We continue our Trust week with a look back at some of the activities we were up to in the 2018-19 season.
One of the biggest achievements this year has been the rebuilding of the relationship with the Football Club. Things weren’t in a great place at the end of the 2017-8 season, but both sides have worked hard to rebuild that level of trust and create an ongoing dialogue between the two.
The culmination of that saw the signing of the MOU at the Fans Forum in January. At the time, we were only the third club in the EFL to have signed such a document which acts as an agreement between both parties about working together for the greater good.
We have held a number of meetings with the club where we have discussed concerns from supporters over all manner of topics. Those meetings had previously taken place every couple of months or so but they have increased to at least once a month. The results of these meetings are published on our website to ensure our members are fully up to speed with our work.
The work with the club has led to the return of the traditional End of Season Awards Evening, changes to season ticket availability in Blocks U &V in the Pearl Street Stand, changes to the catering, free tickets being given for the Wycombe game, updates to the Fixture Board amongst many others. We also provided supporter opinion on matters that included the manager, ticketing arrangements, merchandise, smoking, Lotto, and issues that have taken place within the ground.
The last season also seen a significant increase in our membership. We finished the 2018-19 season with 525 members which was our highest total since the 2009-10 season, and the second highest that we have ever had. We have continued to improve our communication with members and will have often seek out that opinion, and we are keen to see those improvements continue.
Fundraising for the 5-a-side appeal took a large proportion of our time this year. As is always the case with the Dale Trust, members were balloted as to whether to support the 5-a-side project or not. To the best of our beliefs, that agreement from the Trust to ballot members for any large spending makes us unique within the EFL and is a key principle in ensuring that the Trust remains a Members’ Organisation. We were delighted when 100% of the votes cast supported our plan to contribute to the 5-a-side project. At time of writing, it is due to be signed off very soon, with work due to commence soon after.
To support that, we held a number of events to raise much needed funds, as well as accepting a number of donations from members and raising funds through our partnership with Easyfundraising.
We held a Race Night in January that was well attended despite being just after Christmas. It was an entertaining night, and one we will be hosting again at the start of November. We attracted a number of sponsors which coupled with the funds raised through sponsoring the horse and jockeys as well as money raised on the night, led to an amount close to £2,000 raised towards the 5-a-side project.
We welcomed former Dale manager Steve Parkin back for our Curry Night who proved himself to be one of the best speakers that we have had at such an event. It was clear that he still felt strongly for the club and those in attendance still held him in high esteem. We were well fed by our hosts at the Pavilion II and the evening lasted well into the small hours. This night raised £1760 towards the project.
One such event was a sponsored walk to Accrington. However, we didn’t realise when we planned for this that the day would coincide with two Weather Warnings from the Met Office, and news of the postponement reached us before we made it out of Norden. Nevertheless, our intrepid walkers carried on all the way to the Crown Ground arriving as the proverbial drowned rats. Not to be put off, the walk was repeated for the rearranged game and all involved were rewarded with a 1-0 victory to hobble home with.
Our Exiles continued to go from strength to strength last season, with the membership going through the roof. We ended the season with 153 Exiled members from places internationally as far afield as Thailand to the Ukraine. We appointed our first ever dedicated Exiles Coordinator in the form of Ian Goodwin. Ian’s introduction has made a massive difference to the work undertaken. That has brought back Exiles Newsletters for the first time in many years and led to us putting on two Exiles’ Days. One at Spotland and a first ever Exiles’ Away Day held at AFC Wimbledon. We will cover the work of the Exiles on Day 3.
We launched our Welfare Section this year. This was brand new territory for the Trust led by Trust member Bob Morrisey. We covered a lot of topics on our website that are crucial to the demographics of our membership and support which traditionally get ignored. So far, our Welfare Section has covered cancer, cholesterol and heart disease. Furthermore, our Welfare section worked with the club on a Prostate Cancer testing day at Spotland that saw close to 200 supporters be tested. As part of our work, the Welfare team offered contact details to any supporter who needed support. We will look at Welfare in more details on Day Six of Trust Week.