Dee4life News: Survey results: Dee4Life members contribute significantly to Dundee FC

[News Bot]

In February the Dee4Life board sought to gain the views of members in a survey. Around a third of our members (171) took the time to share their opinion on the trust and what they would like us to focus on going forward.

We will take these views into consideration to help form our strategy.

Below is the list of questions we asked with the top-level results from each. Beneath each answer section is a summary of our thoughts on the responses.

Here are nine things Dee4Life could focus on, on your behalf. What THREE things do you think we should focus on most?

• Working to ensure Dundee FC are here for the longer term (selected by 74% of respondents)
• Bringing all Dundee-minded people together to support the club (51%)
• Providing feedback to the club on off-field performance raised by members (38%)

Our overarching aim is to help ensure that Dundee is successful on the park and financially secure off it, which chimes with the most popular option selected by members. For us, providing feedback on the club’s operations and performances – and encouraging genuine engagement with as wide a section of the fanbase as possible – is vital if this goal is to be achieved.

Our door is always open to any Dundee-minded group or individual and we will meet with representatives of the club or any other fan group at any time and without any preconditions.

How much do you agree that there should be:

• Fan representation on the club board (62% strongly agree, 29% slightly agree)
• A Dundee FC AGM for shareholders (75%, 18%)
• More regular feed of information about the off-field performance of the club (66%, 30%)
• More regular feed of information about the current/new stadium (70%, 26%)
• More regular Q&As with club representatives (64%, 28%)

Enhanced communication from the club is the clear priority of members. For almost a year we have been campaigning for the reintroduction of the club AGM and/or a meaningful Q&A with supporters’ representatives. We believe that this would address the information deficit around the stadium and other issues and enable the views of a wider cross section of fans’ views to be heard.

We will continue to push for engagement of this kind and note the answered to our stadium questions supplied earlier this week.

Do you believe Dee4Life are on the right track?

• Strongly agree (46%)
• Slightly agree (38%)
• Disagree slightly (7%)
• Disagree strongly (5%)
• No opinion (4%)

It is important for all organisations to be self-reflective and responsive to feedback from members and other stakeholders. While we are pleased that 86% agreed that we were on the right track, we note that the number who strongly agreed was lower than for any other question.

Clearly a major factor in this is that relations between the club board and Dee4Life are not currently positive. We remain committed to rebuilding this relationship and our local MSPs have offered to broker a meeting between Dee4Life and the club board. In addition we have been in discussions with intermediaries about restarting relations. We hope they respond positively to these efforts and that this will enable us to seek the priorities outlined in your answers above.

Thinking about Dee4Life membership at £10 at year, which is most true of you?

• I will definitely rejoin this year (81%)
• I will probably rejoin (13%)
• I may or may not rejoin (6%)

It is heartening that the vasty majority of you will either definitely or probably rejoin and we hope to win over both those who are currently unsure as well as to attract new members. We will look closely at all the reasons given, whether positive or less so, and this will feed into our approach over the next year.

Which of these things are true of you?

• I have a season ticket (70%)
• I go to most games (65%)
• I buy food/drink from the outlets (26%)
• I buy hospitality (25%)
• I buy things from the club shop (71%)
• I am an 1893 Foundation member (27%)
• I am a Dee Lottery member (39%)
• I buy half-time draw tickets (34%)
• I am a DeeTV subscriber (23%)
• I contribute to club raffles (30%)
• I go to club events and dinners (26%)
• I am a club sponsor/advertiser (3%)
• I am a shareholder (24%)
• I am a member of the DSA/a supporters’ club (36%)

Your answers demonstrate that Dee4Life members are passionate, loyal supporters of Dundee FC who contribute to the club in a variety of ways. Applying these figures across our entire membership, we can say with reasonable certainty that around 350 Dee4Life members are season ticket holders.

While the data does not allow us to ascertain exact spend, using fairly conservative assumptions we estimate the total financial contribution of Dee4Life members to the club each year to be in the excess of £200,000.

Who are our members?

• Gender – male (94%), female (4%), other/prefer not to say (2%)
• Age – 25-34 (5%), 35-44 (11%), 45-54 (12%), 55-64 (35%), 65-plus (35%), prefer not to say (2%)
• From – DD postcode (62%), AB (8%), EH (7%), KY (5%), G (4%), Other Scottish (9%), Non-Scottish (5%)

Our typical member is a man, aged sixty, living in the Dundee area. Clearly for the future of Dee4Life we need to attract more younger members and increase the number of female members.

What is the best thing about being a Dundee FC fan?

Analysing your responses, three clear themes emerged – team (41% of mentions), identity (34%) and kin (19%). You have made it clear that Dundee is not just your team, it is part of your identity and that of your family.

There were also a few answers along the line of “I wish I knew”!

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