Foxes Trust Members Update

[Foxes_Trust]

The Trust has announced six additions to the Board Subgroups

Members Update – May 31st – Foxes Trust

[KFS]

Great appointment in Ryan. 

[Daggers]

[CosbehFox]

Just noting the existing board and sub group members were also asked to do the skills matrix.
 

Has there been changes there to the sub groups as an overall alongside the new members? 

Edited 1 June 2024 by CosbehFox

[Guest Chocolate Teapot]

7 hours ago, KFS said:

Great appointment in Ryan. 

Certainly talked a good game on the BSLB pod - interesting that he's ended up involved after being critical of the reform group.

 

Personally I think the problem with the board is the same blokes been doing it for 20 years and is just happy to be there. I'd like to see real reform here and don't think that happens whilst he remains in charge.

 

Looking forward to seeing what Ryan and Co can deliver in terms of real change.

[Nolucklcfc]

29 minutes ago, Chocolate Teapot said:

Certainly talked a good game on the BSLB pod - interesting that he's ended up involved after being critical of the reform group.

 

Personally I think the problem with the board is the same blokes been doing it for 20 years and is just happy to be there. I'd like to see real reform here and don't think that happens whilst he remains in charge.

 

Looking forward to seeing what Ryan and Co can deliver in terms of real change.

Shame he was critical of the reform group, didn’t know that! 

[Jackubu]

Agree, think Ryan is a great appointment for the FT tbf.

 

Without talking about the others too negatively before they get going, one guy talking about being six sigma trained hardly gets the blood flowing. Arguably adds to the calls for change I think 

Edited 1 June 2024 by Jackubu

[Guest RYM]

21 minutes ago, Nolucklcfc said:

Shame he was critical of the reform group, didn’t know that! 

I wasn't critical at all, I mentioned on here weeks ago that full transparency with requests and replies etc to the FT would help give the group credibility otherwise it can come across as playground like. Don't just expose one side of the story. The same advice I've given any club or fan group for years.

 

 

[Guest Chocolate Teapot]

42 minutes ago, RYM said:

I wasn't critical at all, I mentioned on here weeks ago that full transparency with requests and replies etc to the FT would help give the group credibility otherwise it can come across as playground like. Don't just expose one side of the story. The same advice I've given any club or fan group for years.

 

 

You jumped on a post straight away saying they hadn't given full transparency to their requests and said the board didn't need to get back to their time requests. 

 

You've also been in groups with the same people but not said any of this on there. Like I said, good luck to you, but think it's disappointing you decided to air your concerns on here rather than speaking directly to them when you've got their contact details. 

 

And, it's worth saying I agree with much of what you've said and look forward to you delivering against it.

[Guest Chocolate Teapot]

1 hour ago, Jackubu said:

Agree, think Ryan is a great appointment for the FT tbf.

 

Without talking about the others too negatively before they get going, one guy talking about being six sigma trained hardly gets the blood flowing. Arguably adds to the calls for change I think 

The 'strategic player' 🤣🤣🤣🤣

 

Genuinely intrigued to know how the selection went as that's not been transparent at all. Probably scored them on a criteria from 1 to 10 on least likely to oust Ian Bason. 

 

Mad that the foxes trust have a bloke in charge that's been in charge for 22 years and one of the main challenges with the football club is that those that are in charge have been there too long and aren't performance measured.

Edited 1 June 2024 by Chocolate Teapot

[themightyfin]

Interesting one appointed who publicly went for them here on foxestalk, Questioning transparency quite openly... let's see how that one goes. 

[Guest RYM]

11 minutes ago, Chocolate Teapot said:

You jumped on a post straight away saying they hadn't given full transparency to their requests and said the board didn't need to get back to their time requests. 

 

You've also been in groups with the same people but not said any of this on there. Like I said, good luck to you, but think it's disappointing you decided to air your concerns on here rather than speaking directly to them when you've got their contact details. 

 

And, it's worth saying I agree with much of what you've said and look forward to you delivering against it.

I posted and had dialogue with one of the group leaders as I had left the group chats after a couple of weeks of them being set up for mental health reasons. The reason I suggested to be transparent publicly was more to alert you / others to the importance of transparency when you are reporting on a two sided conversation. And TBH IMO, the Trust didn't have to rush to appease any demands, that is the same with any group or club unless timescales are agreed before. Sorry you feel this was an attack and thank you for your well wishes.

[Foxes Trust Reform]

As many of you will have seen, a Foxes Trust Reform group (comprised of a sizeable number of new Foxes Trust members) has formed to achieve real leadership change at the Trust so that it can become a group that represents all fans and holds the club to account.

 

Representatives of this group were offered positions on the Foxes Trust subgroups referenced in the statement today but these were rejected and the six new volunteers do not represent the Foxes Trust Reform group. They are simply new joiners that have kindly volunteered their time and help, which we are pleased to see as anything that improves the Foxes Trust can only be a positive. We wish them well in their roles.

 

The reason we rejected joining subgroups as individuals from the Foxes Trust Reform group was because we had been speaking to the Trust about fresh input and impetus at board level (where the Trust has two open spots that they could co-opt people to). Ultimately these subgroups simply report to the board who still make all decisions on what the Trust does/does not do. Without that board having fresh blood, we feel little changes.

 

It is interesting to note that anyone interested in offering time and support to the Trust was asked to complete a Skills Assessment. Current board members also did this to check their suitability to continue in role. With all Skills Assessments completed, nothing changes at board level of the Foxes Trust and the same people continue in role. 
 

That only reinforces to us the need for true leadership change at the Trust. If you are supportive of our campaign and haven’t already done so, please email “count me in” to [email protected] so that we can invite you to an online Open Session we are hosting via Zoom on Wednesday 5th June at 8pm where we will share more detail on the above and our next steps in pursuit of true change at the Trust.

[ian__marshall]

Bit odd that two of the applicants rejected the chance to join. Why would you go to the effort of applying then reject the opportunity once offered. 

 

Also, intrigued why this has become public knowledge. Surely there were other applicants so why not just appoint them instead, and why the need to even mention those who rejected the offer. 

[Foxes Trust Reform]

2 minutes ago, ian__marshall said:

Bit odd that two of the applicants rejected the chance to join. Why would you go to the effort of applying then reject the opportunity once offered. 

 

Also, intrigued why this has become public knowledge. Surely there were other applicants so why not just appoint them instead, and why the need to even mention those who rejected the offer. 

The two were from our Foxes Trust Reform group and led to believe that the application was the pre-requisite to involvement at board level.

 

With an awareness of a desire for change, and a stated need by some existing board members for more support at board level, the Foxes Trust board then decided that the new joiners could not be co-opted to board level and would instead have to serve on ‘subgroups’ which report to the board.

 

Per our post above, this is why we rejected the offer of subgroup positions. To use an LCFC analogy, we feel this is a little like adding new people to the scouting, medical and analytics teams whilst Rudkin and Whelan continue as they always have…

[CosbehFox]

16 minutes ago, ian__marshall said:

Bit odd that two of the applicants rejected the chance to join. Why would you go to the effort of applying then reject the opportunity once offered. 

 

Also, intrigued why this has become public knowledge. Surely there were other applicants so why not just appoint them instead, and why the need to even mention those who rejected the offer. 

I’ll speak as an individual on this because I am of one them who rejected and I am equally to the centre of the reform groups 
 

I was encouraged to apply by the trust after discussions. The skills assessment by the way was understandably and quite correctly simple to fill in. 
 

As time progressed and the offer to join the sub groups was put forward to myself, I simply don’t feel that joining a sub group goes far enough to really implement really change.
 

The status quo stays in my opinion and structure that is failing the trust remains. 

Edited 1 June 2024 by CosbehFox

[ian__marshall]

29 minutes ago, CosbehFox said:

I’ll speak as an individual on this because I am of one them who rejected and I am equally to the centre of the reform groups 
 

I was encouraged to apply by the trust after discussions. The skills assessment by the way was understandably and quite correctly simple to fill in. 
 

As time progressed and the offer to join the sub groups was put forward to myself, I simply don’t feel that joining a sub group goes far enough to really implement really change.
 

The status quo stays in my opinion and structure that is failing the trust remains. 

Thanks for sharing and appreciate the transparency. 

 

Sorry to ask, but was it not made clear from the outset that you were applying to join a sub-group or did the goal posts move following your application? 

 

Also, whilst I understand your position and that of the Reform Group what I'm struggling to understand is why FT chose to make this public knowledge. By offering positions on the sub-groups they've acknowledged there is a skills gap so even though yourself and someone else rejected the offer, surely logic would dictate that these positions need filling and could have been offered elsewhere.

[CosbehFox]

27 minutes ago, ian__marshall said:

Thanks for sharing and appreciate the transparency. 

 

Sorry to ask, but was it not made clear from the outset that you were applying to join a sub-group or did the goal posts move following your application? 

 

Also, whilst I understand your position and that of the Reform Group what I'm struggling to understand is why FT chose to make this public knowledge. By offering positions on the sub-groups they've acknowledged there is a skills gap so even though yourself and someone else rejected the offer, surely logic would dictate that these positions need filling and could have been offered elsewhere.

In terms of the outset, this was the brief below to the front of the skills assessment 

 

Why this is important 

This audit is a useful way of assessing the needs of your board. It can be used it to identify training needs, recruitment assigningcommittee members and succession planning. This model can be used to help identify any knowledge, experience, skills and behaviours your board still needs to deliver their functions effectively.

 

 

How to use it

 

No individual is going to have all the skills listed in the audit. The board is a team, and the purpose of the audit is to ensure that each skill below is covered by at least one of the board membersaround the table. If there are any gaps, these can be used to inform further recruitment to the board. 

 

 

This exercise is designed to enable all members or potential members of the governing board or committees to set out their skills and experience whatever their backgrounds and make clear that the essential and desirable skills for governance can be acquired through a range of life experiences. The skills and knowledge sought are those which enable board members to ask the right questions, analyse data and have focussed discussions which create robust accountability for LCFC management.

 

Without wishing to steal the thunder of the main group, I’d be party to discussions between ourselves and board members. We set out a vision of what we’d like to see. Simply don’t think that’s been acknowledged in our correspondence or actioned upon properly. That happened in the background to the skills audit (already sent off when we presented the ‘vision’). So that’s formed my decision. 
 

We aren’t party to the number who applied rather told ‘several’, so I can’t speak if 8 applied and 8 offered.
 

Equally all of the existing board members were asked to take the skills assessment and we don’t know how that’s played out in revising the sub groups. Which is probably where I’m more peeved. Feels like business as normal. 
 

You are welcome to join the zoom call we have planned on Wednesday. Email count me in to [email protected] if you want to hear us out. 
 

I’ll let the Reform account to take over from here as not to confuse. 

[CosbehFox]

One final thing because I don’t want to linger. 
 

@RYM spoke to me regards transparency etc. His point was valid and we had a good conversation. Diplomatic disagreement but all reasonable. He mentioned at the time he got around to joining the Trust which we was the origin of our first convos. 
 

Underpinning everything it’s good to see people willing to give time to the cause. There’s lots of good the Trust do but I think it can be a lot better and the structure and format of the organisation lets it down. 

 

 

 

[themightyfin]

Is anyone else totally confused?

[Foxes Trust Reform]

9 minutes ago, themightyfin said:

Is anyone else totally confused?

What are you confused about?

[Daggers]

Bason’s attitude to this isn’t sustainable, the Trust is not his personal fiefdom. To continue to hold out in refusing to co-opt into the board is just going to make him a deeply unpopular person. I can’t fathom why he doesn’t see this? Does the Trust board want to foster resentment?

[Guest Chocolate Teapot]

12 minutes ago, Daggers said:

Bason’s attitude to this isn’t sustainable, the Trust is not his personal fiefdom. To continue to hold out in refusing to co-opt into the board is just going to make him a deeply unpopular person. I can’t fathom why he doesn’t see this? Does the Trust board want to foster resentment?

It's been sustainable for 22 years

[Daggers]

21 minutes ago, Chocolate Teapot said:

It's been sustainable for 22 years

In light of what is currently happening, it clearly isn’t moving forward. 

[Izzy]

57 minutes ago, themightyfin said:

Is anyone else totally confused?

The old regime have it nice and cushy but are under pressure from the new regime to reform.

 

The old regime have offered the new regime places on sub committees in the hope this appeases them, but the new regime want a full take over instead.

 

"The Subgroups are where the bulk of the work of the Trust is done and are also routinely used by Trusts to get people involved who may wish to become Board members at some point"

 

Reads to me like you've got to serve your time on a sub committee first before being considered for a board position.