The Trust aspires to be an organisation that will actively seek out members’ opinion to guide the direction that we take, whilst acting in a transparent way to enable members to ensure members are fully abreast with everything that we do. Put simply, this is your Trust and we want to be guided by you.
We will frequently carry out surveys of our membership over various aspects of watching Dale with the simple remit of being able to make improvements. The more people that participate in a survey, the more weight that it carries. Over the past twelve months, we have surveyed supporters over various matters including ticketing and the PA system at the ground.
Most importantly, we made changes to our constitution at last year’s Trust AGM which will now require the Trust to seek members’ views. What was once the sort of occasions where things were passed with a nod of the head, we have seen the huge importance of the Club’s AGM’s and EGM’s over the past couple of years.
Not only that, with the Trust being the largest recognised shareholder in the Football Club, our shareholding can make a massive difference to what happens at the Club and it is only right that such decisions are made by the membership, and we will ensure that when we survey the membership, we do so in a way that allows a free vote rather than simply pushing to have our views
Not only that, the Trust’s spending is dictated by the membership. Any spending over £3,000 will require member approval before it can proceed. The main reason being is that it is the members’ money, and if it can be justified spending money on a particular project, then there are no reasons not to ask the membership.
At times, we have discussed raising this bar, but in all honesty, the ease in which we can contact members at a moment’s notice gives us no reason to change this. Again, we believe we are the only Trust in the country that carries a limit of how much can be spent without member approval. In the past twelve months, we have used this to ask members about the purchase of further shares in the Football Club.
At the start of each month, we email out a newsletter to all members. We have worked hard to improve the quality of this to the extent that we have been worried that we include too much content. We use this to provide you with a monthly update as to where we are in all manners of our activities, whilst also seeking out members’ opinion. The newsletters are optional and will only be received by members signing up to receive them.
We will also use our website and social media channels to keep members updated. Our use of Social Media has greatly improved over the past year with usually daily updates.
The Trust can always be contacted through the “Question for the Trust” section on our website, or via email to info@daletrust.co.uk. If the message is intended for Trust Director Murray Knight, please mark it as “FAO Murray”. We are always happy to hear from members whether you have a concern that you would like us to act upon or you’re just sharing your opinions with us. We will endeavour to reply to these as soon as we can.
Obviously, we understand that there is more to life than emails, websites and the social media phenomena, and sometimes the face to face interaction is needed. For that purpose, we make at least two members of the Trust Board available in the Dale Bar before every single home match at our Trust Desk. So please feel free to come and see us before matches to have your say.
As a Trust, we aspire to be fully representative of the fanbase but we cannot do that without the input of the members. Therefore, we encourage all members to have their say wherever possible.