The board kicked off proceedings by discussing the financial statements, confirming that the extra rent paid for the year ended May 2015 was a combination of issues with Dalziel Park, weather difficulties and Stuart McCall hiring Ravenscraig for a week to allow his squad some artificial surface experience before out Europa League trip to Iceland...... Season 2014/15 was described as an "annus horribilis" where everything which could go wrong did go wrong - except the play-offs! When challenged on why we remained managerless during November of last year it was advised that whilst the Argentinian consortium was still a possibility, a stipulation from them was that no successor to Stuart McCall was to be hired.
Les Hutchison was next to speak, extolling the fact that from twelve months ago when we had nine first-team players out injured our new fitness regime sees only one player currently on the sidelines (Joe Chalmers). Whilst directing great praise on both Alan Burrows and the board "without whom you, the fans, would not have a club to support", his main focus was on fan ownership as he compared the eight thousand regular paying members of the Foundation of Hearts with the five hundred subscribed to The 'Well Society as "not good enough".
Mark McGhee took the floor for the final part of the meeting, during which he referenced a new model for developing our young players which will be announced in the next few weeks with a core aim of having our eighteen-year-olds ready for first team action instead of two years in the Under 20's, and also feels that this philosophy will encourage more fans to join The 'Well Society.
As both Motherwell manager and Scotland assistant he felt embarrassed that our team at Ross County contained only one Scot. He thought the two transfer fees we have paid recently for Marvin Johnson and Louis Moult to be money well spent and a mixture of better scouting and picking up players like Shaun Hutchison from exit trials as well as loan signings to plug any gaps will stand us in good stead. We had a youth player from Man City training with us for two weeks who Patrick Viera played in a game for us to watch but felt he wasn't ready to play yet, Mondays see our thirty-six man squad compete in a mini-league to get young players playing with our experienced professionals and he is keen for the likes of Dylan Mackin, Chris Cadden and Dom Thomas to go out on loan and get twenty first-team matches under their belts.
WIth that, the meeting closed with hopes expressed that the current season concludes a lot more smoothly than the previous one!