"Supporters Direct in Scotland Conference, Stirling University, 17.4.05

(Supporters Direct is the umberella organisation for all the supporters
trusts in Scotland)

Tad and myself arrived at 10am to get some coffee and found members
of Bairns Trust, Stenhousemuir Trust and the Stirling Albion
Supporters Trust doing the same thing. After a chat we all went to hear
the opening speeches involving the following people:

Chair: Phil Tooley, Acting Managing Director, Supporters Direct
Speakers: Patricia Ferguson MSP, Minister for Tourism, Culture & Sport
Ken McKenzie, chief Officer, Scottish Co-op
Richard Baker MSP, Enterprise & Culture Committee

What I took from these speeches was that sport and peoples
participation in it was to be encouraged and funded more than previously
and that the Enterprise & Culture Committee of the Scottish Parliament
was seeking information and opinion from all interested at every level of
football in the form of a questionaire (which was made available). It was
agreed that this was too good a chance to miss to give our views on
Scottish football and its future direction - as we saw it.

It was then time for us to attend a workshop - Tad went to one on Boardroom
Representation while I was in the Scottish Federation of Supporters. While
not a new concept, I thought the idea of an overall organisation that would
represent ALL supporters bodies (supporters clubs and trusts) at the highest
levels was generally a good one and was pleased to hear it is to be
relaunched soon.

At 12.45pm we broke for lunch which was very good quality and choice.

In the afternoon it was time for another workshop - this time Tad went to
Financial Best Practice while I went off to one on Campaigning. The main
speaker was a lady from Shareholders United, a body of Man Utd fans that
are trying to prevent a takeover of their club by an outsider. While I took
ome notes of the press related issues that were brought up, the kind of
campaign that was being illustrated seemed far removed from ones that
`Shire supporters have experience of but there were some interesting
snippets of information to be gathered.

At 3.30pm we had a closing debate with a panel including:

Chair: Phil Tooley, Acting Managing Director, Supporters Direct
Brookes Mileson, Gretna F.C.
James Proctor, Supporters Direct
Derek Robertson, Dundee United F.C.

The debate was an amusing and revealing event - Brookes Mileson was
obviously not on best terms with those that run Scottish football and
supporter turned director, Derek Robertson told us that the responsablity
and pressure of being a director is not always something that fans can
really understand.

In conclusion we thought our two man coverage of this conference was
well worth while, not nessecarily because of the organised events but
for the opportunity to speak with representatives of the other trusts that
attended. The chance to share experiences, ask questions, compare
notes etc was a very useful thing indeed and participation in a similar
event would be recommended by me - probably with different
committee members attending. Among the trusts we spoke to was
Bairns Trust, Stenhousemuir Trust, Stirling Albion Supporters Trust,
UCS trust(Clydebank), Dee4life(Dundee), Arab trust(Dundee Utd),
Honest men trust(Ayr Utd), Raith trust, Heart of midlothian trust, Celtic
trust, Clyde trust, Berwick Rangers trust, Queen of the south,
St Mirren ISA, Inverness Caledonian Thistle trust."