supporters direct scotlandwww.scottishfans.orgAugust e-mag - #6

Inside this issue:- Conference round up- Trust news and updates- Sustainable legacy funding- colours of our scarves update- fans want governance reforms

OUR Mission sTATEMENT, “TO PROMOTE SUSTAINABLE SPECTATOR SPORTS CLUBS

BASED ON SUPPORTERS’ INVOLVEMENT AND COMMUNITY OWNERSHIP” HAS BEEN OUR

GUIDING PRINCIPLE SINCE WE WERE ESTABLISHED IN SCOTLAND IN 2002.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ON SUPPORTERS DIRECT SCOTLAND, PLEASE VISIT US AT:

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T: 01786 845 606

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some of the photos used in this magazine were taken for the colours

of our scarves project and taken by stuart roy clarke

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Dear friends,

It is that time of the year again when enthusiasm and excitement for the new season kicks in. Our love of the game is at its peak; after a spectacu-lar World Cup and an exciting summer of sporting events, our emotions turn to the possibilities of what might be in store for our own beloved team in the 2014/15 season.

Of course, we all know that the expec-tations of our heart do not necessar-ily translate into on-field success and that there can only be a few successful clubs this season. For some there will be disappointment and pain and for others just mediocrity. Part of that re-alisation is what I think makes football fans united in their love of our game and having the ability to share in the joys of other clubs - except those bitter local rivals - and sympathising when it all goes wrong with others. We have all been here before.

It is just over two years since Support-ers Direct Scotland established Scot-tish Fans. We were awarded Scottish Government funds to build an or-ganisation that would eventually be a strong, independent fan-focussed or-ganisation. Much has been achieved in that period of time as we seek to represent not just Supporter Trusts, but also other groups and individual fans. We are nearing the end of our funding

period and it will be critical for us as an organisation to demonstrate just how valuable we can be, not just for fans, but for the football industry as a whole as well. Part of that process means that we will need to evolve and offer all our fans a more democratic and robust structure. We firmly believe that all the funding in the game, almost without exception, is generated in one way or another by fans and it is only right and proper that fans have an organisation that can represent them. Over the com-ing months we will be talking to lots of you as we seek your help and support in taking our organisation to the next level.

Thank you for your continued support and good luck for the coming season.

Yours in football

Paul Goodwin,Head of Supporters Direct Scotland

that time again

Airdrieonians Supporters’ Trust have been involved in a unique and innovative scheme in which young people under the age of 16 could trade in a football strip for a free sea-son ticket at Airdrieonians FC.

The initative has been a complete success with almost 400 season tickets having been given out to Under 16’s through the scheme.

Delivered in partnership with the club, under 16s could convert an unwanted kit into free entry to games and cheer on Gary Bollan and his players during the SPFL League One campaign.

The trust teamed up with the charity KitAid which has donated more than 200,000 strips to people in some of the poorest coun-tries in the world.

The non-profit organisation, which is based in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year and boasts former England manager Graham Taylor as its pa-tron.

The trust were keen to support KitAid’s work and promote the charity in Scotland while filling the main stand at New Broomfield with

the fans of tomorrow and strengthening links with the local community.

Willie Marshall, Chairman of the Support-ers Trust said: “The trust was delighted to be able to announce this unique season-ticket scheme thanks to the support of the club and is proud to be supporting the excellent work of charity KitAid; we’ve had a great re-sponse. We haven’t fully counted it yet but over 3000 pieces of football kit have been handed in since we launched the campaign and it’s still coming in”.

The trust hopes to donate 10,000 strips by the end of the year – and potentially enter the Guinness Book of World Records!

We wish the Trust all the best in their efforts and congratulate them on their campaign’s success.

You can follow the Airdrieonians Supporters Trust on Twitter: @AirdrieTrust

Airdrieonians trust partner with kit aid to deliver successful and unique offer for under 16s

trust news

Patron – Graham Taylor OBE

Patron – Graham Taylor OBE

If you would like to know more about KitAid log on to www.kitaid.net or www.kitaid.blogspot.comRegistered Charity No. 113968

Affinity Water’s home grown registered charity

KitAid is a registered charity collecting and sending no longer wanted football kit to children and adults who also love football but would only ever dream of owning their own kit. Since 1998 they have donated more than 220 000 items of kit across the world. If you’d like to bring smiles to children and adults who are as passionate about football as you are, it’s time to ‘tackle’ your own boot rooms!

Donate a football strip (or as many as you can!) in good condition and receive aFREE UNDER 16 SEASON TICKET FOR AIRDRIEONIANS FC!Strips donated can be from ANY team! Rangers, Celtic, Airdrie, Boys’ Clubs, Amateur Teams etc ! Goodie bags available for the 1st 100 children to donate ! Mystery Prizes to find!

Help us break the record by reaching more than 10,000 Strips! All other football kit (shorts, socks, boots, shin pads etc ) gratefully received.

Terms and conditions apply – visit http://www.airdriefc.com/trust/ for details. Follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/kitamnesty?fref=ts and Twitter @kitamnesty Email us at kitamnesty@yahoo.co.uk

Thank you for your support!

FOOT BALL KI T AMNEST Y

In association with Airdrieonians FC, Airdrieonians Supporters Trust, and BSB Structura

Launching on 28 June at Airdrie Fair Day and running throughout July One of the working groups set up by Pars United in recent months is the Disabled Fa-cilities Group. The group had been set up to look at improving facilities around East End Park for disabled fans and one of the first requests from Pars fans who are wheelchair users was to have better protection from the biting winds which whistle around the view-ing platforms at the front of the Norrie Mc-Cathie Stand.

After consultation with fans who watch the match from these areas, the working groups Jim Henderson was tasked with finding a solution. With the help of Club sponsors Purvis Group, Jim’s idea became a reality and a large weather protection screen was erected at the side of each viewing platform. The cost to manufacture the screens was met by the Pars Supporters’ Trust whilst Pur-vis fabricated the screens and provided free installation.

Wheelchair bound Pars fan Ali Carstairs, who is a season ticket holder in the Nor-rie McCathie Stand said “What a difference these screens have made already! Sitting here watching games through the winter months will be much more enjoyable now. It’s great that Pars United have recognised

the needs of the disabled fans as well as able bodied ones and it’s fantastic to see requests like this turn in to reality. Many thanks to the guys from the Disabled Facili-ties Group not to mention Purvis and the Pars Supporters’ Trust”.

PST Vice-Chair Drew Main, who is also a member of the working group commented “It’s great to see a project like this come to fruition especially as it’s just in time for the start of the new season. The PST were de-lighted to provide the funding for this as, not only do we look to increase our sharehold-ing in the Club through regular donations, but we are also keen to help out in other ways for the benefit of the fans and DAFC”.

The Disabled Facilities Group continues to assess the stadium looking at ways of im-proving the matchday experience for disa-bled fans. This not only considers wheel-chair bound fans but also those with sight and hearing impairments. Consideration is also being given to providing disabled ac-cess to the Clubs popular function suites on the first floor of the Main Stand.

Disabled Fans Now Better Protected at east end park

trust news

Minutes after Matthew Kennedy was an-nounced as the clubs latest signing, the Erin Hibs supporters club snapped up his com-plete sponsorship ahead of the 2014/15 sea-son. We'd like to thank Erin Hibs for their fan-tastic continued support of Hibernian.

The Erin Hibernian Supporters Trust was founded 15 years ago to help support the club and build up the fans stakeholding by buying shares. The Trust have now donated around £100,000 to the club and have do-nated physiotherapy equipment, match anal-ysis software and sponsored youth teams at Hibernian. We have also been slowly build-ing up a share stakeholding.

Neil Havis from Erin Hibs said "We are de-lighted to continue sponsoring a first team player and look forward to seeing Matthew score lots of goals for Hibs."

Kennedy sponsored by Erin Hibs Supporters Trust

trust news

A busy couple of weeks at Dees 4 Life has seen Board Members and other volunteers working spare hours to process the sheer volume of applications to the Society & Club Dundee Membership.

Since the launch of annual membership on the 1st of June 2014, the Society has accumulated just shy of 900 paid adult members, a fantastic achievement that far outstrips expectations. The new look DFCTV has proven to be a major hit with the Dundee Support and is something they say they are keen to continually improve.

Membership to dee 4 life outstrips expectations

donations from book sales to go to trustOrders can now be placed for copies of a new book, which charts Dumbarton’s rise from the Third Division in 2008 to an unforgetta-ble 2013/14 season with £2 from each sale going towards the Sons Supporters Trust.

‘The Rising Sons’, written by Andrew Gal-loway, details Sons’ achievements over the past six years, including the Third Division title victory in 2009 and the 2012 promo-tion to the First Division. The book launch will take place in the supporters’ bar at the Bet Butler Stadium at 1pm on Saturday, Au-gust 16, before Dumbarton play Queen of the South.

Berwick Rangers Supporters Trust members Isla Barber, David Spence, Andrew Neville and Michael Smyth, along with Berwick Rangers F.C. Financial Officer Lyndsay Flan-nigan and her son Stuart, spent time last Saturday, June 14th, repainting the ceiling and interior walls of the club shop at Shiel-field. This was the first stage in giving the shop a new look in time for the start of the 2014-15 season.

wee gers supporters give club shop new look

Tayside Kickers, the regions Subbuteo Club, have teamed up with ArabTRUST to promote both organisations fundraising.

Tayside Kickers has been going since 91' and competes in the governing bodies ( Federa-tion International of Sports Table Football; FISTIF.) events.

The Club is looking to foster relationships with ArabTRUST and introduce Subbuteo to new and old players alike. It is planned to host introductory nights to people interested with free coaching and training on the beau-tiful game in miniature.

The Club is run by a group of football fans, many of who are United supporters and in fact their strips are Black & Tangerine.

As a launch they will be showcasing the new Subbuteo game to the public at the Dundee United Open Day. There people can try it out and see how the game has progressed over the last 30 years into a fast competitive tacti-cal game.

They will also be fundraising for ArabTRUST with a special Subbuteo beat the goalie, with one of Dundee United Goalies also taking part. There will also be a raffle to win a mini Subbuteo table.

Tayside kickers team up with the arabtrust for fundraising

well society fundraiserPlease join the Well Society at Hamilton Park Race Course at Hamilton Park Race Course on Saturday 27th Sept for a McLean and KirkSportsman’s dinner to celebrate. “The Tommy McLean Era”.

Tommy who spent 10 years with Mother-well as our Manager will be joined by special guests and personalities from his time with MFC culminating in his legendary Scottish Cup Win in 1991. Bookings and payments can be made by contacting Alison on wellso-ciety@motherwellfc.co.uk or 01698 338006

Something to share?

e-mail andrew.jenkin@supporters-direct.org with your latest news and activities

trust news

We at Supporters Direct Scotland have been proud to be involved in the establish-ment of Bala Sports UK, a new cooperative set up to expand the availability and use of ethically produced Fairtrade sports balls (fo-cusing initially on footballs) in the UK and beyond. Here, Bala offer us a guest blog on their start-up.

According to the SFA the beautiful game should be all about fairness and respect for players and for fans – as it should be. But what about the people who make the balls we all take for granted? They don’t always get a fair go. That’s why Bala Sport was set-up – to level the playing field for the factory workers and skilled hand-stitchers in Paki-stan who produce our balls.

It used to be that children were used to stitch footballs at home being paid a pit-tance to do the painstaking work . This often resulted in them sustaining back injuries whilst stooping on low stools and straining their eyes to make sure the stitching was done correctly. They would also suffer from

cuts from the large needles used. Thank-fully since an outcry in the mid 1990s child labour has been stamped out and the work is now done only by adults. It’s skilled work and should be fairly rewarded – that’s what Bala does – through Fairtrade we pay a fair price and ensure fair and safe working con-ditions – but not everyone else does.

We also pay an additional 10% Fairtrade Premium for the workers to decide amongst themselves on what development projects to invest this cash payment in.

At our factory a Fair Price shop was set up using the Fairtrade Premium to help the workers and their families afford essential food and household items.

Bala balls are made at a factory In Sialkot in the Punjab, in Pakistan. 70% of all the world’s hand-stitched footballs are made in Sialkot. The big brands like Nike, Puma and Adidas have their balls made there – some are even made in the same factories as Fair-trade certified balls like ours. The big brands

At last Britain has the balls to play fair! a guest blog from bala sport ukcan obviously place large orders, so it’s not surprising that less than 8% of balls made in the factory Bala uses for instance are made to Fairtrade standards. This means that most of the time the factory work-ers and men and women employed in the hand-stitching centres earn considerably less than they do when they’re making Bala balls. That’s why it’s essential that the Bala brand is a success – so that we can start to increase the number of Fairtrade sports balls from less than 1% of balls worldwide

so that more people in Pakistan can benefit from Fairtrade.

This is not the only thing that’s different about Bala Sport. We’re a Glasgow based industrial and provident society which doesn’t take profits from the business – set-up with help from the Co-operative Glasgow Development Fund. As well as levelling the playing field for the workers in Pakistan – our aim is also to bring people here at home from all backgrounds together through sport. We’re in the very early stages of this game and we’re having our current batch of training and match balls trialled by the likes of the players and Youth Academy at St Mirren along with their excellent Street Stuff programme team. The more Bala balls we can sell – the more orders we can place helping more people in Pakistan – and the more amateur clubs and tournaments we can support. So help us spread the word about Bala on social media and let’s make the beautiful game even better.

There’s no reason why even the higher level of the game shouldn’t be played with Fair-trade certified balls. FIFA doesn’t allow the Fairtrade Mark or any other mark on FIFA Approved or FIFA Inspected balls – but they do allow the International Matchball Stand-ard (IMS) to be used. Fairtrade certified balls can be made to exactly the same specifi-cations as the big brands’ high end balls – where there’s a will there’s a way!

Like us over on facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram and let’s kick this game into shape

1. Put aside time – lots of it

No matter how straightforward the pro-ject seems, it’s easy to underestimate the amount of time needed to progress it – and this time will in all likelihood, come from you. So start as you mean to go on and recognise, accept and embrace the fact that you will have constant phone calls, short notice meetings and tricky decisions to make during the life of the build. That having been said, for people who genuinely want to achieve a com-mon goal, this can be inspiring and mo-tivating, and many people enjoy being part of something that is so interesting, exciting and challenging.

2. Gather a positive, reliable team of people

Having a team of people that can be relied upon to stand together, share the workload and show complete faith in the integrity of the project is worth its weight in gold. Try to ensure that everyone is of the same mindset and has enough avail-able time to play their part. Work hard to keep this steering group together. It’s absolutely vital that it is focused, unified and strong. Without this basic compo-nent, any community building project will struggle to progress.

3. Get your objectives clear at the outset

There’s no question that – particularly in the early stages – there will be differing views on most elements of the project. This has to be dealt with at the outset. Write your objectives down and make sure everyone signs up to them so that before you even start looking at matters like legal structures, governance and the like, you are all in agreement about what it is you are trying to do and why. This will avoid uncertainly, dead ends and potential bickering later on.

4. Work out broad viability at a very early stage

As in most other areas of life, issues around money can cause major prob-lems, so try to ensure that the project stacks up in broad financial terms at the

earliest stage you can. Use a tool like Locality’s Community Buildings Checker to take some of the guesswork out of the process, and work out some basic scenarios to help you create ball park budgets and basic costings that every-one can agree on. This is key as having a clear understanding of what is and isn’t feasible can make or break a project. Leaving this until later on just means that more people will have spent time fruit-lessly in trying to bring an unsustainable idea to life, and the community will be disappointed and disengaged as a result.

5. Know your limitations – ask for help

Community building projects involve a very wide variety of skills and competen-cies. If you have people on the steering group who can provide specific skills, so much the better, but if not, understand the group’s limitations and know when to ask for help. Organisations like Local-ity can be particularly useful in terms of signposting to members who have gone down a similar route to yours. You may also find Locality Brokers to be relevant in terms of finding suitable professional help: localitybrokers.org.uk.

6. Be realistic, patient and steadfast

Things are complicated; they take time; they can be wearing. The most impor-tant factor here is to hold firm. Keep the community engaged, perhaps by hold-ing events or updates. Stick to your guns and work for something you know you can achieve but at the same time, know that nothing in life worth having comes easily. Be patient and keep working to-wards your goal. It will come.

7. Don’t cut corners

How tempting is it to cut the odd corner? The urge to save time and money by tak-ing shortcuts is overwhelming at times, but failing to work by the book can cost you dearly. Planning and construction is technical and demanding. Project man-aging requires time and attention. Put adequate resource into this. We didn’t – and had to find extra manpower to see it through. Namely, more volunteer time.

8. Record everything – absolutely

everything

Keep proper records; take copies of everything; write down the outcome of telephone conversations and confirm them in emails. Fortunately, our secretary and treasurer were diligent on this front – not everyone is. But I can’t tell you how many times our records dug us out of a hole, and how important they were as the project progressed. You might be-lieve you can remember every piece of project discussion and every cost agreed on the hoof, but without recording it, you almost certainly won’t.

9. Don’t take it personally

People love to criticise. They seem to revel in things going wrong and there always seems to be a small group of moaners on the sidelines ready to pick at everything you try to achieve. Don’t take it personally, because it almost certainly isn’t. This is just one facet of human nature, so try to concentrate on the oth-ers – the mostly silent majority who is pleased someone else is taking on the project and is keen to see the outcome but will hardly ever say so. Eventually, the criticism will stop and the building will become part of the local landscape – part of its history. The criticisms will fade in time, but the facility won’t. That’s what it’s all about.

10. Take inspiration from others

There are so many groups taking on community building projects every year. Some are small – some much larger, but all are great examples of communities working together to build something for the benefit of local people. For inspi-ration, have a look at the Community Buildings case studies.

See more here

10 tips for building a community hubAs a Supporters Trust, it’s likely one of your aims and objectives will be to strengthen ties with the local community. While for many this might be offering schemes for cheap or free tickets to community members to your teams games, others may have aspirations to build a hub for the community. This is not an easy process but is achievable and what better ve-hicle to base it around than football? Here’s 10 tips written up by our friends at My Community Rights on how to build your hub.

Following on from a successful pilot scheme at the end of the 2013/14 season, the Col-ours of our Scarves project will be continuing in the new season, visiting all remaining sen-ior Scottish football stadiums.

From January of March of this year, SDS vis-ited Falkirk, Hamilton, Dundee and Leith to deliver workshops and focus groups in the local communities, as well as presenting a photographic exhibition on match days, with images from renowned football photogra-pher, Stuart Roy Clarke.

In the coming weeks SDS will be at Elgin City, Stranraer and Montrose as the project is taken nationwide to canvass opinion on issues relating to sectarianism in their local areas.The issue of sectarianism in Scotland is one that has been discussed and debated, with countless attempts to address the issue see-ing varying levels of success from Govern-ments, Charitable organisations, Football clubs and independent bodies. Sectarianism

itself is a deep rooted cultural issue that dates back generations and e¬ffects society as a whole. Sectarianism has traditionally been perceived to manifest itself through football supporters at football matches and football related events through language, song and actions which in some cases has led to vio-lence and unfortunately even murder.

Supporters Direct Scotland through the creation of The Colour of our Scarves pro-gramme with Scottish Government funding will attempt to help play a part in address-ing the issue. The programme will collect much needed research through a nation-wide campaign of educational workshops and visual displays utilising the services of world famous football photographer Stuart Roy Clarke. The Colour of our Scarves will work in partnership with all senior Football clubs across Scotland and football’s national governing body.

Visit the Colour of our Scarves page on the Scottish Fans website here.

colours of our scarves update

The 15th of June saw the Supporters Direct Scotland conference take place with fans very much at the forefront and focus of dis-cussion. With a range of Supporters Trusts, groups and clubs represented, the event kick started with Paul Goodwin, Head of Support-ers Direct Scotland, highlighting the achieve-ments of the organisation over the past 12 months and outlining its’ future plans.

This was proceeded by Stephen Morrow, a lecturer in Sport Finance at the University of Stirling and the Chair person of the Working Group established by the Scottish Govern-ment to investigate further fan involvement in the governance of football, talking on the setup of the group and how it will feed its re-sults into the wider community.

Former Kilmarnock and Morton manager Kenny Shiels then spoke on the importance of fans to the game in Scotland and how they added value to the nation’s sport before Kate Ogram and Mark Gretton, representatives of Hull City’s ‘City Till We Die group’ detailed their campaign preventing the proposed change of their club to Hull Tigers. Mark and Kate’s presentation generated much interest and engagement among the Conference’s attendants as they spoke of their experi-ences dealing with single owners with plans of their own. They, along with the morning’s speakers, fielded questions from those in the audience and via the Scottish Fans twitter feed.

Jon Darch of the Safe Standing Roadshow got the afternoon’s activities underway with a presentation on the growth of safe stand-ing in British football and how it provided a safe and more cost effective alternative ex-perience to seating before attendants split into a mix of workshops and focus groups on a range of topics affecting Scottish foot-ball.

SDS Council member and ArabTrust mem-ber Grant McKenzie led a workshop on how Dundee United’s Supporters Trust under-took their fundraising activities while Hibs Working Together facilitated a focus group on kick-off times and the rescheduling of fixtures. The next session saw Dave Scott of the charity Nil By Mouth discuss discrimina-tion within Scottish football while Paul Good-win outlined Supporters Direct Scotland’s in-volvement in the Supporter Liasion Officer project with the Scottish Football Associa-tion.

Dr Borja Garcia rounded off proceedings by presenting findings of the FREE Project’s re-search into supporter’s perceptions of the governance of football in Scotland, ensuring the day finished as it had started, with fans and their views firmly in the centre of the de-bate.

You can see videos from the speakers on the day at scottishfans.org/conference.

Supporters DIrect Scotland Conference Round up

In a poll published today by Supporters Di-rect, and undertaken by leading market re-search company ICM Research, fans of Eng-lish clubs have backed Supporters Direct’s call for fan involvement in the ownership of football clubs, with nearly 40% agreeing that football rules need to change to enable it.

Other results showed that only 18% of fans believe that their clubs are financially well run, backed up by the 100+ insolvencies in the top five divisions of the English game since 1992. There was also overwhelming backing for fans to be ‘formally consulted on any changes relating to their football club (for example name, shirt colour, badge or location of the football club), with 77% agreeing, an area that Supporters Direct led a session on at the Supporters Summit on last weekend (26th July) at Wembley Sta-dium, an issue of serious concern following

the cases of Hull City, Cardiff City and Cov-entry City.

Also very significant was the recognition that ‘football is broken’ and that ‘The FA needs to intervene to fix it’, chiming with much of Greg Dyke’s video message to those attending last week’s supporters’ summit, where he also said that the FA Council fails to represent the game as it is – adding as he did that fans were ‘under-represented’.

The headline results:

The running of the game/governance• 44% of fans agree that “Football is broken and The FA needs to intervene to fix it”• 49% agree that supporters and their repre-sentatives should be more involved in the running of football”

Clubs and how they should be run and owned• Only 18% of fans said that their clubs were financially well run• 77% of fans agree that they should be for-mally consulted on any changes relating to their football club• 38% agree that football supporters should be entitled by football regulation to a role in the ownership of their football club• 54% of fans agree that “Football clubs should be run as a combination of a com-munity business that balance results on the pitch with work in the local community”

Speaking about the results, Robin Osterley, CEO of SD, said: “This definitive poll – the most comprehensive ever undertaken – of the supporters of English football clubs about how they view the running of the game, shows irrefutably that the average fan

Supporters Direct ICM poll shows that fans “want major reform of football”does care that their clubs are run badly; that they do want to see the FA get control and run it in the interests of all, not just a minor-ity of clubs or officials at the top; and that they believe that part of that should mean a role in the ownership of their clubs.“We want this to be a signal to all those who share the same views. Whether those in the game’s governing bodies; politicians frustrated at the slow pace of reform that they have laid out again and again; or those in grassroots football suffering from poor decisions a local level. There is now a critical mass of people who want change, and we can, working together, achieve that. This is an opportunity that we must seize.”

Being a member of a supporters’ trust is about more than just loving sport. It’s about being involved, having your say, listening to others and working together as a community to secure a sustainable future for your favourite team. In short, it’s about fair play.

You may not think sport has much in common with your gas and electricity bills, but at Co-operative Energy, we’re motivated by the same values as the trusts you work so hard to support.

Sport is steeped in history, full of winners, pioneers and athletes who went the extra mile for their teammates. In a similar way, the Co-operative movement has been holding the torch for communities, ethical trading and honesty since the Rochdale Pioneers opened the doors of their first shop in 1844. A real alternative In 2011, almost 200 years later, Co-operative Energy – part of the Midcounties Co-operative - was founded on the same principles. We wanted to

offers consumers an alternative to the Big 6 energy suppliers - a different choice based on fair prices, transparency, renewable energy sources and a commitment to customer service and Co-operative members.

Three years on, we’ve gained plenty of supporters and 200,000 customers. And, although we’ve grown fast, we’ve kept our promises to them, offering consistently fair prices and a strong set of values.

When some energy suppliers were hiking their prices by as much as 11%, we decided to absorb rising energy industry transport and distribution costs and raise ours by a modest 2.5% on average. Our range of fixed price tariffs is designed to offer flexibility, value for money and complete peace of mind - without any early exit fees. A rallying cry for renewables We’ve sourced our energy responsibly (the carbon content of our electricity in 2013 was less than half the national average), hosted the UK’s first Community Energy Conference and worked with renewable energy

communities across the UK. In fact, you could say we’re team players.

Our goal for the future?

To grow without losing sight of what makes us unique, to continually offer our customers a fair energy deal and to put the ball back in the energy consumer’s court is our goal.

We’re very proud to be working with Supporters Direct, because your hard work, true dedication and team spirit are exactly what the international Co-operative movement is all about. You’ll support your team for life.

And, as your energy supplier, we’ll be here for you for life.

Always fair energy pricesBecause that’s our goal too

For more information please visit:www.cooperativeenergy.coop/sports

Or call 0800 093 7535 quoting 'Supporters Direct'

Supporters Direct and the Football Support-ers’ Federation held their annual Supporters Summit at Wembley Stadium on Saturday July 26th.

Trusts and supporters groups from across England and Europe were represented at the event that included keynote speeches from representatives from both organisa-tions, as well as a variety of workshops covering a range of issues pertinent to the football supporter movement.

The event – sponsored by BT Sport – was well attended by delegates, with both SD and the FSF holding their AGMs on the Friday night before the conference on Sat-urday. Kevin Miles of the FSF and Robin Osterley of SD – both CEO – gave introduc-tory speeches before an open forum was held for delegates to voice their opinions on issues regarding supporter involvement and the general governance of the game. There was also a screening of a video Q&A with FA Chairman, Gregg Dyke, who was unable to attend the event in person.

Several workshops were held throughout the day, covering topics such as Financial Fair Play, Club Licencing and Protecting Club Identity. There was also the oppor-tunity for those in attendance to attend a

special BT Sport Supporters’ Club Q&A with England women’s international, Alex Scott, which included discussion on her work with the Street Child World Cup.

The event was rounded off with an enter-taining Q&A panel of Blizzard contributors – a quarterly football publication – chaired by Times journalist Rory Smith. Miguel Delaney, James Horncastle and James Montague fielded questions from delegates on topics including FIFA and the 2022 Qatar World Cup, domestic on-field issues and England’s post-World Cup fallout.

Content from the day can be viewed on the Scottish Fans website (click here).

the supporters summit - a round up

Legacy 2014: Sustainable Sport for Communi-ties is a £1m Fund established with £500k of Scottish Government 2014 Legacy Funds and £500k from The Robertson Trust. The over-arching goal of the Fund is to support moresports social enterprises to be able to own and/or manage facilities and deliver sustainable services which meet the needs of their commu-nities.

Strand 2 of the Fund, which opened for ap-plications on 11th August, offers sports social enterprises the opportunity to apply for up to £30,000 of support towards the direct costs of employing a Business Development Officer, or similar post, with the aim of developing the organisation, its services and its financial sus-tainability through the adoption of a socialenterprise model. Funding is available for one or two years.

Applications are invited from sports social en-terprises which are at an early stage of consid-ering how to make their community facility and/or services more sustainable.In addition to delivering sporting activities, ap-plicants must also be able to demonstrate that they are seeking to make a wider difference in

their community through their work. Making a difference in areas including health and well-being, employment and education are key aims of the Scottish Government’s Legacy ambitions in addition to a primary aim of getting more people active.

This programme will deliver a package of sup-port to successful applicant organisations. This means that in addition to receiving direct fund-ing for a position, successful applicants will also benefit from a range of development support which will include including mentoring, coach-ing, training and networking opportunities.

Full details of the fund are available online at www.therobertsontrust.org.uk.

The closing date for application isWednesday 8th October 2014.

Apply for Legacy 2014 funding for sustainability