The Share Issue statement from the OS last Friday

Quoted from MuddyWaters

This really makes me chuckle.

Because it's bang on the money?

Be good if we could channel all the energy to focus on a route to a solution - we may disagree but we have broadly the same end vision for the club, I hope.

Still working out exactly where I stand on the issue given more recent developments - caught in two, well more, minds.

A vaguely related point of clarity however,  a vote by the trust could not be representative of the wider fan base (and not arguing that it should btw). It would depend on a number of variables, social, demographic and so forth, being matched in the two target populations otherwise the confidence intervals and levels would be meaningless (without a much larger sample) and therefore results would not be representative of anything other than the vote as undertaken by Trust members about a question against which there were only a limited number of options. The main issue with such statistical sampling and resulting inferences however, is that it assumes that the right question is being asked and (phrased correctly) and that there are no other alternatives, which is obviosly an incorrect assumption given the bredth of different opinions being put forward.... 9/10 owners said their cats preferred whiskas over other brands - but did they actually ask the cats or compare it with the fish option?!!

Quoted from MeanwoodMariner

Because it's bang on the money?

Entirely the opposite.

The Trust have had any goodwill gained undermined by the way this process has been handled - and it's not their fault. Now it seems that they are so busy trying to please everybody that they seem to be pleasing nobody. They have been undermined for the simple reason that they don't have the finance to back their shareholding.

Let me get this straight - I don't blame them for what has transpired. My only question is whether they should have accepted the shares in the first place.

The other point I would raise is whether the Trust Board can truly represent the diverse opinions/views of up to 5000 people.

Quoted from sonik

We really do need to move on from this.

we need to move on from john fenty, the sooner the better

the evidence: look who we're playing on saturday and look at our balance sheet

Quoted from Denby

we need to move on from john fenty, the sooner the better

the evidence: look who we're playing on saturday and look at our balance sheet

To be replaced by who

Quoted from pseudonym

To be replaced by who

someone with a plan, someone with the foresight to recognise that our club is unsustainable and cannot be run at the kind of losses at has been and still is.  unnecessarily so too.  looking at the club accounts over the last 6 years is painful, they prove that if we'd run a tighter ship then the club wouldn't owe fenty anything like the kind of money it does.  the mismanagement is something ridsdale would be proud of.  if fenty walks away (and writes off his loans) then i would be very surprised if someone didn't step forward.  maybe even the trust for a temporary period

Quoted from Denby

someone with a plan, someone with the foresight to recognise that our club is unsustainable and cannot be run at the kind of losses at has been and still is.  unnecessarily so too.  looking at the club accounts over the last 6 years is painful, they prove that if we'd run a tighter ship then the club wouldn't owe fenty anything like the kind of money it does.  the mismanagement is something ridsdale would be proud of.  if fenty walks away (and writes off his loans) then i would be very surprised if someone didn't step forward.  maybe even the trust for a temporary period

THIS but he won't, the litany of debt/loans that have been built up are astounding for a club of our size.

Quoted from MeanwoodMariner

Some information on statistically significant sample sizes might surprise you.

I'll use the numbers you've given in an earlier post. Let's assume there are 5000 Town fans and 300 members of the Trust. What would the vote results have to look like in order to be a reliable representation of the opinion of all the fans?

Well, I'll cut to the chase. You can be 99% sure that the proportion of 'Yes' and 'No' votes will be within 7% of what they would have been if the whole population of 5000 voted.

In other words, if the vote is won by 57%-43% one way or the other, then there a very low chance (<1%) that the result would be different if all fans voted.

Try for yourself:
http://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm

By not voting you are lowering the sample size and actually increasing the chance that the result is NOT representative of all the fans.

Interesting stuff, thanks for bringing it to my attention.

I'm afraid you've overlooking the most crucial thing of all.

When the website talks about "how many people you need to interview in order to get results that reflect the target population as precisely as needed." it doesn't mean you can choose "the ones you want" or "the ones that are already there".  

Sampling theory (and the tool on the website) is only used for RANDOM samples.
It's normally meant to apply for picking people at random off the street.
The 300 or so who are set to vote aren't random - FACT !

So my point is more valid than ever - it doesn't "represent" the overall population of Town fans.

If you wanted to go further from a statistical point of view, it would be interesting to take multiple random samples and compare the results (including the mean (i.e. "average") and variance) with the official vote.

For what it's worth (not very much admittedly) my wild guess is the official vote would be biased in favour of yes.

But it's neither here nor there because....

In terms of the 300 voting being used as a sample from which to draw any reliable statistical conclusions on the population of Town fans as a whole, you couldn't get a worse and more unreliable sample if you tried !   

Not only is it arguably grossly unreliable in terms of it's makeup, but in terms of those statistics you gave, they're almost worthless not because it's a small sample but because it's a pre-selected sample and not a random one !!!

Using a small random sample isn't great to draw accurate conclusions.
Using a small sample that that isn't random but is pre-selected is a complete and utter joke !  

If you were to approach 300 Town fans at random at the next Town match then YES, (regardless of sample size), you would be a lot more able to draw those conclusions.

No it wouldn't be perfect (any sampling technique is meant to be "as representative of the whole population as possible" or if you prefer in the websites words "reflect the target population as precisely as needed") but it would arguably be a LOT more accurate than any conclusions you could take from a pre-selected non random group of those who have already jumped on the trust bandwagon so to speak !  

But like you say, the bigger the sample of those voting the more "representative" it will be.
The only way you will really improve reliability of the outcome is by increasing fan numbers so those who vote are a lot more representative of the population as a whole - or in other words, a lot more fans need to vote.

From my point of view a yes outcome may prove good but as I've said before it's hardly the point at all !
Maybe there's a case for saying the chosen few would do better than to realise it's not just a case of being on the winning team whatever the outcome short term if we all lose out from a lack of support (for Mariners Trust) in the long term.

Anyway to cut to the chase - I'm afraid you're completely wrong but you've ended up proving my whole point !   

I think I should know - I'm a qualified statisitician.

It's not trying to select a representative cross-section of Town fans - how could it? It's polling its members about the shares it owns. As an entity it tries to represent the interests of the fans, successfully or unsuccessfully. What are you actually suggesting as an alternative and how will your abstention make it any more representative? Don't the Town fans who are long-winded statisticians with a love of their own voice deserve representation?

i know it doesn't really help to go over old ground but it shows, to me anyway, that the current leadership have run our club into the ground and should step down.  i've harped on about this for ever but i'll write it again for what it's worth.  the cost of employment at our club in 05/06 (our most successful season in recent years) was about £1.8m.  if we'd kept that level of salary (ignoring wage inflation and the like) for the following 5 seasons we'd have saved about £1.2m.  our salary roll in 04/05 was about £1.5m, if our wages were frozen for the following 6 seasons, we'd have saved £2.7m

these are facts and prove that the ridiculous levels of debt the club now owes were avoidable.  we owe the directors nothing for what they've done, the club owe them £2m