question might get, possibly not, but the nettle was never grasped, and so we're left with a 'Here's a bit of paper showing how much Bath City raised' as 'evidence'.  

Holding this pre-share issue now, AFTER new owners have been agreed and who will soon be taking over, will provide some information and some cash for TUST, but having a clearer idea of where you realistically stood BEFORE now, might well have helped TUST's case if they'd wanted it to be them who were taking over now, rather than continuing on the periphery, forever on the outside looking in, and still struggling to convince anyone other than their current fanatical band of disciples that they really are the way forward. 

Exactly. Its not the supporters of TUFC that TUST needed to convince its the general public of Torbay and the surounding area - the people who have no interest in football whatsoever but have a vested interest on the town remaining in the public eye.
That includes all business that beneefit from the free publicity that a successful club has and would continue to generate.
Its all very well criticising the regular supporters for not getting on board but I have always been of the opinion that the financially depraived on the terraces should never have been the main focus for funding and a working group should have been out and about asking questions and promoting the benefits of having a club that puts keeps the area in the national public eye on a regular basis for the last 18 months.

The vultures are indeed circling, as they were before. We agree.

You need to delve and know just what you are buying in business before you buy it. Not an option in your timeframe. Frozen out. That cannot be overlooked. By the same token in business you wouldn't ask those you are seeking capital contributions from to invest blind. The optimum time and circumstances to launch is also a key aspect for new starts. There's no need to repeat what they are re community ownership. They're obvious and have been stated.

I get your frustration, particularly given that you are not averse to community ownership. I do agree on publicity generally and that of a full share issue, should that have to happen at some point after another slipped sale deadline. Whilst TUST has an imminent AGM to discuss further on that score in the context of then present resources, the news of the day for many fans will understandably be that all important new ownership announcement on or before 16/12.

Please don't get me started on the HE, though. The irony.