A lot has changed in the world since our previous update and we hope you are all staying healthy and coping the best you can in difficult circumstances. Although there is sadly no football on the pitch to occupy us for the time being, the SMISA committee is still working away as normal behind the scenes.
Social distancing may mean we can no longer meet in person but we have remained in touch through email, group chat and even held our first-ever committee video call!
We are also still in regular dialogue with the St Mirren board via our two SMISA club directors, David Nicol and David Riley, who have provided an update for members below.
We will endeavour to keep you as informed the best we can as events progress, either through emails like this one or on our website and social media channels.
April £2 spend ballot
This month we have £2500 available in the pot and two options for members to vote on. The first option is to provide financial support to the St Mirren Charitable Foundation who continue to carry out sterling work in our community.
The money would help chief executive Gayle Brannigan and her team continue to deliver essential community outreach initiatives and services during this time.
These include providing online support to groups through You Tube and Zoom educational seminars and workouts, and also daily support via What’s App groups and one-to-one phone calls.
The Foundation is also working with partner organisations within Renfrewshire to redistribute essential food and hygiene products to vulnerable individuals and families who are most in need.
The second option is to keep the money for possible use at a later date. The club is thankfully on relatively solid financial footing at the moment but there is obviously great uncertainty ahead for everyone.
As we move towards our stated aim of becoming majority owners of St Mirren by the end of 2021, members can vote to hold over this quarter’s money for a time when there may be greater need for it. Voting will close on April 21.
In the meantime, members can also make individual contributions to the Foundation now should they wish to through their JustGiving page.
This month we also made the final instalment of our contribution to the cost of the new artificial pitch at the Ralston training ground. This means the July £2 Spend will be restored to around £7000.
Club directors’ update (from David Riley and David Nicol)
The club’s number one priority will always be the safety and well-being of our staff and players. We are well-positioned to weather the crisis due to sensible sustainable management by this board and the previous board.
Obviously we don't know how long this crisis will continue for but the board is continuing to talk almost every day to ensure the club is reacting appropriately to what is a very fluid situation.
We want to pay particular tribute to the work of the Charitable Foundation and Street Stuff for continuing to support the community during this difficult period. We also want to pay tribute to our media man James Hunter for producing some wonderful content for all of us missing our football fix. As always we will do our best to keep the members – and the support as a whole – updated via news on www.stmirren.com.
Virtual AGM
Having had to unfortunately cancel our proposed AGM on March 28 due to the growing Covid-19 threat, we are now working towards hosting an online process that would give members the chance to vote on matters as they would at a traditional AGM.
Details will follow on how that will work in the coming weeks. In the meantime if you have any questions about this or anything else please get in touch via [email protected].