Mirren Mad does not claim to have any business expertise (perhaps we need to start watching The Apprentice) but, with the use of a statement from the club's official site and an article from The Herald website, we're going to try to explain what today's news means.
First, the details. Mr Atkinson is a director with the Maxi Group, who have been linked with a buy out for some time. They are one of the country's most successful businesses, but Mr Atkinson has no experience of running football clubs. He will take on the role of Commercial and Development Director.
Mr Stewart is a partner in Digby Brown. His experience with football clubs is also pretty limited. He replaces Allan Marshall as company secretary, but Mr Marshall remains a director - as do the rest of the board who are trying to sell their shares, including chairman Stewart Gilmour and vice chairman George Campbell.
Mr Atkinson and Mr Stewart represent a consortium who are looking at the possibility of a community led buyout of the club.
Mr Gilmour said: "There is no agreement in place to sell our consortium's shares to any party. Naturally, we would investigate thoroughly any potential offers for our majority shareholding.
"To this end, the two new appointments to the board gives Mr Atkinson's group the opportunity to develop their proposals and at the same time use their business knowledge to develop new income streams for St Mirren."
That bit is relatively straight forward. However, the information in The Herald article is where things get confusing, and I'll be brutally honest and say I don't entirely understand things.
According to the piece, the new directors plan to separate the football and business sides of the club. The selling consortium are set to receive a company in exchange for their shares. A second company - which will be classed as a community interest company - is also going to be formed. This will eligible for a whole host of tax benefits, grants and the like and will be used to fund the purchase of the shares - possibly within the next two years.
To make things even more interesting, fans can become "members" of the second company by paying an annual fee. They'll get benefits for this and also a chance to be voted onto the board of the community interest company. Furthermore, the president of this company will be Saints legend Tony Fitzpatrick.
Well, that was before Mr Gilmour spoke: "Despite suggestions made in some quarters that the club will elect a president, St Mirren has no plans to do this. Neither are there plans to have a subsidised bar in the void space at the north end of the main stand. We are still considering our options for the use of this space."
However (putting aside the disappointment over the lack of a bar to one side), Mr Gilmour only says there won't be president of the club. The Herald said he'd be president of the community interest company, which is a different entity. maybe.
There are still plenty of questions to be answered - how are the revenue streams going to be split, how is income going to be increased and just what do some of these business terms mean? However, this is arguably a step in the right direction for the club. Had someone bought the club, they'd probably have borrowed money and shifted the debt to Saints, money that would have eventually been repaid through gate receipts etc. This way, the fans are still paying for someone to buy the club - but it avoids the danger of the debt.
Let's hope, for all our sakes, things become a bit clearer in the next few days.
Story sources: The Official St. Mirren Website, The Herald