NORTH Melbourne chairman James Brayshaw has indicated that the club is taking significant steps towards finally striking an agreement with its shareholders.

The move would re-establish the Kangaroos as member-based, doing away with the complex structure that has existed since shareholders rescued the club from financial ruin in the 1980s.

Some of those were keen to see the club re-locate to the Gold Coast when the issue boiled last year, but Brayshaw and his board have worked successfully to keep North Melbourne at Arden Street.

Now plans for the redevelopment of its training and administration base are underway.

However, Brayshaw, who took the top job in November, moved to acknowledge those who kept North Melbourne afloat in a troubled chapter.

"They’re a terrific group of people," he said. "They’ve been much maligned, which is wrong. My information is that we’re pretty close to getting an agreement in place that they’re happy with and, once we have, then the football club will be returned to a member-based club with those people as great supporters and recognised as wonderful heroes of our history.

"I don’t have an issue with them. I think what they did back in the ’80s was phenomenal. We’re talking about some people who put 300-400,000 dollars in, in the mid-80s. Extrapolate that out to now, that’s well over a million bucks that they’re never going to see again.

"They need to be recognised as saviours of our club and they need to be handled with respect and that’s what we’re trying to do."

Brayshaw suggested that the shareholder arrangement could be resolved before the conclusion of the season.

"I hope in the next two or three months we could at least have an agreement and then when it actually happens it follows on from there," he said. "It’s really important because that’s got to happen before we get things like the trust up and running.

"It’s a bit of a domino effect but I have nothing but enormous respect for those people and I’m sure that they’re going to do the right thing and from what I hear it’s not far away."

Shareholder and former North Melbourne chairman Bob Ansett, who led the club during the ’80s, confirmed in The Australian in April that he would work to convince others to soften their stance.