[url=http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/sport/10742156.New_look_Bradford_Bulls_add_another_investor/has joined the Board[/url

Pending his inevitable character and business assassination by our resident trolls, it sounds like a very positive appointment to me. Who better than a guy who runs a multi-million turnover debt collection company as your Finance Director?

We seem to have suddenly become an attractive proposition for investors.

So MD is Moore, FD is Calvert, Whitcut, Watt, and Robbie, even our hardest biting agents provocateur may have to admit that we seem to be building quite a useful team.

I'm a lot happier than i was before I read this, for some reason.

and, what's more I guess he, more than most, will have pretty solid knowledge of how secure the other owners are, or he wouldn't be getting involved..

Can we please send Mr Calverts guys round to the RFL as they owe us about £600k don't they?

At the moment strength in numbers should help the clubs case with the RFL if they eventually get round to making a decision. It seems at present the RFL are causing more real problems for the BUlls than the pesky trolls

My only slight worry is that if you have multiple shareholders they all keep a common cause as we know from bitter experience what happens if your shareholders fall out.

I guess a balance needs to be struck between having too few people on board and too many. As we’ve no Davy/Moran/McManus/Caddick to guarantee all debts or bankroll the entire operation we’re going to end up with a larger board I reckon.

I’d say Calvert joining Looks like more positive news. It’s to be hoped that we can now move forward and have a period of stability and no more off field shenanigans. It all depends on making ends meet at the end of the day. None of these new guys are seriously rich so we’ll have to be extremely well organised. Running the club by the seat of the pants is too risky and will only alienate supporters, employees and players in the end. Hopefully we can start to communicate a bit better in future and inspire some confidence in the new regime. Only time will tell.

Spot on, imo.

I gather that the new Partnership is of equal shareholding, but I would expect the new FD to be the one who holds sway in directing the Bulls Management policies.

No one "invests" in Rugby League. They're called benefactors.

The concern would be if they cannot agree on key decisions, that we might end up with a Caisley/Hood situation again.

The difference is that when Hood was apparently running the show, Caisley, although the majority shareholder, was no longer playing an active role in the club. Until, of course, he eventually issued the no vote of no confidence in Hood's "running" of the club.

The thing about all the new shareholders is that they all say they are fans of the club which has to be a positive. Obviously, it doesn't mean they will always agree about what is the best way forward - I mean, we're all fans and there's some real argy bargy on here....Hopefully, the board can make democratic decisions and agree to unite behind those decisions, that's all we can ask, in truth, ..well I guess we [icould[/i ask that they always make the correct decision but I doubt [iwe[/i could actually agree on what the correct decision might be any way.

Wasn't the problem with the board, prior to it being slimmed down to the Peter Hood and Andrew Bennett led board, that it consisted of about 14 people, not all of whom were able to attend meetings, so nothing got decided. A board of 4-5 people, all of whom appear to be involved in running the club, shouldn't suffer from the same paralysis even if where there are differences of opinion.

Not sure, to be honest, you may well be corect. The shareholding was certainly very convoluted, but I don't actually remember the board being so large.

Cant remember previous directors before 1/1/2010 but then there were 7
In july/august Agar, Tordoff, Illingworth, Bates and Coulby resigned leaving Hood and Bennett.
Ducket was then added.

I was told that because of that board structure we'd missed out on a number of players as the signings couldn't be agreed in time due to some board members being out of contact.

There was an advert on last night for a programme about women in sport management, which I wasn't paying much attention to (I was more keen on checking the tigress was doing the housework properly). One who spoke was shown as Kate Hardcastle of Bradford Bulls. Is she still involved?

Two situations: the board of directors - who are responsible for operational management, and the shareholders - who are required to appoint the directors and who must approve "constitutional" issues. As it currently stands I think all the directors are also the shareholders.

The nightmare situation we got into last time was where the majority of the shareholders did not agree with the Board. Hopefully we won't be going there again.

Yes in the same role

I think that's right, NR.

Omar Khan still has some money in the club, but it was reported he'd left the money in 'as a loan' but had sold his shareholding.

As you say, the old situation was a total nightmare with the biggest [and second biggest? shareholders not only not on the board but in pretty open rebellion against it. We don't want to visit [ithat[/i situation again any time soon.

'Sportswomen'; Tuesday 22 October, Sky Sports News 10.30am. Repeated at 7pm on Sky Sports 1 and 10pm on Sky Sports 4.

[url=http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,12040_8982041,00.htmlLink[/url

Although there is no mention of Kate Hardcastle in the article.

I bet he cant play as good as Eddie .

The problem with the old shareholders was getting them to meetings. I [ithink[/i this is the only known photo of the last meeting they managed to attend

Yeah, I think that's the bare bones of the problem..

Are we still operating with a skeleton staff though?