Do not feed the trolls!

[STAR Voice]

I simply haven't got the time or energy to feed the current outbreak of Troll-ism that's crossed over from AE - especially as I know the people involved and their current obsession with trying to force-feed people cloned e-beef.

I'll just make this point to clarify STAR's modus operandi : the experience of STAR and just about every other supporters' organisation is that unless you have a significant or majority shareholding then adopting an adversarial stance means that you achieve nothing - adopt a default state of always criticising and all that actually happens is that you get ignored.

The most effective way to achieve things is to work with, not against, the club. And while we don't always achieve what we want, we can guarantee that we always get listened to, unlike the majority of other supporters' organisations. Football today is a money-business more than ever, and when you don't have any significant financial interest attaining influence is the most effective way of doing things. People might want to see public-sabre rattling, but while that might look good in the papers for a few days it would actually achieve the square root of b*gger-all! .

Also, as a key role of STAR is also to act as a communication channel between club and supporters, every trolling attempt which accuses STAR of "saying what the club wants them to say" is taken as a measure of success, not of criticism - when you're passing on a message you shouldn't change it.

Putting all of the above into an example, let's look at the buses thing. In a meeting on 19th July RFC explained to STAR the economic situation and why they had made the decision they had. We suggested some alternative options to them and the new thing that we added was to criticise the timing of this - announcing it after ST's had been sold. We suggested to RFC in meetings, as well as on HNA? and on BBCRB (last Monday) that they were duty bound to offer refunds to people who now couldn't get to the match. That, I think, is much more effective approach to the problem than trying to order RFC how they should spend their money.

There's also the question of whether a relatively small number of supporters should be subsidised by RFC - it's great if they are, but if there's limited money for such subsidies we'd much rather see it spread out to benefit the maximum number of supporters. STAR also gave advice and contacts to some supporters around Bracknell who were looking to organise something themselves - we offered as much support and advice as we could, short of being prepared to underwrite anything financially.

Lastly, for Forbes, STAR has never, ever, put any money into RFC. Where we have made financial contributions they've always been for specific academy projects which wouldn't otherwise happens - for instance paying for academy teams to travel to tournaments. I'm genuinely surprised that you'd suggest this - why would we ever donate money to the club? If we were ever to put money in, we'd only do it in return for something tangible, like shares or representation.

And just to reiterate for all, STAR Board Members are elected by the members of STAR, and there's an elections process every year. Any member is welcome to stand against us and we'd actively welcome this.

[Magnus]

Fair play for taking the time to defend your position.

Not saying I disagree with any of the above - but please remember that any organisation should be able to stand up to critism and questioning - otherwise there is surely a danger you will no longer be representive of fans opinion (which I'll point out before someone else does that hobnob opinion is not the same thing). If dismissing it as trolling is avoiding answering difficult questions then that's not really fair.

The usual wind up merchants will have their fun but I think most readers of this portal will be able to tell when a serious question is being asked or if they are simply looking for a response as the banter on AE is a bit thin that day.

[Terminal Boardom]

I have been critical of STAR in the past and no doubt I will be critical in the future. But fair play for having the balls and saying what was said. For that I thank you.