I sent Bill a message a few months ago - on the very subject on plugging the funding gap - with a selection of proactive ideas.
1. club together
A crowdfunding campaign designed to united whatever remain of the board and the fans. Fans pitching in money to be matched in some way by a board personal contribution or by bringing in funds from a college or business associate (non existing)
A target of £30,000 for fans, and £20,000 for the board. Every penny pledge by a fan would be held until the total has been reached, and returned if the figure is not met. Should the £30,000 be met, the £20,000 is then added by the board.
The rewards for fans donating could be cool one offs such a pair of custom "Altrincham" adidas orginals, a curry with an Altrincham legend (max 10 people), a Lego version of moss lane, an Alty TV experience for your cup final. Non of this match day experience free coach trip etc.
2. Doing up the sponsors lounge office
Turning the offices in the Manchester glass lounge into 4-6 people dining areas themed around the club. So one could be alty giant killers, one could be subuteo and one Altrincham community. These could potentially be cool meeting rooms of offices for hot desking (or still used by their current purpose.
3. Plugging the news gasp.
A whatsapp version of club call. Instant team new, signing etc straight from the website.
Incredibly strong ideas for the club, particularly 1 and 2. If fans can find 30k i'd expect double from the board, particularly as they have the power to reward investors.
Unfortunately this is too far forward thinking, as would have been the open minded approach to business management that would have seen the social media team have a right to voice their opinions without being cast adrift like naughty school children.
I dont mind the club asking for money now, its nothing new and my word will we need it. However I do take great offence that the act of Alty FC being relegated to its lowest tier ever in English football, purely as a result of bad management, does not even warrant its own dedicated response directly from the chairman?
Instead we get a diluted communication from the board which suddenly attests group culpability despite the personnel having dramatically changed. It still fails to tackle head on what the failings were and it is mixed in with other club interests. I mean it might as well have been tagged on to the end of the match report from the reserves game.
Bill, you've been well and truly taken advantage of here. There's one man responsible for pretty much all of our recent bad decisions as a club and yet somehow you've been convinced to carry the can for one of them almost entirely (social media fiasco) and now as part of a collective culpability for something you haven't presided over. You may see it differently but I see it like this and i'm sure i'm not alone. There's no smoke without fire and I think you should anticipate being burnt.
The club is farcical now. I tried to hold back and just leave it, but I cant, I'm annoyed with myself for caring.