Dear members

As you know we wrote to a few weeks back with a link to an online survey asking where you would like to see SMISA invest the £2 proportion of your monthly membership fee.

The plan is to spend the pot every three months and what you told us in the survey will help inform future decisions over how we do that.

The survey is now closed but more than 550 of you took the time to fill it out – and your feedback was hugely helpful.

There were a couple of questions – the first one asked you to rank a number of areas by importance and the second to submit any ideas you had for specific projects.

We’ve now been through the results and you can see the full answers to the first question through this link. 

As you can see, the youth academy was your top priority, but there was also broad support for investment in club facilities of different kinds.

On the whole, members are happy to see money spent on St Mirren-related community projects although other areas were given higher priority.

Investment in the first-team squad was the one area which split opinion – 31% of you didn’t feel it was a suitable use of the money but almost 70% did, with 44% calling it important or very important.

Clearly we won’t be able to keep everybody happy on that point, but we could in future suggest first-team investment alongside other options and ask members to vote – that way the membership as a whole decide if the money goes there or not.

The second question saw some interesting feedback and some really good ideas and we have already had an initial chat with Gordon about how some of them might work in future.

We grouped the answers to those questions together to pick out key themes and three came out as the most mentioned.

As you might expect, youth development and the first team budget were two, and the other which repeatedly came up was investment in disabled facilities.

Leaving the money in the pot to allow bigger investment in the future was another suggestion some of you made and that may be an option we offer at various points.

But for now we have the question of what to do with the first three months of money – there is £8,500 available from the July, August and September income.

As part of the process we asked the club where they wanted investment – and their number one priority is for us to make a contribution towards the disabled platform they plan to build at the back of the main stand.

Currently, wheelchair-bound fans are housed at the front of the stands, and there is a lack of shelter during bad weather – a long-standing issue the new board have committed to fix.

This work would also allow the stadium to regain UEFA Gold Licence status – an honour it lost when the criteria for a raised disabled platform was added.

The club has the necessary permissions in place and has managed to secure some of the funding for this project but not all.

The total project cost is yet to be finalised but they reckon the shortfall will be around £6,000-7,000 and have asked if SMISA can meet that.

All things considered it seems the obvious place for this first tranche of #BuyTheBuds money to go – we want member money to go into visible projects which will make a difference to fans and this strikes us as a perfect example.

There will be points in the future where we will offer members a choice of projects and ask you to pick between them – but in this case we felt that wasn’t needed when there was only one thing the club asked us to fund and lots of our members are telling us they want that very project.

So we are proposing to make the full £8,500 available to the club to cover as much as they need to complete the platform – however we would like the members to decide what should happen with however much of that is left over.

There are two choices we would invite you to vote on –

1) Make £8,500 available for the disabled platform and put any leftover sum into the St Mirren youth academy budget

2) Make £8,500 available for the disabled platform and keep any leftover sum in the SMISA £2 pot for spending at a future date.

You will be able to cast your vote via secure online ballot and you will receive a separate email with a link allowing you to do so. If you have any issues accessing the ballot or didn't receive it please contact us.

Voting will close at midnight on Sunday 2 October and we will email members with the results.

We and the club will be working behind the scenes to cost some other projects for possible inclusion in future spending rounds – the next one will likely be in January.

As always, if you have any questions you can contact us via [email protected]

Saints fan and budding journalist Kyle Gunn recently caught up with David Nicol, SMISA’s representatives on the St Mirren board, and wrote this article for us. Thanks to Kyle for taking the time to do so...

I began the interview by asking David how it feels to be on the board of directors as the SMiSA representative. He told me: “I'm very proud to be the first fans board representative. It's still quite surreal to be in the boardroom. 

“I have been a Saints fan since I was a boy, but sadly was never good enough to make it as a player, so this is definitely the next best thing!”

So what ideas does David have club going forward? “I think the most crucial thing we have to do is ensure stability while we transition from the old board to the new board. 

“I believe we can do a lot more to take advantage of our location and proximity to the airport, and this is something we are actively pursuing.

“Given the recent issues, I would also like to see the club review the kit supply options when the current contract expires. It's important to balance the commercial aspects of the deal with the service and quality that the fans get.” 

David couldn't comment any further on the strip situation, apart from to say “the board is aware that this is not a good experience for the fans and will be picking up with JD”

David then went on to explain what his role on the board will be. He said: ”More generally my role is to be the link between the fans and the board, so if fans have ideas for revenue generation I can bring these to the board for consideration. 

“Not every idea will be taken forward, but Gordon and the board are ready to try new approaches and are open to new ideas.”

In terms of what David hopes he can bring to the the role “Short term, I will establish the relationship between SMiSA and the board, and develop the role of the supporters board rep. 

“I need to work out exactly how the club and SMiSA will interact and manage any areas of disagreement/crossover. We want SMiSA and the club working hand in hand and working towards common goals.

“We will need to outline the process for electing the fans director and agree this with the club. We also have to finalise the process for how the discretionary funds will be spent. 

“As the first supporters board rep I also want to write the 'job description' for my successors. The club expects (and needs!) the supporters elected director to actively contribute to the club’s operations and strategic goals, over the next few months I will outline what the expectations are to give potential future representatives an idea of what will be expected of them.

As a time scale for the above goals David said “Ideally I would like to have the above in place over the next three to four months.”

David ended the interview with this message for the Saints fans “I think the most important thing is for the fans to get behind the new owners. The old board did a great job, but by their admission, the club needed a change.

“We have given fans a real voice in the new ownership structure. It will take a bit of time to get things right, but the guys on the board are working hard to make things better.”

Thank you to David for his honesty throughout the interview.

Welcome to the latest update from the trust committee.

It’s now been around six weeks since our joint bid for the club with Gordon Scott went through and we’ve continued to be busy behind the scenes.

It’s been a massive transition for us, with our member numbers going from 200 to nearly 1,400 and our annual income from four figures to six, but we feel we now have the back-end admin and financial processes we need in place to deal with that increase in workload.

Our member numbers have held pretty steady throughout August and as of the end of the month were sitting at 1,370.

Along the way we have lost a few and gained a few and we expect that is how it will be – we know from our discussions with friends at the Foundation of Hearts that numbers will vary.

Obviously it is important we maintain our numbers as the years go on and we aim to do that by showing members the benefit their money is having on St Mirren and the local community.

The £2 per month members pot

With that in mind, we will soon be in a position to start investing your cash in the club.

As we told you last month, the plan is to spend the £2 ringfenced from each member’s monthly subscription on a quarterly basis.

The September subscriptions will be the third tranche of #BuyTheBuds money, meaning we will have in the region of £8,000 to invest in the club as the members choose at some point soon.

The plan is for the SMISA committee to speak to the club about their priorities for investment, to survey members over their priorities and ideas, and compile all of that into several costed spending options through which members will vote via secure online ballot.

We are still finalising the details of the exact procedure through which we will do this, but will be in touch with members soon regarding the next steps.

SMISA director and club matters

As you know, SMISA committee member David Nicol is now on the board of the club. Dave’s feedback from the first of the board meetings is that they have been really positive and that Gordon Scott in particular has lots of ideas he wants to implement at the club.

On club matters, it is important to again stress that SMISA is not directly responsible for club business – the club board control club operations, as has always been the case.

But the benefit to having a SMISA rep on the board is that we have a man in the room who can raise issues which matter to our members.

If there is something you wish Dave to raise for possible consideration at a club board meeting then let us know via [email protected]

We would also remind you that Dave’s appointment is only temporary for the time being – we plan to hold an election before the end of the year where members will choose who will do the job over the longer-term.

Open meeting – 5 September

To give members a chance to speak directly with the SMISA committee and to raise any issues they wish to discuss, we will be having a drop-in session during one of our regular meetings.

We will be in the back room at Saporito Coffee in Gauze Street, Paisley, on Monday 5 September between 7 and 8pm.

If there is anything you want to talk to us about, please pop by.

Events and benefits update

We ran our first public event since #BuyTheBuds became reality when more than 100 fans joined us for a fan party in the library cafe at the University of the West of Scotland after the Morton game.

Gordon Scott, Alex Rae and Tony Fitzpatrick joined us and addressed the crowd, as did SMISA chair George Adam and director Dave Nicol.

We want to thank everybody for coming along, as well as UWS for hosting and Billy Gray for being DJ on the night.

We have also started to roll out the benefits due to those who signed up the #BuyTheBuds through the £2,500 premium package – with some of those members joining the squad during the official team photo last week.

Some of the £25 per month members have also been picked to enjoy directors guest lounge access at the Paisley 2021 Stadium for home games.

Paul Wycherley was the man chosen from the hat for the Hibs game and we'll announce the winner for the the Queen of the South game on Saturday 10th shortly.

We are also working on plans for the first of the exclusive £25 per month members events, and hope to have more free events for all members at some point too.

In the meantime, you can contact us via [email protected] if there are any queries.

The SMISA Committee

SMISA has continued its sponsorship of the Panda Club for another season

The Edinburgh City game saw some of the SMISA committee present a cheque to the club for £2,500 as part of our ongoing commitment to the club.

The Panda Club is open to boys and girls aged between five and 12 and membership is free. Kids can go along to home games, get one hour of football coaching in the Airdome and a ticket for the match.

We are delighted to help support the next generation of Saints fans and look forward to helping the club with more of this type of community work in the future.

More info on how to join the Panda Club is on the Official Website.

Last season SMiSA sponsored four youth players kits and at the end of the season we were given each of their jerseys, we then picked four members names out the hat to receive these jerseys.

This years winners were Gareth Toop, Eric Balfour, Ian McLaren (pictured) and Barry Johnston.

This is something the Trust has been doing for a number of years now as it provides income for St.Mirren and at the same time gives the members of The Trust an opportunity to gain something in return. 

The club's commercial department are currently taking orders for next seasons sponsored kits.

http://www.saintmirren.net/pages/?p=55942

Yesterday marked the annual Saint for a Day competition hosted by the club at the ground. Our two raffle winners were Mark Syme and Ian Walker. Unfortunately Iain couldn't play due to an injury so his son Dean duly stepped up to the plate. 

Saint for a Day 2016 is now on Sunday the 24th April at the Paisley 2021 Stadium and SMiSA have the No. 5 Home & Away strips to raffle off!

The day will consist of:
* Playing the game on the pitch at St Mirren Park.
* Wearing an official team strip which you will also get to keep after the game.
* The teams will be managed by St Mirren assistant manager David Farrell and first team player Jim Goodwin.
* Man of the Match Award for a player from each team.
 
The rules are as follows:
* Entries for our raffle will close on 2pm at Tuesday 19th and we'll announce winners that evening.
* You must be 18 years of age or over to both bid and take part in ‘Saint for a Day’.
* By bidding in the auction you are declaring that you (or the person you are bidding for) are fit and well to take part in this event. For even more info please see the official St Mirren site here http://www.saintmirren.net/pages/?p=54346

Fill in your details below and you'll be entered in to the raffle, please also complete the verification email you receive.