Darlo Uncovered

I know our CEO is talking about working on things in regards to moving our club forward and will announce things when there is something to say.

However not sure what to make of how generally quiet the club is in regards to the fundraising, seems to be no drive at all and just seems to be down to the DFCSG to push as much as they can. Maybe Johnston/Board are busy working on bigger things for the club but it just seems very quiet to me.

Are they not worried, do they have a plan outside of the fans fundraising or would they look as suggested to borrow a little if needed.

Looking at the figures the fans have put in pledged just short of 148k this summer, (43k pitch work, 40k ground work, 22k steel work, 42.3k budget increase, £530 development fund), you could remove 10k in theory for Raj putting in but 138k is still very good.

Leaves us with 64.5k to raise by the end of the season, is that possible. I would probably say yes, if the club and DFCSG are fully behind it.

I guess we will find out where we are by the end of the month as I would assume DFCSG would make statement before or at that point.

I was wondering the same thing, I am sure others feel the same.

Why aren't the club plugging this? This should be pushed out on Social Media, Radio, The Northern Echo. The club should be at least tweeting/facebooking links to the Fundraising streams once a day.

Our PR has never been the greatest, but surely this should be taking precedence & whoever runs these accounts should be actively putting it out there.

It needs to reach as many people as possible regardless whether there is investment from other sources.

It's been awfully quiet and it's very strange as to why?

I have found our twitter to be strangely quiet in general recently.

Other clubs at this level seem to push home games constantly, whereas our twitter account doesn't seem to mention much at all until the day before/day of the game. I appreciate it will be run by volunteers, but considering we have nearly 31k followers, it seems underused in trying to attract more fans to games.

Maybe whoever runs it needs an extra pair of hands? I'm sure plenty will be happy to help out in updating the twitter account

What 'bigger things' are there to be working on?

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It's very easy to sit behind a keyboard and say we should be doing more.

I think we need to hope for an FA Cup run. I'd like the board to announce that bonus cup income will be going towards the redevelopment, not the playing budget.

al_quaker wrote:Maybe whoever runs it needs an extra pair of hands? I'm sure plenty will be happy to help out in updating the twitter account

I've said numerous times that I would be more than happy to help out on the Social Media side if need be.

Never get a response back.

Spyman wrote:What 'bigger things' are there to be working on?

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Possibly sponsorship or even future direction of the club and any interested parties in moving the club forward. Just something in the CEO's notes in the programme but waiting for things to move forward before announcing, I am guessing it's either sponsorship or investment.

Maybe whatever it is will remove the need for fans to finance the final part of the seats.

H1987 wrote:It's very easy to sit behind a keyboard and say we should be doing more.

I think we need to hope for an FA Cup run. I'd like the board to announce that bonus cup income will be going towards the redevelopment, not the playing budget.

At the moment we don't look like hitting the target, this may be fine as we have something in the pipeline but can only go off the current available facts.

Be good to just hear something to be honest, they are ways we could extend the time if needed at the moment we just wait.

I've e mailed various people from dfcsg re tickets and ideas and Ray about media issues and always received prompt and courteous replies. I've banged on about Twitter and Facebook promoting the pitches and I think there needs to be a prominent banner and link on the club site so I'll be saying that to them.

Do you have a specific email address for both the DFCSG group and Ray?

I'll drop them an email myself.

super_les_mcjannet wrote:

Spyman wrote:What 'bigger things' are there to be working on?

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Possibly sponsorship or even future direction of the club and any interested parties in moving the club forward. Just something in the CEO's notes in the programme but waiting for things to move forward before announcing, I am guessing it's either sponsorship or investment.

Maybe whatever it is will remove the need for fans to finance the final part of the seats.

Maybe that's why the pitches have slowed, fans hoping they don't have to put in again to finance the final part of the seats, I just hope he can pull a rabbit out of the hat as time and tide etc.

al_quaker wrote:I have found our twitter to be strangely quiet in general recently.

Other clubs at this level seem to push home games constantly, whereas our twitter account doesn't seem to mention much at all until the day before/day of the game. I appreciate it will be run by volunteers, but considering we have nearly 31k followers, it seems underused in trying to attract more fans to games.

Maybe whoever runs it needs an extra pair of hands? I'm sure plenty will be happy to help out in updating the twitter account

Wouldn't even need to be done by hand - there are plenty of services out there which could automate or schedule tweets. Some you have to pay for, admittedly - but if the extra tweets get an extra body or two through the turnstiles then they've paid for themselves straight away.

The target isn't reached , Then the presure,s on for Mr McLaren and Singh to come aboard to save us in December.

I’ll leave the expertise on twitter to those who know more about it...for me the bigger challenge is reaching businesses and individuals who have little interest in DFC to start with.

That’s what we need in the next few years if we are going to grow as a club. Good old fashioned relationship building and selling. Extremely labour intensive but probably the only way we can properly grow.

roadrunner wrote:The target isn't reached , Then the presure,s on for Mr McLaren and Singh to come aboard to save us in December.

Ridiculous.

roadrunner wrote:The target isn't reached , Then the presure,s on for Mr McLaren and Singh to come aboard to save us in December.

If the rumours are to be believed, apparently Singh has been giving us money behind the scenes as goodwill gesture for what happened in the past.

AndyPark wrote:

roadrunner wrote:The target isn't reached , Then the presure,s on for Mr McLaren and Singh to come aboard to save us in December.

If the rumours are to be believed, apparently Singh has been giving us money behind the scenes as goodwill gesture for what happened in the past.

Got a heart of gold has Raj. Great bloke.

rob.duncan@darlingtonfc.org responded and Ray is on the official site with a number of other club contacts, media@darlingtonfc.org

We keep hearing that there is going to be further announcements about fundraising shortly, but nothing seems to be forthcoming.

Darlo_Pete wrote:We keep hearing that there is going to be further announcements about fundraising shortly, but nothing seems to be forthcoming.

Maybe waiting for holidays/another payday to pass although fans will now have to find cash for 3 home games in a week. I suspect boost the budget has been your priority to date so hopefully the stand fundraising will get a boost to keep promotion a possibility this season.

super_les_mcjannet wrote:

Spyman wrote:What 'bigger things' are there to be working on?

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

Possibly sponsorship or even future direction of the club and any interested parties in moving the club forward. Just something in the CEO's notes in the programme but waiting for things to move forward before announcing, I am guessing it's either sponsorship or investment.

Maybe whatever it is will remove the need for fans to finance the final part of the seats.

That still doesn't seem like a reason not to be pushing these pitches.

If they can't say anything about sponsorship or whatever it may be going on behind the scenes, that is because it's not a done deal and could still fall through.

If it falls through a back-up plan (or the current plan) is needed. So either way we should keep pushing pledges. They don't have to be taken, after all - or they can be transferred towards another area of infrastructure that needs development.

If what's going on behind the scenes is still some kind of external investment/ownership model then that is going to take time to be approved through the current ownership model. It won't be done in time for a stand to be built, if at all.

spyman, have you put yourself up for the board or a volunteer role, stop keyboard posturing ,and do something positive for your club.

onewayup wrote:spyman, have you put yourself up for the board or a volunteer role, stop keyboard posturing ,and do something positive for your club.

What?

super_les_mcjannet wrote:I know our CEO is talking about working on things in regards to moving our club forward and will announce things when there is something to say.

However not sure what to make of how generally quiet the club is in regards to the fundraising, seems to be no drive at all and just seems to be down to the DFCSG to push as much as they can. Maybe Johnston/Board are busy working on bigger things for the club but it just seems very quiet to me.

Are they not worried, do they have a plan outside of the fans fundraising or would they look as suggested to borrow a little if needed.

Looking at the figures the fans have put in pledged just short of 148k this summer, (43k pitch work, 40k ground work, 22k steel work, 42.3k budget increase, £530 development fund), you could remove 10k in theory for Raj putting in but 138k is still very good.

Leaves us with 64.5k to raise by the end of the season, is that possible. I would probably say yes, if the club and DFCSG are fully behind it.

I guess we will find out where we are by the end of the month as I would assume DFCSG would make statement before or at that point.

I think that you have expressed the views of many of us who are worried that the need for getting the ground sorted seems to have been given a somewhat laissez faire approach by the club. The earlier deadlines for the pitch and the first phase seem, in my memory at least, to have been given greater prominence than the current second phase has been. I think that the apparent lack of concern from the club might have meant that there were other funding streams in the pipeline that were going to negate further investment by fans.

However, I noticed the other day (31st August) a very brief reminder on the club website news of a need to get money in for the current pitch. The wording being,

"Contribute to the DFCSG pitches!

It’s an important time for the phase 2 fundraising of the new seated stand at Blackwell Meadows as the summer ends and the next deadline starts to loom on the horizon.

Check out the latest pitch on the Darlington FC Supporters Group website."

Certainly this is communication from the club, but it does seem rather late in the day, and appears to show that the club has either been oblivious to the deadline that "starts to loom on the horizon" or that they might have been hoping for other funds to materialise that have not come through and they are now beginning to panic over the shortfall on the second phase, which, to be honest has been looming from well before the 31st August.

As communication goes it does appear to be rather too little too late.

en passant wrote:

super_les_mcjannet wrote:I know our CEO is talking about working on things in regards to moving our club forward and will announce things when there is something to say.

However not sure what to make of how generally quiet the club is in regards to the fundraising, seems to be no drive at all and just seems to be down to the DFCSG to push as much as they can. Maybe Johnston/Board are busy working on bigger things for the club but it just seems very quiet to me.

Are they not worried, do they have a plan outside of the fans fundraising or would they look as suggested to borrow a little if needed.

Looking at the figures the fans have put in pledged just short of 148k this summer, (43k pitch work, 40k ground work, 22k steel work, 42.3k budget increase, £530 development fund), you could remove 10k in theory for Raj putting in but 138k is still very good.

Leaves us with 64.5k to raise by the end of the season, is that possible. I would probably say yes, if the club and DFCSG are fully behind it.

I guess we will find out where we are by the end of the month as I would assume DFCSG would make statement before or at that point.

I think that you have expressed the views of many of us who are worried that the need for getting the ground sorted seems to have been given a somewhat laissez faire approach by the club. The earlier deadlines for the pitch and the first phase seem, in my memory at least, to have been given greater prominence than the current second phase has been. I think that the apparent lack of concern from the club might have meant that there were other funding streams in the pipeline that were going to negate further investment by fans.

However, I noticed the other day (31st August) a very brief reminder on the club website news of a need to get money in for the current pitch. The wording being,

"Contribute to the DFCSG pitches!

It’s an important time for the phase 2 fundraising of the new seated stand at Blackwell Meadows as the summer ends and the next deadline starts to loom on the horizon.

Check out the latest pitch on the Darlington FC Supporters Group website."

Certainly this is communication from the club, but it does seem rather late in the day, and appears to show that the club has either been oblivious to the deadline that "starts to loom on the horizon" or that they might have been hoping for other funds to materialise that have not come through and they are now beginning to panic over the shortfall on the second phase, which, to be honest has been looming from well before the 31st August.

As communication goes it does appear to be rather too little too late.

en passant, have you put yourself up for the board or a volunteer role, stop keyboard posturing ,and do something positive for your club.

Spyman wrote:

en passant wrote:

super_les_mcjannet wrote:I know our CEO is talking about working on things in regards to moving our club forward and will announce things when there is something to say.

However not sure what to make of how generally quiet the club is in regards to the fundraising, seems to be no drive at all and just seems to be down to the DFCSG to push as much as they can. Maybe Johnston/Board are busy working on bigger things for the club but it just seems very quiet to me.

Are they not worried, do they have a plan outside of the fans fundraising or would they look as suggested to borrow a little if needed.

Looking at the figures the fans have put in pledged just short of 148k this summer, (43k pitch work, 40k ground work, 22k steel work, 42.3k budget increase, £530 development fund), you could remove 10k in theory for Raj putting in but 138k is still very good.

Leaves us with 64.5k to raise by the end of the season, is that possible. I would probably say yes, if the club and DFCSG are fully behind it.

I guess we will find out where we are by the end of the month as I would assume DFCSG would make statement before or at that point.

I think that you have expressed the views of many of us who are worried that the need for getting the ground sorted seems to have been given a somewhat laissez faire approach by the club. The earlier deadlines for the pitch and the first phase seem, in my memory at least, to have been given greater prominence than the current second phase has been. I think that the apparent lack of concern from the club might have meant that there were other funding streams in the pipeline that were going to negate further investment by fans.

However, I noticed the other day (31st August) a very brief reminder on the club website news of a need to get money in for the current pitch. The wording being,

"Contribute to the DFCSG pitches!

It’s an important time for the phase 2 fundraising of the new seated stand at Blackwell Meadows as the summer ends and the next deadline starts to loom on the horizon.

Check out the latest pitch on the Darlington FC Supporters Group website."

Certainly this is communication from the club, but it does seem rather late in the day, and appears to show that the club has either been oblivious to the deadline that "starts to loom on the horizon" or that they might have been hoping for other funds to materialise that have not come through and they are now beginning to panic over the shortfall on the second phase, which, to be honest has been looming from well before the 31st August.

As communication goes it does appear to be rather too little too late.

en passant, have you put yourself up for the board or a volunteer role, stop keyboard posturing ,and do something positive for your club.

I'll get right on to it!

onewayup wrote:spyman, have you put yourself up for the board or a volunteer role, stop keyboard posturing ,and do something positive for your club.

Says someone who's not on the club's board, probably doesn't volunteer and is using his keyboard to be negative about other fans.

Darlogramps wrote:

onewayup wrote:spyman, have you put yourself up for the board or a volunteer role, stop keyboard posturing ,and do something positive for your club.

Says someone who's not on the club's board, probably doesn't volunteer and is using his keyboard to be negative about other fans.

boom!

I predict fireworks. Let's be nice people, it's not a competition. We hopefully all do what we can and give what we can afford.

Darlocramps,as I have said before about you, No more to be said.