CHIEF Executive Officer, Dale Pryde-MacDonald, has issued the following update regarding a variety of topics both on and off the pitch…
Firstly, on behalf of everybody at the club a massive thank you to our supporters for brilliant attendances both at home and on the road so far this season. The support the club has received at The Showgrounds and across the country has been second to none and has been a massive contributing factor to the excellent start to the season that has been had. Each supporter is spending their hard-earned money to back this football club and it is valued by each and every person within the building.
We hope this update will allow everybody to understand where we are on a number of fronts and keep everybody as up to date as possible.
In relation to the football department, it’s been a fantastic start to the campaign and massive credit to Ruaidhri, his staff and the team for giving us some great moments so far this campaign. Some of the football we have played has been to a top standard and to see the people grow as individuals within that has also been really encouraging as we progress through the season.
We can confirm that Limavady United FC will groundshare with us for a period towards the end of this year and start of next as they see their surface replaced. We look forward to supporting them with facilities here at The Showgrounds and making sure they are not without a home for the short period that they require facilities for.
In relation to our core staff at the club: Laura Lagan, our Club Secretary has now joined the club on a full-time basis, which will be an invaluable piece of our off-field progression and will be of vital importance to developing our governance, compliance and administration areas of the club. Also, Johnny McNabb and Dylan Kirkpatrick both joined the club on a formal part-time basis to lead the media team going forward with both excelling in improving our channels. The club will also be appointing personnel to new roles within the physiotherapy, commercial and academy within the upcoming weeks, where updates will be published when appropriate. These are not additional staff roles but roles that have been restructured from the previous format.
Our ticketing and retail departments have been very strong so far this season. A small sub-committee was set up in September to focus on the Christmas Retail period. This will include some very good offers for supporters across the next seven weeks in both retail & ticketing, keep your eyes peeled for these deals. Also, we will be hosting a free meet & greet event with first-team players at The Showgrounds in the lead up to Christmas with more information to come in due course.
We continue to see positive growth with our new catering vendor, Phat Events on matchdays here at The Showgrounds. External catering will always be an evolving aspect of the club to meet the demands and requirements of our fanbase, but we have heard some really positive feedback which allows ourselves and the Phat Events team to improve with each passing match.
The bars at the club continue to be a significant challenge. With increasing supply and infrastructure costs we have to be really focused as to how we get the bars to a breakeven point. We are working hard to ensure that we meet the requirements we need to for our supporters at the same time as making the bars financially viable to run, this will be a work in progress for us.
This will be the less appealing part of the update but one of the most valuable. A significant level of work has gone in to our governance and compliance side of the club. A suite of policies and procedures have been developed to ensure that the club has a formal governance structure to comply with for Human Resources as well as Health and Safety. Equally, we are nearing the end of the process of ensuring all members of staff have formal contracts of employment, which has been an important process in supporting our dedicated and committed team of staff.
The IFA pitch to the rear of the Ballycastle Road stand is now completed and officially handed over to us. We would like to thank all of the contractors and consultants that have been part of the project and look forward to an official opening of the pitch which will be arranged in the coming weeks.
We are currently nearing the end of a tender process for the installation of Electric Vehicle Charge Points here at The Showgrounds. This is in partnership with the Shared Island Fund and will be a good step towards improving the carbon footprint of the club. It also comes at a good time as we announced our new partnership with Wyre just a couple of weeks ago.
I would like to pay tribute to our Club Captain Lyndon Kane as well as volunteer Jamie Selfridge for the fantastic success of the Man On project that takes place on a Wednesday night. You may have seen some videos and information relating to the programme on our social media channels but to have 40 people in attendance just last week was remarkable and both Lyndon and Jamie, along with the Man On team, deserve great credit for the success the project is having here at Coleraine.
It would also be remiss not to thank Rev Malcolm Ferry and John McIlreavy for their organisation and delivery of the annual ‘Pause for Remembrance’ event here at The Showgrounds prior to our fixture with Armagh City. It was a very poignant service with a great attendance from supporters and thank you to everybody who contributed and attended.
We are in the process of appointing our new Supporter Liaison Officer Team that will work with the club to enhance relations and communications with supporters. This will include new dedicated SLO (Supporter Liaison Officer) social media channels for communications, in-person events and focus groups, as well as working with supporters to increase the matchday experience here at The Showgrounds.
Since joining the club there has been a period of looking under the bonnet, as it were, of each department and checking all of the nuts and bolts. This work continues and we are exploring a lot of exciting new opportunities that may lie ahead as well as addressing where our shortcomings are and how we handle them.
Again, to our supporters a massive thank you from myself and everybody at the club for your continued support and backing. We very much look forward to becoming even stronger over the coming weeks and months ahead both on and off the field.