Financial affairs of the RST

[boss 1,941]

Further to the thread on Alan Harris's statement, he has also released the following commentary on GN and given permission for it to be copied here.

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I believe it is time that someone clarified exactly what has been going on with the financial affairs of Rangers Supporters Trust (RST).

The Board of RST had an opportunity to make full disclosure of the matters that I will explain below in the Accounts or at the AGM last Sunday, 19 September 2010. They failed to take either of these opportunities.

I was elected to the Board of RST at the 2009 AGM and appointed as Secretary on 13 February 2010. I resigned as Secretary on 12 August 2010. I remain a member of the Board.

It is the Secretary’s duty to sign the Accounts on behalf of the Board. I refused to sign the Accounts for the year ended 5 April 2010.

I had prepared a statement to read at the AGM but the Acting Chair refused to let me read it out. I asked RST to publish that statement on Thursday of this past week but they refused because the final version of the auditor’s management letter differs from the one quoted in my statement.

I have kept my own counsel on these matters since the AGM but now feel compelled to make these matters known because I consider it my duty as a Director:

1. To explain to the members what happened to their money.

2. To clarify and correct some ambiguous and inaccurate comments that the current Treasurer, Christine Somerville (plgsarmy) has made on this web site.

3. To explain why I resigned as Secretary.

Other than Christine I do not know the identity of anyone on this site. The only reason that I am posting this statement on this site is that last Tuesday a friend drew my attention to the thread about the RST AGM. Since then I have become increasingly frustrated by the speculation surrounding these events and my role in them. As RST have refused to publish my statement I will publish it on a separate thread. This will explain the reason for my resignation as Secretary. However you may be interested in the background to these events.

At a meeting with the auditors that I attended on 4 August 2010 along with the Treasurer, Christine Somerville and the Treasurer elect, Alison Mueller, Christine stated that sometime between September and November 2008, two cheques were issued to RST by followfollow.com totalling £2,690. These cheques bounced. The monies were not fully repaid (bar £30 still outstanding at the financial year end) until March 2010. This means that followfollow.com had a free loan of Trust monies for the best part of 18 months.

Christine has stated in a post on this web site “it was paid off, the majority a few months later”. This would depend on your definition of “a few months”. In fact none of the debt had been paid off by 5 April 2009.

Christine has also stated in another post on this web site “However, to be clear, this was not a loan, interest free or otherwise. Knowing the circumstances, our auditors were very clear about that.” Christine is mistaken. The auditors categorised the debt as a loan in their management letter of 10 August 2010 and did so again (twice) when RST put my AGM statement to them this week. The auditors are correct.

In fact the first draft of the Auditor’s management letter issued on 9 August 2010 referred only to:

• Losses on functions.

• Lack of control over expenditure.

• Failure to maintain an up to date share register.

In my opinion as Secretary the debt gave rise to breaches of Rule 6 regarding the application of our profits and Rules 74 & 75 which refer to conflicts of material financial interest.

In the circumstances, I was very surprised that the auditors had not even mentioned the debt and other important matters in their letter so I sent them an email on 9 August 2010 in which I reminded them of:

"• Income & Expenditure being received and paid by outside organisations e.g. Erskine Appeal, Sam English Committee, Follow Follow.

• The high number of cash transactions and instances where cash income is not banked at all but used to make payments.

• The difficulty of allocating income from incomplete records - all income should be banked by the Treasurer in my opinion.

• The debt from unpaid cheques last year, which as far as I can understand arose from some combination of the first two factors mentioned above, which means that there were breaches of Rule 6, 74 & 75 at least until the debt(s) were cleared this year."

I copied this email to Christine and Alison and neither responded to me.

The auditors stated that they were happy to include the additional points and revised their draft to include comments on all these matters as set out in the Statement that I was not allowed to read at the AGM. I attached a copy of the auditor’s revised draft to the resignation email that I sent to all members of the Board on 12 August 2010.

On Thursday last, the Interim Secretary advised me that subsequently the auditors dropped the reference to the loan in the final version of their letter based on the legal advice received by the Board. I have asked for sight of the legal advice but this has not been forthcoming. They also dropped all references to the cash transactions; no explanation has been given for that, so one can only speculate as to the reasons for the auditors actions in that respect.

It should be noted that the Auditor’s Report issued with the Accounts states that in their opinion the financial statements give a true and fair view of the Society’s affairs as at 5 April 2010.

I hope I have clarified these matters but I will do my best to answer any further questions that arise. There are some other inaccuracies and questions posed in the RST AGM thread that I will try to answer as well.

Alan S Harris

26 September 2010.

[Carsons Dog 9,878]

This unfortunately is ammunition for our enemies.

The only thing those responsible can now do is resign en masse and let real decent honest fans take over the RST.

Failing that Supporters Direct or the Club should intervene.

SDM knew exactly what he was doing by keeping this lot at arms length.

[Turnberry18 3,204]

This unfortunately is ammunition for our enemies.

The only thing those responsible can now do is resign en masse and let real decent honest fans take over the RST.

Failing that Supporters Direct or the Club should intervene.

SDM knew exactly what he was doing by keeping this lot at arms length.

Not just 'our enemies', but whether we like the RST or not, there was questions that need asking and answered, but if the people who have been asking those questions are discredited then this is bad for the Club.

I've always been sceptical about some of these people; I've given David Edgar the benefit of the doubt many times, but anyone who does not act in the best interest of the Club has no support of me.

Of course, this could be a seperate issue entirely, but it does make you wonder what goes on with all these factions- are they an industry in themselves that use the name of the Club to get ahead? It will be a pity if people exploit this, and this might well happen, to the detriment of Rangers; I sincerely hope not.

[Adoniram 1,919]

are they an industry in themselves

They are indeed mate. The main man has no job to speak of at all, his main source of income is from Rangers fans buying tacky crap, fanzines, T shirts and being given interest free loans, which he doesn't pay back in full until now. DE has made no secret of the fact, he sees his role withing the RST as a stepping stone to a job in journalism. He's now published a book and allowed the biggest Rangers hating newspaper in the country to turn his words into another attack on our fans.

Be assured, they are out for themselves and what they can get from it.

The "main man" has been the only constant during the past few years of embarrassment and financial turmoil.

Funny how it's always everyone else's fault?

[bluepeter 5,627]

I bet Alan Harris wishes he'd never heard of the RST.

[Turnberry18 3,204]

I bet Alan Harris wishes he'd never heard of the RST.

The way things are going he will not be the only one. That is unfortunate though, the RST has many points that need answering when it comes to the Club; will those questions go away because the RST is discredited?

[Adoniram 1,919]

Alan Harris's comments were posted on FF and lasted about two minutes - wonder why?

Taken at a recent RST AGM.

[Frankie 505]

Alan Harris's comments were posted on FF and lasted about two minutes - wonder why?

So some Trust board members can comment there on the existing issues but others can't?

Doesn't seem very fair to me?

[north_east_bear 0]

How long until Harris is branded a 'crank'?

[Frankie 505]

How long until Harris is branded a 'crank'?

He already has been on FF by Mark Dingwall when he commented last week about that allegations...

These accusations come from an individual whose sole motivation is nothing other than personal spite

[bluepeter 5,627]

Do you know what, this whole thing stinks. Absolutely stinks. Although all "negative" posts are removed from FF, surely most of the people on there have log-ins for other websites so know what's been going on?

The only way forward for the RST is for Chair, Vice-Chair, Treasurer (and seemingly incoming Treasurer) and Mark Dingwall to resign from the board and not seek re-election. We all know this will not happen.

I'm going to try to tread carefully here, as I like Manti, but as someone I see often defending the RST, what are your thoughts on this situation?

[Frankie 505]

Frankie

The post below was posted elsewhere, can you confirm or deny wages are paid or give us any reason for the students loan statement? I know you may well be out of the loop these days, but thought it worth asking.

I have just got off the phone to my accountant who audits my companies books and he has stated that the only circumstance where it would be declared that a company owes money to the Student Loans Company (SLC) would be where an employee (or in this case a director) has failed to meet agreed repayments to the SLC and action has been taken by the SLC to recover the debt by freezing the individual's wages. The company therefore has the responsibility to forward the debt on directly to the SLC and this is why it would show in the accounts as money owed to the SLC.

This begs the questions the following questions though.....

For the SLC to take the debt up with the RST, the RST must have been paying a wage to the individual who had his wages frozen, are the directors of the RST taking wages? I thought that was not the case.

Who is the individual that defaulted on his repayments to the SLC?

No wages were ever paid when I served on the board and I doubt they are now.

Obviously individual expenses were met when requested but even those were few and far between. For example, I travelled a 120 mile round trip for each Trust board meeting but never expected to be compensated for this voluntary undertaking.

I've absolutely no idea what the SLC issue is to do about and even less idea who the person responsible would be.

Clearly the Trust must, as a matter of urgency, make full disclosure about all the recent issues to their members to avoid speculation.

[Adoniram 1,919]

No wages were ever paid when I served on the board and I doubt they are now.

Obviously individual expenses were met when requested but even those were few and far between. For example, I travelled a 120 mile round trip for each Trust board meeting but never expected to be compensated for this voluntary undertaking.

I've absolutely no idea what the SLC issue is to do about and even less idea who the person responsible would be.

Clearly the Trust must, as a matter of urgency, make full disclosure about all the recent issues to their members to avoid speculation.

Frankie the board have a duty of responsibility to contact their members firstly about the AGM.

Secondly as a result of the stories now circulating(especially the ones from Alan Harris)they have to comment on them and let their members know exactly what is being done under their stewardship.

If they had any shred of integrity left they would stand down and let an enquiry commence to undertake the truth of these serious allegations.

If they had nothing to hide they would have done so by now.

[Frankie 505]

Frankie the board have a duty of responsibility to contact their members firstly about the AGM.

Secondly as a result of the stories now circulating(especially the ones from Alan Harris)they have to comment on them and let their members know exactly what is being done under their stewardship.

If they had any shred of integrity left they would stand down and let an enquiry commence to undertake the truth of these serious allegations.

If they had nothing to hide they would have done so by now.

I'm not a member but, IMO, they should call an EGM so all interested members can discuss the issue.

It was a grave error by the board not to raise it voluntarily at last week's AGM.

[boss 1,941]

Taken at a recent RST AGM.

You forgot a couple ... no prizes for guessing:

[kplfishtank 4,657]

You forgot a couple ... no prizes for guessing:

that cant be them theres no jaffa cakes n show

[TheWholeStruth 7]

This is good news. The RST has been dying for quite some time. There's no way it can survive this, it's just not possible. It is now dead as an organisation that is to be taken seriously.

Someone mentioned our enemies will love this - who cares seriously? I hope the press run with this and every Rangers fan has the opportunity to see what a sordid little quango it has become.

Given time, a new trust may emerge that gets back to basics but that's further down the line. In the meantime the current RST has to die, it's the only option.

Well done to Alan Harris for having the moral fibre to stick to his principles.

[Carsons Dog 9,878]

I agree with most of what you say mate, but I still think it's a real shame what's happened. The RST was a great idea and concept and one which I and many others had high hopes for. I would love to see an honourable, working class Rangers fan, sit on the board and give our perspective of the club and where it should be going. However, until the tyrant and the clique do the honourable thing, we are left with this cabal of White Mugabe's and friends.

Never has one Rangers fan (term loosely) caused so much trouble within the ranks.

Brilliant description

[EddieBadabing 0]

Student Loans Company???!!!!

FFS!

[Poetry_In_Blue 1,043]

From the ashes will rise the phoenix, reborn and vigorous in life for a stronger RST to live anew.

As long as some of those in charge disappear in a puff of smoke.

[Adoniram 1,919]

From the ashes will rise the phoenix, reborn and vigorous in life for a stronger RST to live anew.

As long as some of those in charge disappear in a puff of smoke.

Might have chosen a different quote given the filth's connections with the Phoenix and all that