Its late and most have probably retired for the night. From what I can gather it looks as though the general outlook is positive, people seem re-assured. This is good. Nothing good will ever come out of a toxic environment (whether it be one we are involved in or the company).
I would like to take a moment, as others have, to acknowledge the time and effort many on this site and FB have gone to IOT (in order to) seek information, clarification and direction for themselves and those around them. There have been lots of rumors floating around recently of skullduggery, deceit, underhanded tactics and even illegal practices, aimed at both SH and the board themselves. Now I was not at the AGM and have not spoken to anyone there as of yet, but from what I have gleamed so far it looks like what I had hoped would happen has. Communication. Everyone I think can and would acknowledge that it hasn’t been great in the past, it lead to fear, gossip and rumors. Whilst I don’t want to reflect on the negative, I would like to try and relate why some became defensive of the board (see comments around planted employees, 1st time posters, FB baggers etc).
From what I know of the people who went looking for answers i.e. wrote to the company, they all wanted the same thing. Everyone was questioning the Resolutions and other issues, people wanted justification, and a lot were offering solutions too. When these people started receiving responses to their communications they were quite surprised. But you know what, the board wasn’t trying to influence and swing peoples votes (I know people on FB may disagree based on their view of prospects correspondence but from what I saw from CW’s email there was a lot of substance prior to his impassioned plea for people to consider their position, it was an open and honest email and again it was suggested to the board that people need to know this), they were not being underhanded (and neither were the SH’s), they were talking and listening. From what I saw of bits and pieces of info that came from the board it had nothing to do with specifics on operations or deals or anything like that. From what I saw the board was initially more interested in listening to ideas and suggestions than in any way trying to convince anyone of anything. I took that that as they were trying to improve in those areas, whether it was because they were scared the resolutions would be voted down or not I don’t really care, as long as they were open to SH concern. I truly believe this was evidenced in the announcement dated 18 Nov, where to me there started to be a significant change in the language used and the attempts to engage and communicate with SH.
As communication progressed the thing that came out of it to me were the background stories, how John and Chris were nearly broke, how Athan convinced Marty to join them, how passionate they were of their jobs and also each other. And do you know what the people who received this info said to them? YOU NEED TO TELL PEOPLE THIS, YOU NEED TO COMMUNICATE THIS. This is what people want to know. Now lets be serious, this is pretty tricky to do, attempts such as CW letters which were posted here and MD Q&A were met by claims of fluff and BS. Some were never going to accept the answers and probably still don’t. That’s fine, it’s also not constructive to break the trust of the board by posting info in public forums when they had asked for it not to be released (which I think also exaggerated a lot of the conspiracy theories).
At the end of the day some of the character assignations and continued speculation and innuendo, I believe became out of control. Again whilst we all acknowledge that better communication could of helped, this shouldn’t be the justification for the attacks (and this is very different from the frustration and disappointment people were having and should be allowed to vent).
I hope the board allowed people in today and gave them a better sense of who they are. I hope the SH took that with sincerity and an open mind and where possible are able to pass that on to those that weren’t there, not to ramp (up or down) but simply to communicate, its what we’ve all been wanting.
I’m not professing that everything will be rosy from here on or that everyone will be rich. I believe both praise and criticism are valid and appropriate at times. Slander and BS are not.
I hope everyone got/will get some answers as a result of todays AGM in the coming days that will help them solidify their position to either buy,hold,sell or watch XPED so that they can be comfortable with their decision and reduce the stress that has engulfed many over the last couple of months.
Cheers,
Tim
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