HanoiVillan

I think the homepage looks much better with the picture than with the claret. @Chewie - the complete list of FAQ's: FAQ's 1) Who are we? We are ordinary fans of Aston Villa Football Club. We have supported the club through thick and thin and are frustrated by the failures of the leadership of our club. Our public face is businessman Mike McKenna, a Trinity Road season-ticket holder who has supported the club since 1959. You might have heard him on [name of radio show here]. Between us we have attended thousands of Villa games and we want to express our frustration with the misdirection of the club under Randy Lerner. 2) Why a walk-out? In the Premier League era, fans have fewer channels of communication than ever with the club. Aston Villa fans feel that we have been ignored, and that the club has taken our support for granted for too long. In addition, we feel that the ongoing crisis at the club (which has been present for much longer than the current season) has been under-reported and poorly covered by local and national media. A walk-out is designed to get the attention of both club and media, and to push both to take the concerns of Villa fans seriously. 3) Why the 74th minute in 'Out the Door on '74'? When Randy Lerner bought Aston Villa he made a show of respecting the history and tradition of the club. His slogan was 'Proud History, Bright Future.' Aston Villa is one of the oldest and proudest clubs in English football, and was founded in 1874. The protest aims to show Randy Lerner that despite his fine words, his actions since 2010 have damaged the history and tradition of this football club. 4) How can I help? Firstly and most importantly, if you are attending the Everton home game on March 1st, we respectfully ask you to consider standing up and leaving the stadium on the 74th minute of the match. If you are not attending the game itself, you may still be able to help by spreading word to Villa fans who are attending and may not be aware of the protest. Please consider one of the following options: list of options 5) Why should I join in? Obviously, it is the choice of the individual ticket-holder whether to participate in the protest or not. However, it is only through collective action that our voices – the voices of the fans of this football club – can be heard. Apathy will not persuade the club to take the fans’ concerns seriously.

Even if you don't use my Mission Statement, I think you need to re-order the paragraphs in the current Statement. It shouldn't take until the 3rd paragraph to explain what's actually going to happen. That should be made much, much clearer on the homepage. Evidence suggests more than 50% of people stop reading long columns of text after one or two sentences. Currently the first sentence begins with the qualifier 'Whilst' and an apology which states what the protest isn't: 'abuse of the owner, directors, manager or players'. People need to know what it is, not what it isn't.

Good points: 1] I see your point. We could use 'absentee owner' instead. 2] I think 'finishing 17th' has a stronger rhetorical impact. Whether it's exactly true is beside the point. They have certainly been satisfied with 17th anyway. I want to get the idea of 'minimum possible' across. 3] I agree, maybe investigation could be last and opening a dialogue first. And I agree about 'and share' too.

I like this, but maybe it doesn't spell out our troubles enough . . . maybe there needs to a line along the lines of, 'over these last five years, the club has a net spend of just £__m pounds.' Or similar.

The rest of your post has a lot of good points, but I need to highlight these two paragraphs: 1) I don't think anybody believes that we won't trade with Europe in the event of a leave vote. What people do believe is that Britain may be at risk of tariffs, and could well be excluded from the free trade zone, significantly increasing the cost of trade with Europe. We also won't get the free trade area in services in Europe, of which the UK is currently the main driver. 2) It is a 'leap into the dark', in the sense of a risky decision with unknown consequences, and I don't see how it can be portrayed as anything else. No other country of similar size has left the EU. We know negotiations upon exit will be difficult. We know many countries will have incentives to try to punish us. We also know the effects will last for generations, positive or negative. It's fair enough to be in favour of leaving, but I don't think you can deny it's a risk.

Aren't they already on the website at this point? I'm not sure how much 'further information' there is to give. We're not actually asking for anything complicated!

Who are we? We are ordinary fans of Aston Villa Football Club. We have supported the club through thick and thin and are frustrated by the failures of the leadership of our club. Our public face is businessman Mike McKenna, a Trinity Road season-ticket holder who has supported the club since 1959. You might have heard him on [name of radio show here]. Between us we have attended thousands of Villa games and we want to express our frustration with the misdirection of the club under Randy Lerner. Is that better?

I've taken the liberty of re-drafting the Mission Statement. In particular, I've taken on board the criticism by @Davkaus, @sexbelowsound and others that the initial statement didn't propose any actions the club could take. However, the naming of actions is controversial - everyone has a different opinion. Therefore, I have kept our 'demands' to general statements that I believe few real fans would actually disagree with. I have annotated the Statement, explaining certain decisions I made when drafting it: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mission Statement We are asking fans to consider walking out of the home games against Everton (March 1st) and Chelsea (March ?) on the 74th minute of the match. [1] We are asking the club, and especially the owner, Randy Lerner, to engage sincerely with the fans rather than acting as an absentee landlord. [2] He has shown, throughout the last five years, that he has lost interest in this football club. He has been content to finance the club with the ambition of finishing 17th in the Premier League, and in the process has run the organisation poorly. This protest is not about one season of relegation; this protest is the result of cumulative frustration about the misdirection of the club that his built up amongst the fans over the last five years. [3] We are asking the club to do the following: [4] Investigate without fear or favour the mismanagement of the last five years; Create a real line of dialogue with supporters; Prepare and share a real, actionable plan to return to the heights this club should be achieving, and share that plan with supporters; Invest in the playing squad and the infrastructure to a level appropriate for a top-half Premier League team. [5] Aston Villa Football Club is 142 years old. The supporters of this fine club have stayed with her through thick and thin, and we will be there in the future. We have created this protest to demonstrate the strength of our feelings about the misdirection of the club under our absentee landlord. [6] The fans should be taken for granted no longer. We respectfully ask fans to consider supporting our protest by vacating their seats on the 74th minute of the Everton and Chelsea home games. [7] Villa till we die! / Up The Villa [8] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Firstly, it's important to say - without bloviating - exactly what the protest is. This is contained in a separate paragraph for clarity. Many people won't actually read much further than this; it is vital to get straight to the point in this kind of writing. [2] Many people on here dislike Tom Fox, Steve Hollis, Remi Garde and others. But I think it's important not to mention them by name. Firstly because many fans won't have heard of them* (it's easy to forget that we on here are 'high-information supporters') and secondly because some people do seem to think they're doing good jobs. The good thing about Randy Lerner is firstly, everyone knows who he is, and secondly, everyone thinks he sucks. [3] One of the criticisms likely to be leveled at this protest is that it's a petulant response to being relegated. It's important to head that off at the pass by reminding readers that we've been terrible for years, and this isn't a spoiled over-reaction. [4] I think an itemised, bullet-pointed list of general actions that everyone can agree on is beneficial. [5] Asking for more money may be controversial - I think it's obvious we want more money, and so we might as well admit it upfront, but some people find asking for money to be crass. A judgment call is required here. [6] It's good to repeat key phrases so that they stay with the reader. In this case I chose to repeat 'misdirection of the club' (surely nobody disagrees with that) and 'absentee landlord' (nobody likes them). [7] Repeat what we want people to do, in case anyone has forgotten while reading. [8] Choose only one, obviously. *not Garde, obvs. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Obviously I understand if people don't want to use this Mission Statement. However, if you intend to adapt the mission statement on the previous page, some general style recommendations: AVOID too much flowery language - it was noticeable that one early reaction was it was 'wordy' - we're not writing poetry (I'm thinking of phrases like 'end of our tether' and 'bubbling over') AVOID mentioning redundancies. While they suck, this is about more than people losing their jobs, and in any case redundancies are arguably sound financial planning in the case of relegation. AVOID the phrase 'false narratives'. This phrase was first introduced by Tom Fox. It's important to avoid repeating your opponent's key points. We don't need to get into an argument about 'whose narrative is false'. Instead, we simply make our case - don't acknowledge any others. AVOID mentioning Liverpool. We don't want anyone to confuse our protest with theirs, which was about something else. And we're going to be criticised for copying them; too bad. We have to accept that criticism when it comes. But there's no need to give naysayers a talking point.

Yes, he was. Prior to last season he was undeniably pretty poor. But he was much better last year, and is clearly playing well this year.

FAQ's 1) Why the 74th minute in 'Out the Door on '74'? When Randy Lerner bought Aston Villa he made a show of respecting the history and tradition of the club. His slogan was 'Proud History, Bright Future.' Aston Villa is one of the oldest and proudest clubs in English football, and was founded in 1874. The protest aims to show Randy Lerner that despite his fine words, his actions since 2010 have damaged the history and tradition of this football club. 2) Why a walk-out? In the Premier League era, fans have fewer channels of communication than ever with the club. Aston Villa fans feel that we have been ignored, and that the club has taken our support for granted for too long. In addition, we feel that the ongoing crisis at the club (which has been present for much longer than the current season) has been under-reported and poorly covered by local and national media. A walk-out is designed to get the attention of both club and media, and to push both to take the concerns of Villa fans seriously. 3) How can I help? Firstly and most importantly, if you are attending the Everton home game on March 1st, we respectfully ask you to consider standing up and leaving the stadium on the 74th minute of the match. If you are not attending the game itself, you may still be able to help by spreading word to Villa fans who are attending and may not be aware of the protest. Please consider one of the following options: here follows a bullet-pointed list of social media actions people can take - @DK82 could update this maybe? ----------------------------------------------------------- I'm happy to write any further FAQ answers if people give me the questions. I think it's important to keep them to no more than three or four sentences in total. Wordy is bad.

Posts like this are just noise, I'm sorry. They're lethal to anybody who is actually trying to achieve anything. 'But why can't we do something with my pet idea, that I've just come up with, even though I'm not prepared to organise it'? @MikeMcKenna is trying to organise something; he's got further than anyone ever has before during at least my time on this forum, and probably much longer than that. To everybody - please stop derailing the thread with other ideas or petty objections. This is especially true if you're not even going to the game anyway.

Olives with meat in?

His night out in Tokyo with Sally Gunnell!

Oh, wow, great. Another whole year. Yippee.

So Adobe have a page on their website about the 'correct' way to use the word Photoshop . . . and it's a classic of corporate nonsense: http://www.adobe.com/uk/legal/permissions/trademarks.html Trademarks are not verbs. Correct: The image was enhanced using Adobe® Photoshop® software. Incorrect: The image was photoshopped. Trademarks are not nouns. Correct: The image pokes fun at the Senator Incorrect: The photoshop pokes fun at the Senator. Always capitalize and use trademarks in their correct form. Correct:The image was enhanced with Adobe® Photoshop® Elements software. Incorrect: The image was photoshopped. Incorrect: The image was Photoshopped. Incorrect: The image was Adobe® Photoshopped. Trademarks must never be used as slang terms. Correct:Those who use Adobe® Photoshop® software to manipulate images as a hobby see their work as an art form. Incorrect: A photoshopper sees his hobby as an art form. Incorrect: My hobby is photoshopping. Trademarks must never be used in possessive form. Correct: The new features in Adobe® Photoshop® software are impressive. Incorrect: Photoshop’s new features are impressive. Trademarks are proper adjectives and should be followed by the generic terms they describe. Correct: The image was manipulated using Adobe® Photoshop® software. Incorrect: The image was manipulated using Photoshop. Trademarks must never be abbreviated. Correct: Take a look at the new features in Adobe® Photoshop® software. Incorrect: Take a look at the new features in PS. I shit you not. Somebody actually really thought - you know what, that's a great idea for a page on our site.

I wish I was there.

I completely agree, it should be a straight knockout competition. It would actually raise interest in the competition and make it worthwhile entering, though I suppose it would make less money so that's that really.

I agree with all of that, but the counterpoint is that it's still possible to enjoy an 'inferior' product. I'm under no illusions that Serena is a 'better' tennis player than Djokovic - of course, he can hit the ball harder, move faster, and if they played each other, he would win. But I still enjoy watching Serena play tennis. It's never going to happen that women's sport will reach 50% of the world's attention. But when it currently receives 2.9% of the media attention devoted to sport in the UK, there is in fact fairly clearly considerable room to experiment with whether increasing the audience's awareness of women's sport might lead to greater interest in it - and indeed, the evidence suggests it does. The initial complaint was about the BBC showing too much women's sport. But the BBC's job is not simply to show only the most populist entertainment - per its' charter, it has several other roles to play as well. It has to 'inform, educate and entertain', in the Reithian formula, which means not just the most popular thing at any one moment. Showing women's football that gets poor viewing figures currently, in an attempt to create awareness (and potentially a future market for coverage), is entirely within the BBC's purposes. A further complaint was that coverage of women's football is more prominent than European football - I can't actually see any evidence of this looking at the 'football' homepage, but let's assume it's true for the sake of argument. It remains true that British women pay a licence to watch TV, just as much as British men do. There's no reason for them to be locked out of the nation's sports coverage. European people, by and large, don't pay a licence fee. Again, if people don't like it, they really can turn it off.

Another good one!

Yes, exactly. The only thing that's changed since they last lost a referendum has been a crash in oil prices which has driven a coach and horses through the middle of their economic case for independence. They're quite happy posturing and winning in elections for now.

Yes, that's the one (although unlike 'chance', 'providence' is a noun, so instead of 'a chance encounter' it would be 'that encounter was the work of providence' or similar).

I'm sure there will have been someone who tried to use a broken arm like that - draft dodging seems to be quite a phenom amongst Korea's creative classes. Can't remember who, but there was a guy not long ago absconded from his post to spend the weekend shagging his grilfriend in Seoul.

I don't think it's worth worrying about. On recent form Everton are likely to already be well ahead.

If 'Leave' wins, it's a certainty that England will have voted 'leave' while Wales and Scotland vote 'remain' (the polling isn't even close in either province). What that would mean going forward is open to interpretation: the SNP like to say publicly that it would necessitate another referendum on Scottish independence, but privately they don't want one any time soon.