Lets be absolutely blunt and brutally honest for a minute, because this is a huge deal for the club and the support and worrying about hurting feelings would be plain stupid.
There is, clearly, an undercurrent from ex RST members on here that this is doomed to fail and a part of that is probably down to C1872 seemingly managing to finally achieve what the RST was set up to do. However, it does not mean they are necessarily wrong.
C1872 as it stands is not even nearly equipped to be asking the support to back it to the tune of £13+ million over 3 years. There is a huge question over the current C1872 board, it's integrity and it's ability to manage affairs as they stand, never-mind the added complications of holding over 25% of a huge institution. We have seen, in the very near past, accusations and resignations, we are only dimly aware of who is on the board, what they are there for, what the membership numbers sit at, how much cash is already in the bank, who performs what role and they are now, out of the blue, asking us to go to the well and give them £13 million to effectively buy a significant stake in the club.
The announcement on their website asks for cash and goes into detail about how to give it, but fails completely to flesh out any of the pertinent questions on how the funds will be administered, what the plans are regarding representation, how the funds will be held in the first place, how the shares will be held after purchase, who will have a say in the running of the group, what the £200k PLUS per year set aside for marketing and expenses is actually going to be spent on, if there is going to be an AGM etc.
Well before they come to us asking for both significant sums of money and the chance to buy a quarter of our club, they absolutely MUST do some important things;
1, Sort out their own board. Be open about what has gone on in the past, answer questions and concerns raised by departing board members, hold elections for new officers and to confirm the current people.
2, Publish a detailed manifesto. Tell us HOW they want the club to be run going forwards. It is all well and good stating that we want fan input, but we need to know how that looks; Do C1872 support regular share issues and intend to raise funds to contribute? Do they want involvement on the Rangers board? Do they want to elect people to sit on both boards? Do they want a say in who manages first team affairs etc etc etc ad infinitum.
3, What governance is there over my donation? C1872 has earned a reputation for a lack of communication, a failure to stick to it's starting principals and a failure to employ decent corporate governance. How on earth can people be expected to put significant money in today when we are STILL non the wiser of what has happened on a couple of occasions with board members?
4, Who at C1872 is qualified to be dealing with negotiations and who is qualified to be running a group that has the ambitions that C1872 does? If the answer is 'nobody', that is fine, but what are the plans to bring in suitably qualified individuals?
5, is C1872 going to drop ALL other concerns and focus as a major shareholder in the club, allowing perhaps for the formation of a genuine supporters group, affiliated but not beholden, to the club?
Clearly just a few concerns in an absolute sea of worries over this.
The idea is fantastic. The ideal is fantastic. The concerns are real and easy to ignore in the rush to achieve fan input. These concerns and a good number more HAVE to be addressed immediately and, in fact, should have been addressed LONG before any announcement or opening up of a page accepting money from people.