Thread by @MisterGLS

Meet The PLC now live on Dons TV. Lots of slides (very slick presentation, too).
Nothing of note as yet, mostly going over structure. Craig Cope and MD James Woodroof also on hand, among others.
Mick Buckley says revenues up, but costs up. #AFCW

Advice from lawyer is to ‘say nothing publicly’ about the company who went into liquidation owing us £0.4m - will update when can, we are trying to get the money back

#AFCW financial results for the last seven years
£3.2m from player sales in 2024
Sale of Ali Al Hamadi credited with enabling us to repay bonds due this year.

I think Mick just said ‘35% of transfer revenue coming into League 2 has come to us’. Sounds feasible - did I hear that right?

Projected to lose around £1.5m in this year’s accounts, offset by £1m in player sales plus we are paying less interest. Depreciation will be similar to last year - so it’s a largely paper loss.

Costs are up considerably. Gas and electricity bills mentioned (we use gro-lamps on the pitch, for example).
Recruitment and retention of key staff has seen wages increase. LLW another factor.

Sean (new DT Chair) will be joining Michele (PLC VC) and Laurie (Club FD) to have a fresh look at costs and how they can be reduced.

Three-pronged approach to meeting financial challenges:

Maximise (revenues) days to day and long term

Sell players

Ask owners

Mick on budget planning - next year’s budget assumes we are not selling any players, and a similar playing budget to this year’s (in same way we used to plan around going out of every cup in first round) and then see where we are (if we do trade players etc)

Craig Cope now up.
Ambition is get into League 1.
Have already started changing the way we recruit - scouting network, data, a company highlights every player under 24 in every league (UK, Eire, Scandinavia etc). That’s how we found Foyo - plan to develop him, sell in two years.

james Woodroof up. His remit is to maximise day to day (revenues).
Highlights:
Renegotiated kit deal for next three years from summer 2025.
Catering in final stages of tender.
Looking into concerts (subject to flood survey etc)

Describes us as a very ‘lean’ organisation.

ST News - increase prices across board

5 and 10 years STs introduced

New price band 18-21 40% discount off adult rate

New digital tickets app ‘Dons Tix’ to simplify process. Tickets digital by default (see pic)

Nick Robinson up. He’s chairing a group of property experts looking at developing our estate.
Highlights:
New training ground
Expansion and development of PL
The 3rd floor (monetising not currently affordable - may move staff up there and lease out ground floor office space)

We looking at the retail space downstairs with envious eyes. Would cost between £600k-1.2m plus 5-700k to fit out. So not a possibility just now. Looking for a friendly partner (eg council) with an eye on taking it over down the line

We own all the land around the stadium. Good footprint of land.
Developing this out for greater capacity would be significant cost. Still have planning permission to increase capacity.
And now it gets interesting >>>

Been exploring financial partnerships. An eg would be we offer space on lease to build a residential tower with the stadium incorporated. Or a hotel, for eg. Lots of conversations had. Not going to happen in next week. Might be a 5-10 year plan. But group keen to progress asap

On training ground.
Merton council completely on board. Want us to have our TG in the borough and have offered up money.
We have a priority target in mind, and a potential commercial partner.
Might be something for a future equity sale or fundraiser

Argh. Best board meeting for a long, long time and I got to do baby bedtimes. Arghhh!

Mick B touching on fundraising and refinancing now.
6,000 members spending £170 more a year would make up the £1m projected loss (looking to get it down from £1.5m to £1m)

For a top 7 L2 budget each member would need to spend £330 more each.

For a mid table L1 budget we’d need each member to spend £600 more.

Graeme on bonds - writing to all current bond owners to remind everyone they don’t need to wait til maturity to roll over (etc).

Potential for a rights issue to sell current available equity (down to 75%)

Fundraising *target* is £1m a year

Plenty of fundraising projects coming soon. WAWF website (and others) coming. Some specific projects such as floodlights.

‘Keep an eye on the website’

Iain McNay talking about Nick Robinson and John Green coming on board, and the work of @in_wimbledon

Says we need more ideas that are ‘off the wall’ and some might not work but others might. ‘About all of us thinking out of the box’ as well as the more regular initiatives

@in_wimbledon Mick B mentions people who have already put so much in, and how we all need to come together once again.

Comfort break now, reconvening in five minutes…

@in_wimbledon Really must do baby bedtimes now. Solo parenting/best meeting i can remember, interfacing. If anyone fancies carrying on the thread while I read Bedtime With Dory….

@in_wimbledon Michele L rules out a new Bond scheme.

@in_wimbledon Jack Rudoni sell-on fee included in accounts but is spread out over the length of his contract (rather than in one go) so will receive chunks across next five years

@in_wimbledon Now taking questions from the floor.
Sophia Axelsson talking about bringing girls sides into club - very important for safeguarding, reputational management etc. new set up ‘on the right path’. Ambition to put more coaching into girls sides

@in_wimbledon x.com/alexfolkes/sta… x.com/alexfolkes/sta…

@in_wimbledon x.com/alexfolkes/sta… x.com/alexfolkes/sta…

@in_wimbledon Part of plans is to improve training facilities across the board

@in_wimbledon james W asked about the ‘lean’ staffing and what we need.
Talks about getting hired right, leaning on volunteers. Says we aren’t so lean on matchdays, but ideal world would hire more non-matchday sales staff to sweat the stadium

@in_wimbledon Mentioned the need to ‘keep ideas coming’. Mentioned @ewom 100+ page document of ideas (‘some we were already on, others were new’) as example of what we need

@in_wimbledon @ewom Nick R says would love to find a group that could take on ‘pockets’ of opportunity where we could find extra money. Eg the retail space (£600k-£1.2m) ‘could we find a group wanting to take a box for the next x number of years’?

@in_wimbledon @ewom Question on the flooding - what happened, have we factored in cost of making sure it doesn’t happen again?
James W: thanks Peter (head of ops) for managing ‘disaster’ brilliantly.
Water tanks fixed ‘to a satisfactory standard’
Pitch not so great. Repairs March.
Full relay June

@in_wimbledon @ewom Will be covered by insurance.

New floor put in, not satisfactory, will be redone in April.

How do we stop happening again. Mott McDonald (sp?) on site daily. Work in progress. Do tanks need to be modified, etc

@in_wimbledon @ewom Lots to do, we aren’t ’out of the woods yet’ but are ‘de-risking as much as possible’

@in_wimbledon @ewom Check out @alexfolkes for far superior updates to mine btw.
(In my defence, I’m now typing with one hand and reading The Grinch with the other…)

@in_wimbledon @ewom @alexfolkes Online questions now.
Q: In the new era at Plough Lane who is in charge?
Mick B: the Dons Trust is in charge.
Who is leading? Craig Johnnie and James are all empowered to bring leadership.
Peter - great job on the flooding. james - great job with communicating on the flooding

@in_wimbledon @ewom @alexfolkes ‘I haven’t sensed an appetite from the dons Trust to have one dominant figure’

Update on the PLC Chair position?
Update on Broncos/groundshare?
Will Michael Golding sell-on appear in this year’s accounts?

Angus: Chair recruitment underway since last year. Several hundred applicants. Got to final shortlist before Xmas.

Decided it wasn’t right to appoint new Chair before moving to the new board who took office in Jan.
decision to wait until New Year.
As yet not able to have final panel interviews due to scheduling conflicts (board and candidates)

Not done and not as quick as we would have liked but think we are quite close to the end of the process now. Hopefully update very soon.

James on Broncos: long term agreement with a break clause. Has now been broken. Ends in April this year.
Significant revenue line and a good relationship, hopefully will continue.
Hopefully continue on a rolling one year deal rather than long term deal like we had before

Q: £600k brought in from renting facilities. Impressive. Is that our best way of fundraising?
james W: we had Peter Crouch filming last week, things like that are going on in the background but we don’t shout about it, mainly for contractual reasons.

Sometimes these are hard to plan for - eg we took a call for a 50k shoot that had to happen the next day. But you can’t bank on these - what you can do is make sure you’re in the radar for these opportunities when they do come

Q: speculation about London Irish - any comment?
mick B: just speculation at the moment. We have a great relationship with Broncos and hope they do well this season

Q: beers that younger fans can afford?
james W: beer prices are set by the club. Will maintain that right under the new deal in the summer.
£6.25 we charge. To encourage people to drink here we would like to do happy hours, but can’t under planning permission currently

Last Q: does club feel we are ready to be promoted and hold our own in L1?
Mick B: to plan we take current budget and add 700k (increase in central funding and away attendances)
Last year that would have us 16th in L1. Playing budget

This year doing the same would put us 22nd in L1 playing budget table. We can’t do that to craig and Johnnie so have to find a way - as we always have - to get that money up to a competitive playing budget in L1

Mick B thanks everyone for coming and wraps it up.

Best board meeting I can remember. Felt more organised, and more transparent/informative than anything of the last couple of years. Great stuff 💙💛