DT Election 2003 - By- Election Questionnaire

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Niall Couper
Who are you?
1	Are you a member of WISA? If not, why not? Yes
2	Why should WISA members vote for you? I am a doer and hardworking – attributes WISA members will know well after the events of the last three years. I fully support WISA's continuing quest to reclaim the honours and history that are rightly ours. I detest everything that Franchise stands for, and I believe AFC Wimbledon should strive to strengthen its links with our heritage (through links with ex-players and the like). I also believe the views of the fans need to be heard whether they are members of the Dons Trust or not. As editor of Yellow and Blue, I was eager for WISA to take a strong role in the editorial content we were producing. And I remain a strong advocate of ISAs. I believe a strong ISA is essential for the running of any football club, and a fans' run club should be no different. WISA has an important role to play in the independent scrutiny of both the Dons Trust and AFC Wimbledon. And I would be keen to see regular communication between the Dons Trust Board and WISA.
3	How much time can you commit each month to DT duties (excluding AFCW activities?). I was working around 30 hours a week editing Yellow and Blue, and spent a similar amount of time writing the Spirit of Wimbledon. Now free of those responsibilities, I would expect to be able to commit that time to DT duties. But the key I believe is delegation. The DT Board is just a handful of people, yet there are 100s of other supporters out there that could help run the club. And I would hope to enthuse many more people to step forward and help ease the strain on the running of our club. No one individual should take on more than they are capable of doing it.
4	What role would you perform on the DT board? There are four roles I believe I could perform. 1, Volunteers liaison. We are a fans' club and we need to encourage every supporter to step forward and do their bit. I currently help run the AFC Wimbledon Volunteers Army. One of the biggest problems the club accounts on a day-to-day basis is the maintenance of the ground. Some of the jobs aren't pretty, cleaning of bins, toilets, looking after the tea bar and so on, but they are vital to the general enjoyment of supporters at games. The “dirty jobs” are not the only roles undertaken by volunteers and in the future there will be numerous more roles that will needed to be filled. All this needs to be managed efficiently and I believe I could do this. I would look to incorporate all existing volunteers into the AFC Wimbledon Volunteers Army and help expand it. I also believe we need to build up a rota to make sure that we never have to waste money calling in contractors. 2, Press officer. As a sports journalist on the Independent, I fully comprehend the news agenda that the press work to and what makes good copy for newspapers and good publicity for AFC Wimbledon. At the moment, we have an effective public service: WDON, the official site and the programme. But there remains a need to publicise ourselves wider and be more proactive among the local press and manage our media relations more effectively (The Terry Eames saga was a classic example). I believe my good relations with Matt Rickard at the Wimbledon News and Sam Elliott on the Non-League Paper (both ex-Y&B writers) should help here. 3, Fundraising. I have nothing but respect for the works of the fundraising group led by Brian Goodwin and would hope to be able to assist him in the future. At the moment, I am working hard on the Dons Draw, a lottery scheme which on its own could clear the club's remaining debt inside six years (more details below). 4, Community liaison / Social secretary. One of the club's ambitions has to be to expand our presence in to the local community and in doing so help increase our gates. The stadium should become a resource for local people, with a drop-in centre, a crèche and other clubs operating there throughout the day. We should also aim to have dozens of affiliated teams in different sports and different areas to bring in as many people as possible under the AFC Wimbledon umbrella (government funding is available for such schemes). We need a dedicated person running an events calendar for the club with the sole ambition of filling the bars at all times and expanding the AFC Wimbledon brand.
5	Would you undertake any additional activities in AFCW? No. Although I would like to continue working with the AFC Wimbledon Volunteers Army, which is independent of both the Dons Trust and AFC Wimbledon.
6	Did you support the recent share issue enthusiastically, with reservations, or were you unhappy with the idea? I had some reservations, but at the time we needed to raise funds quickly and I was also full of admiration for the amount of research that went into the scheme. In an ideal world all the Dons Trust members should have been consulted throughout, but given time constraints that was not possible.
7	Do you favour a register of interests to record any benefits (financial or otherwise) Trust members gain from their dealings with the Trust or PLC? Yes, 100 per cent. I fully believe in transparency and accountability.
8	What personal qualities (apart from professional skills, and a capacity for hard work) do you have that the DT Board needs? I have great organisational skills, I am a doer and I am passionate. I have good communication skills, I listen and I am enthusiastic. As editor of Yellow and Blue, it took a lot of organisation to produce a magazine out of thin air in the space of three weeks. And then to keep it going and expand it was an amazing achievement. I believe that it was a vital cog that led to the creation of AFC Wimbledon. However, not all the ideas I had for Y&B were great and thanks have to go to the other members of Y&B who explained the flaws in some of them. I believe the Dons Trust has to operate on the same level, where consensus is king. I'm also relatively young (aged 30) and stand on the West Bank, two areas currently under-represented on the Dons Trust Board.
9	Please list all financial benefits that you have received in the past through dealings with the Trust or Plc. Yellow and Blue charged the club £18 a page for the 2002/3 season, which was split up as following: £7 for design, £2 for subbing, £1 for proofing (honestly!!), £6 for pre-press and £2 for admin. There were four members of the team and as I did no pre-press work, on average I was earning around £100 an issue. For The Spirit of Wimbledon, I get paid by my publisher Cherry Red a small fraction of the cover price for every copy sold. AFC Wimbledon receives 10 times that amount for every copy sold by the club.
How could the Trust do better?
10	What do you think of the Trust's performance and achievements so far? After the pain of 28 May 2002, only in our wildest dreams did we believe we would have a fans' run club that owns its own ground in South West London, and a majority of the credit for that has to go to the Dons Trust. The Dons Trust has its failings, but we should never forget how far we have come. However, we should always strive to do better.
11	What changes would you propose, if any, to the way the Trust operates? The Trust should become known as the AFC Wimbledon Trust to avoid confusion. The Trust needs to increase the number of people involved on a day-to-day basis, too few people are asked to do too much. Wherever possible, meetings should be held in public. The Dons Trust is a democratic body, so let's be open and democratic. The Trust needs to become more fan-friendly and more approachable. There is a lack of communication between the Dons Trust Board and its members and that needs to be rectified. (For more details see Q12). The whole relationship between the Dons Trust Board and its subsidiary boards needs to be better defined than at present. The subsidiary boards should all be fully appointed by the Dons Trust Board and fully accountable to it. (For more details see Q15).
12	How could the Trust board improve its communication with members? The Dons Trust website and the AFC Wimbledon website should operate as one. All Dons Trust meetings should be advertised on the Official AFC Wimbledon website and in the match-day programme, and where possible in the local press and on the local radio. Minutes of all meetings should be published. All meetings should be held in public, except in extreme circumstances. The Dons Trust Board members should be available on all match-days for surgeries and, where possible, at least one board member should be available in every part of the ground. The Board members should also increase their visibility and have more defined roles, each one set out and explained on the official website. Each month, one or more working groups should host an open meeting at the ground to allow fans to hear what ideas are being developed and allow a wider input. There should be monthly newsletters distributed by email or post and at match-days. All working groups should contribute to the newsletter
13	When considering candidates for board member positions for the Club, what characteristics would you look for? I would look for a doer with energy and enthusiasm. A dedicated individual with the ability to delegate and enthuse others. Someone who would listen to the membership. I would want a balanced board representing accurately the mix of ages, sexes and races of the fanbase and the areas of the ground. I would want an open, honest and transparent individual, but primarily someone who would be a custodian of the club and ensure its future as a fans' owned club.
14	Should directors of DT subsidiaries (E.g. AFC Plc) be allowed to take up elected posts on the DT Board? No. In Erik Samuelson and Ivor Heller we have two superb members on the Dons Trust Board, but, on principle alone, I believe they should not be present on both boards. If we have individuals on both boards, the issue of conflict of interest will always arise. The recent Terry Eames debacle highlighted the problem with Erik and Ivor both having to leave the room when the issue was discussed.
15	How do you currently understand the duties and relationship of the DT Board in relation to the AFC Wimbledon PLC, AFC Wimbledon Ltd., and AFC Stadium Ltd. boards? The Dons Trust Board is the overall custodian of all the boards. However, in practice the structure is not very clear and that has to be a concern. In most cases the structures need to be re-examined. The subsidiary boards, of course, need to have their own powers, but at all times they should be accountable to the Dons Trust Board. I believe each subsidiary board should have a member of the DT Board on it. This position should be rotated on a six-monthly basis and the Board member should be present purely as a representative of the DT Board.
Democracy
16	Should the Trust membership have the final say on the big issues, like where the club has its home ground or selling shares in the club? Yes of course.
17	Should Trust members have the right to propose motions at the AGM and other general meetings? Yes. What's the point of having a club run by the fans for the fans, if the fans cannot partake in the running of the club?
What should the Trust do in the future?
18	What ideas do you have for paying off the rest of the debt on the purchase of Kingsmeadow? I'm working on “The Dons Draw” with Ian Pollock, Robert Dale, Paul Jeater and Peter MacQueen among others. The scheme has the potential to clear the club's remaining debt inside six years. In simple terms, it is a monthly prize draw paid into either by standing order or direct debit (£20 per person), similar in outline to the successful Valley Gold lottery operated by Charlton Athletic. The lower threshold outlined by the Gaming Board of Great Britain allows a monthly lottery to raise £20,000 and that has to be our target (any higher and the fees and taxes leap massively). Of the £20,000, 10 per cent would be set aside for prize money, 15 per cent (minus expenses) for community football development (youth sides and the ladies' sides), the remaining £15,000 would go to the ground fund. Other than that, I believe we should increase attendances at Kingsmeadow both on match-days and non-match-days. We need to bit the bullet and look not just at Wimbledon or Merton, but also to New Malden and Kingston. Perhaps have an enjoy a game for a quid for local residents day. We also need to tap into the large Korean community. It would be nice to arrange a pre-season friendly against a Korean side. We also need to make it easier for fans to get to games, a car-share scheme would be one idea. We need to undertake vigorous marketing and work within our community to turn the casual supporter into a regular and the local resident into a casual fan. We also need a wide-range of activities of events taking place at the ground, from the bridge club to reminiscence evenings with ex-players. In short we need to increase the social appeal of AFC Wimbledon. The club has the potential to be the biggest social and sporting club in South West London, we should grasp it.
19	Are there any situations in which the Trust could, or should, relinquish control of AFCW? As long as the Dons Trust remains representative of AFCW's supporters, then no.
20	Do you see Kingsmeadow, The Fans Stadium as a temporary or permanent home for AFC Wimbledon ? Kingsmeadow is the medium-term home for AFC Wimbledon. However, the club is called AFC Wimbledon and for that reason my dream will always be to see the club return to Wimbledon.