SD Scotland Members Newsletter

Dear member,

Welcome to your update from Supporters Direct Scotland.

Membership

A reminder we're now encouraging prospective members to sign up to our new membership scheme via GoCardless. As stated in the previous newsletter we're streamlining the membership process, reducing the fee to just £50 a year which would be debited automatically on an annual basis. This would be a recurring annual payment (unless requested otherwise). To sign up to membership, please follow the link here. We're also asking you to complete this brief membership survey so we have the most up to date and relevant information on you. 

2018 Scottish Football Supporters Survey

Speaking of surveys, yesterday saw us launch the 2018 Scottish Football Supporters Survey.

Last year’s survey received almost 14,000 responses, and helped to drive change, focussing our attention on the three big themes of “Value For Money”, “Fan Engagement” and “The Supporter Experience”. These priorities are shared by supporters, clubs, and the Scottish FA and SPFL, and we have already seen progress in each of these areas.

“We are delighted to be launching the 2018 Scottish Football Survey, as we all continue to help improve our game. Almost 14,000 supporters took part in the 2017 survey, which was a fantastic response.

This year we have created an insights group, consisting of key media and communications personnel from club’s in the SPFL. It is important clubs analyse the results of what supporters are saying and look at how these can be implemented across the game.”

We'd encourage you and your members to promote and indeed complete this year's survey so we can use the findings to help develop our national game in partnership with the games' key decision makers.

• Complete the survey here.

2018 Supporters Summit

A final reminder that this year's Supporters Summit is now just four days away and will be held at Fir Park, home of fan owned Motherwell FC.

The line up for the day has now been confirmed and now features:

SPEAKERS:

• The Well Society
• The Foundation of Hearts
• St Mirren Independent Supporters Association (SMISA)

WORKSHOPS:

• Structured Dialogue and Memorandum of Understandings between fans and clubs – Dan Crawford of Fulham Supporters Trust
• Working with your rules – how to update and work with your Trusts’ rules – Nicola Hudson, Supporters Direct Case Worker
• Women at the Game – a workshop from Women at the Game, a group set up to give women the chance to go to live football in a supportive all-female groups.
• Disability Access Officers – delivered by friends at the Scottish Disabled Supporters Association, this workshop is about DAOs
• Supporter Liaison Officers – a workshop looking at Article 35 and the role of the SLO in building bridges.
• Fan Representatives – a workshop for Trusts and clubs interested in fan representatives/supporter directors.

Apologies to those of you whose team is playing in the Irn-Bru cup that afternoon, but you are very welcome to come along for the first few hours if you would like to join us for part of the day. The morning session will focus on supporter ownership, hearing from the Well Society about their first experiences as a fan-owned club, and comparing their journey to supporter ownership with the steps being taken at Hearts and St Mirren. The afternoon session will include a range of workshop sessions on issues beyond supporter ownership, and there will of course be lots of opportunities to meet and talk to people from around the country and beyond.

Tickets are now available from the event’s Eventbrite page.

Podcasts

We took the Behind the Goals podcast on the road and visited members the ArabTRUST at Dundee United, and learnt about some of their achievements over the years – investing over £300,000 in the club and supporting the youth development and community trust initiatives. We then spoke to ArabTrust chair Susan Batten, and met with Kay and Michelle of United Ladies of Tannadice who were launching their campaign to provide free sanitary products for women visiting the club.

In the podcast we also look ahead to this year’s Supporters Summit on the 8th of September. Listen here.