At the beginning of this month, a big change was announced at what was formerly known as the AFC Supporters Trust. The group, which presented itself as “the responsible voice of the fans” underwent a comprehensive rebranding in order to keep up with the new challenges and opportunities faced by all Dons fans.
The group became Dons Supporters Together (DST), and its plan is to democratically represent the voice of all Aberdeen supporters. The reason for this is because, they believe, a fractious Dons support cannot affect positive change as well as one collective voice.
Dons Supporters Together is a member of the UK-wide organisation Supporters Direct, set up to provide support to its member trusts, and best of all it is free to join DST.
DST currently has a board consisting of nine members and two co-opted board members - and Aberdeen Mad had a word with two of them: chairman Jeremy Wood, and board member Mark Hay.
Aberdeen Mad: Tell us a bit about Dons Supporters Together, and your involvement in it.
Jeremy Wood: I’ve been chairman of the AFC Trust for about three years, taking over from Bill Ellis. A key aim for me was to broaden the former Trust’s membership and ensure we embraced all supporters and supporters groups, the Trust was (I think) still seen as being mainly for shareholders. DST is for ALL people who care about the Dons.
Mark Hay: AFC Trust evolved from previous groups in the mid 2000s - membership dropped over the years from 1990s as members felt the club were no longer in crisis and we did not need a Trust. However, that missed the point of why Trusts exist.
Anyway, the Trust Board decided we needed ro reconsider our purpose and why we should exist. As Jeremy says we firmly believe that the supporters of AFC have the right to a voice in the future of AFC, especially given the significant changes the club is embarking upon. Our view on the best way to have this voice is to have as big a membership as possible which is easier to be heard and has a greater weight of opinion - hence we changed to become DST, which is fully inclusive ie open to everyone who supports or cares about AFC - young/old; local/exile; lapsed/die-hard; inside/outside the club itself.
Views of members will be sought regularly and shared in a timely way with the club to enable two-way communication as we work well with the club - healthy challenge - already, but communication can always be improved. Personally, I have been a DST board member since last November, and was previously an adviser to the board for a year or so.
AbMad: Why did you decide you wanted to get involved?
JW: I wanted to try to make a difference by having the voice of the ordinary supporter heard by the senior people and the board at AFC.
MH: If you mean why did I get involved with the Trust pre-DST - I have been a member since the original group began in the late-'90s. Having attended AGMs and the like I was aware that the Trust sought help and new board members and so I offered my services which has led to my greater involvement.
In more general terms, I am involved because I care passionately about all things AFC related and I wanted to find ways to help/make suggestions/understand more about decisions the club makes and how the club is run - and I have had my eyes opened as I did think the club board had very difficult jobs but I didn't necessarily realise just how hard. I also see many ways they could help themselves in terms of some own goals and the like that supporters can end up being on the wrong end of.
AbMad: What has Dons Supporters Together been doing since it was launched at the beginning of the month?
JW: Trying to catch up with the admin for the huge number of new membership applications the publicity has generated! We had an over-50% increase in our first week.
MH: The launch was a formal one and the culmination of a lot of hard work by the board since last June. We had an extensive "To do" list and it remains large with follow up activity following the launch. As Jeremy says the take up of new members has been great and exceeded our initial expectations but we are not resting on our laurels and are continuing to build our profile and get our message out there to get more and more new members.
AbMad: Why the change from the AFC Trust to DST?
JW: As mentioned above to try to broaden out to ensure reach as many supporters of AFC as possible and have the maximum influence on the club.
MH: The Trust did not necessarily need to grow membership whereas the intent behind DST is to be the democratic and representative voice of all Dons supporters. To achieve this aim we need a big and vibrant membership.
AbMad: What does Dons Supporters Together plan to achieve, and does it have any timescales for that achievement?
JW: Aim is to get to a five-figure membership, and ensure that that backing is heard clearly at board level. We also look to raise money to support the youth development at the club via Reds Direct.
MH: Aims and objectives at this time are sixfold, though where we say "aim", actually we "will" do it:
- DST aims to develop a constructive working relationship with the AFC Board and management
- DST aims to positively influence AFC’s communications with all fans and stakeholders of the club
- DST aims to develop and strengthen AFC’s youth development and community work through introducing and administering fund raising schemes for the benefit of AFC and local communities e.g. Reds Direct
- DST aims to act as the democratic and representative voice of all AFC supporters
- DST aims to increase its membership as much as possible to have the strongest, collective voice possible
- DST aims to strengthen its links with the Scottish Football Supporters Network to enable effective dialogue between AFC fans, AFC and other Scottish clubs, authorities and government
AbMad: Various Dons groups have appeared in the last few months - DST, Aberdeen For Change, the mysterious 'coffin' group, the Red Ultras, the Simmie testimonial group - with many varied and sometimes conflicting aims. Do you feel this is a good or a bad thing?
MH: People caring about AFC and wanting to change things for the better is never a bad thing and we live in a democracy where everyone is entitled to an opinion. However, conflicting views can be divisive and are basically doomed to failure the club cannot meet everyone's wishes - it's impossible and that can actually mean no change occurs as the club can view it as no need to change because others have said they don't support the change and so on.
Also, without expressing a personal view on each of these groups, I do feel that some of the aims and objectives need a bit more thought as they are just not achievable and the groups have also not set out how they hope to achieve their objective.
We believe DST is therefore the way to address this ie thousands of members have a greater voice and the democratic views of the large group can then be provided to club making it easier for the club to understand supporters thoughts better and then be able to do something or have better comms in explaining why something did/did not/cannot happen which would be better than occurs now e.g. a communication void at times. We need to be realistic about all this and accept we will never ever get everything we all want, and supporters won't always agree, but we need to represent the group on a democratic basis.
Equally, we in DST know that we will not please everyone with this, and that some supporters will be apathetic, but we do believe it is the right thing to do to be proactive and to seek beneficial change that benefits as many stakeholders in AFC's future success as possible. Some matters eg Simmie testimonial and safe standing do carry almost universal supporter agreement and so by using a large DST to get behind this we can reinforce the message to the board that they know if the feedback from thousands of fans rather than an unknown number of individuals.
AbMad: How long have you been following the Dons?
JW: Since 1969.
MH: First full game was also 1969 but I'm "told" I was at a reserve game in 1967.
AbMad: What is your Dons-supporting high and low?
JW: High obviously Gothenburg and the supercup win over Hamburg. Low whilst living in the USA, standing by the phone ready to book a flight to the cup final for me and my son immediately on beating QoS – and we all know what happened there.
MH: Many of each with the latter being much more recent of course. Major high is Gothenburg but also winning the league three times, especially in 1980, and numerous other trophies and consistent thrashings of the Old Firm. For lows, I prefer not to think about them - leave that to the media.
AbMad: If you could have one Dons-related wish, what would it be?
JW: To assemble a team of the quality of the early-'80s again.
MH: That would be nice. However, before that, my son who is now 20 has been coming to games with me since he was 5 and is a fanatic, hardly missing a game since then. He was too young in 1995 for our last cup win to mean anything and so my desire is for him to see us winning trophies regularly again, even the league and also winning at Ibrox.
AbMad: Free plug time - how can people contact Dons Supporters Together?
JW: www.donssupporterstogether.com - everything you need to know is there.
MH: And thanks to Bill (Paralysed_Sheep_83) coming on board we have increased our social media presence as he assists our techie guru Ross with such matters.