Help us connect with our club

[Hibs12thMan]

Working from an idea first suggested by fellow supporters, club management have created a different agenda for the first supporters forum this Saturday morning. They want to hear our specific proposals for improving the bond and unity between the supporters and the club

Over the past 12 months we have seen terrible results on the park being matched by apathy and protest off it. Many of our fellow supporters are feeling disconnected with or even hostile to the current board and football management.

Ironically, this comes at a time where Fife and Scott appear to be making genuine efforts to improve communications with us.

What we have now been offered is a forum where we can focus on creating a vibrant culture that flows through the veins of the football club and reflects the passion of the supporters and our illustrious history.

Here's some ideas that some of you have already come up with:

1. Direct supporter involvement in the running of the club e.g. Supporters Trust, Board membership, Quarterly Meetings

2. Fact-finding opportunities for supporters to discover more about how the club is run and debunking some of the myths. e.g. Follow Scott or Fife for a day, attend board meetings

3. East Mains opportunities to meet and engage with the manager, coaching team and players e.g. 'Meet the manager' 'Train with the squad' opportunities

4. Increasing the visibility of players, coaches, manager and board amongst our support and the wider community.

5. Less 'suits' and more colours

6. Working together to create a strong and genuine family bond in the club which goes way beyond the well-meaning messages that come out of the boardroom

7. Involvement of ‘senior figures’ (like Charlton at Man U) at senior level in ensuring that all staff at Hibs are steeped in the history and subscribe to the ethos of the club

8. More 'terracing' initiatives such as large flags, songbooks and led singing to help make our club strongly supported and able to flourish regardless of results on the pitch

More ideas are welcome!!

[Beefster]

- Less spin, more truth. Too many times are club officials caught giving a 'PR' non-answer (the AGM was riddled with them). Folk become wary about everything that is said.

- I'm not a fan of fan board positions because I think fans who get too closely involved with the club effectively just become another employee (it's happened before). I've always thought it sad that Reilly, Turnbull and/or Stanton were never given a prominent role at the club though.

- They're going to have to be more vocal about refuting rumours amongst the support. These rumours take hold because the club stay silent.

- They need to employ/contract someone whose sole purpose is to look at the match day offering for all groups of supporters (BTG, food, facilities, entertainment (other than the football) etc). A prime example are Hibs Kids days. I know from experience that Hibs do very little to make the entire day fun for kids. I'd be more popular taking the family to a farm, museum or soft play. The Board need to recognise their weaknesses (who can be an expert in everything?) and get people in with the skills to sort the problems.

- If they're going to 'walk' BTG, it would be good if they went around as many fans as possible rather than just chat with the same folk week after week (and if they're approached with a reasonable query, answer it rather than avoid it).

- I'd be sceptical of PR initiatives like 'follow the MD for a day' (which would just be, rightly, carefully stage-managed) or the club getting directly involved in trying to improve the atmosphere.

- To be brutally honest, the club could save time and money by just reading here and the Bounce. A lot of supporters have spent a lot of time detailing where improvements need to be made and suggestions on how to do it. The club have been 'talking' to fans for years.

What I would say (from a personal point of view) is that the point of me putting in any effort to help the club re-engage me are long gone. In days gone by, Ive written to the club, tried to speak to Board members and posted at length on here too - all with no encouragement from the club (in fact, their response has been actively discouraging). If they want to keep me as a customer past this season, they're going to have to do it on their own.

[bingo70]

Some proper media interviews that weren't stage managed with questions designed to give fyfe or whoever a bunch of cliched answers, the likes of the daily record and the sun have been critical of the board for years so why not challenge them to a proper interview to put to bed some myths and answer some of the real criticisms.

[Jack]

To be brutally honest I don’t think the idea of an ‘open’ forum with the club should be corralled by the Hibs 12th Man. The Hibs 12th Man have their own methods through which they gather the mood of the support and to formulate your plans, you have your own agenda, and maintain a dialogue with the club to work through that. That’s good but its not this.

I’m also slightly miffed that the agenda has been changed, particularly away from catering at ER. Last year (???) at similar forums this was going to be looked at by the club. My recent threads on dotnet and the Bounce on the subject ran to a combined 7 or 8 pages with folk bumping their gums complaining about the food instead of eating it – they attracted over 6,000 hits, that’s the mood of the fans. The club must have thought it important enough to have as an early discussion and I agree with them. Things have clearly not improved and for many this is more a part of their match day experience than singing, chanting and all the other good things the Hibs 12th Man has achieved.

[Hibs12thMan]

- Less spin, more truth. Too many times are club officials caught giving a 'PR' non-answer (the AGM was riddled with them). Folk become wary about everything that is said.

- I'm not a fan of fan board positions because I think fans who get too closely involved with the club effectively just become another employee (it's happened before). I've always thought it sad that Reilly, Turnbull and/or Stanton were never given a prominent role at the club though.

- They're going to have to be more vocal about refuting rumours amongst the support. These rumours take hold because the club stay silent.

- They need to employ/contract someone whose sole purpose is to look at the match day offering for all groups of supporters (BTG, food, facilities, entertainment (other than the football) etc). A prime example are Hibs Kids days. I know from experience that Hibs do very little to make the entire day fun for kids. I'd be more popular taking the family to a farm, museum or soft play. The Board need to recognise their weaknesses (who can be an expert in everything?) and get people in with the skills to sort the problems.

- If they're going to 'walk' BTG, it would be good if they went around as many fans as possible rather than just chat with the same folk week after week (and if they're approached with a reasonable query, answer it rather than avoid it).

- I'd be sceptical of PR initiatives like 'follow the MD for a day' (which would just be, rightly, carefully stage-managed) or the club getting directly involved in trying to improve the atmosphere.

- To be brutally honest, the club could save time and money by just reading here and the Bounce. A lot of supporters have spent a lot of time detailing where improvements need to be made and suggestions on how to do it. The club have been 'talking' to fans for years.

What I would say (from a personal point of view) is that the point of me putting in any effort to help the club re-engage me are long gone. In days gone by, Ive written to the club, tried to speak to Board members and posted at length on here too - all with no encouragement from the club (in fact, their response has been actively discouraging). If they want to keep me as a customer past this season, they're going to have to do it on their own.

Thanks for the feedback Beefster - very honest. Your frustrations are understandable. Hope it's OK to highlight where you made specific proposals.

As to the last one - that's simply not the way we see this engagement going forward. Club management prefer to engage with people face to face, across the meeting table or over a coffee or pint. However real we posters think we are on here, messageboards are too anonymous - it doesn't give us the strong working relationship we need to make real progress on the key issues.

On the matchday offering, the role of matchday manager has recently been taken up by Russell Smith. We have already had dialogue with Russell in connection to themed days but your personal feedback will be very useful in the forum

[Andy74]

To be brutally honest I don’t think the idea of an ‘open’ forum with the club should be corralled by the Hibs 12th Man. The Hibs 12th Man have their own methods through which they gather the mood of the support and to formulate your plans, you have your own agenda, and maintain a dialogue with the club to work through that. That’s good but its not this.

I’m also slightly miffed that the agenda has been changed, particularly away from catering at ER. Last year (???) at similar forums this was going to be looked at by the club. My recent threads on dotnet and the Bounce on the subject ran to a combined 7 or 8 pages with folk bumping their gums complaining about the food instead of eating it – they attracted over 6,000 hits, that’s the mood of the fans. The club must have thought it important enough to have as an early discussion and I agree with them. Things have clearly not improved and for many this is more a part of their match day experience than singing, chanting and all the other good things the Hibs 12th Man has achieved.

How about starting with stuff like this?

What is the forum, where was it advertised?

I have to say i like the idea of the simple singing section when it was first started, ever since then there seem to have been various different groups with different ames and i've no idea who is trying to do what.

It seems to always happen that oce you start organising these things too much and away from the original signing idea you get spilts and personalities and people looking for some sort or power or influence beyond the original intentions.

I also think a lot of the of the issues around the club generally sort themeselves out once the manager and players start doing their job.

Of course there are things around the edges that can be improved but I have to say i'm confuesed about the forums which are trying to address these.

[Makaveli]

These things sound nice but none of it matters unless we at least look like a winning side. The board wasn't doing anything special when we were averaging 14,000 - the manager had us playing.

Training with the squad? Involvement in quarterly meetings? Things like that will benefit or appeal to a small % of people - no doubt those who would be going to games anyway.

All the board need to do in the short term is appoint a good manager and a likeable guy to relay their communications. Stuart Lovell has been mentioned before; we could do worse.

[Hibs12thMan]

To be brutally honest I don’t think the idea of an ‘open’ forum with the club should be corralled by the Hibs 12th Man. The Hibs 12th Man have their own methods through which they gather the mood of the support and to formulate your plans, you have your own agenda, and maintain a dialogue with the club to work through that. That’s good but its not this. .

All that happened on this occasion is we gathered feedback from various groups and individuals, including protest groups. The conclusion arrived at was that supporters felt the club board, directors and manager were too remote and that all the 'engagement' activity was club, rather than supporter initiated. Fife had already created the 'together we are stronger' and 'unity themes' - so adapting the agenda to focus on supporter involvement seemed very timely for all parties. The invitees are all of the club's choice, taken from the pool of supporters that completed the questionnaire.


I’m also slightly miffed that the agenda has been changed, particularly away from catering at ER. Last year (???) at similar forums this was going to be looked at by the club. My recent threads on dotnet and the Bounce on the subject ran to a combined 7 or 8 pages with folk bumping their gums complaining about the food instead of eating it – they attracted over 6,000 hits, that’s the mood of the fans. The club must have thought it important enough to have as an early discussion and I agree with them.

Jack - it's our understanding that the catering will definitely be discussed at a forthcoming forum - just not the first forum. The club felt that a Unity theme was a more suitable fit for forum one, as it then sets the tone for consultation on other topics. Previous forums have been organised as an opportunity to merely ask questions. We need these sessions to be productive by means of action plans and working groups to take ideas forward

[Speedway]

Have a Director post an update on .net and bounce monthly and allow a q&a to be posted on an ongoing basis as a sticky thread.

[Beefster]

Thanks for the feedback Beefster - very honest. Your frustrations are understandable. Hope it's OK to highlight where you made specific proposals.

As to the last one - that's simply not the way we see this engagement going forward. Club management prefer to engage with people face to face, across the meeting table or over a coffee or pint. However real we posters think we are on here, messageboards are too anonymous - it doesn't give us the strong working relationship we need to make real progress on the key issues.

On the matchday offering, the role of matchday manager has recently been taken up by Russell Smith. We have already had dialogue with Russell in connection to themed days but your personal feedback will be very useful in the forum

To be fair, I'm not really advocating that they don't speak to supporters. Ideas don't only have to come over a table though and I've always found that they like to talk face to face so that they can explain why something isn't possible (although, I accept that they obviously don't always do that).

Good to hear that they appointed someone. I dont know anything about him but hopefully, he's an expert in customer experience and not just a hospitality guy who was already working there.

[RIP]

I have to say i like the idea of the simple singing section when it was first started, ever since then there seem to have been various different groups with different names and i've no idea who is trying to do what. It seems to always happen that once you start organising these things too much and away from the original singing idea you get splits and personalities and people looking for some sort or power or influence beyond the original intentions. Of course there are things around the edges that can be improved but I have to say I'm confused about the forums which are trying to address these.

What different groups are there Andy? The singing section hasn't changed - it's still in exactly the same place it was set up last season. The Singing Section was never an organised group though - just a bunch of empty seats. It lacked sufficient activists to make it strong and the singing and flag waving started to wane after a promising start.

The only thing that's happened this season is that we have a group of guys and gals from the section (Sect43) who are getting together to make things happen in there like flags and songs. Evolution and growth - Yes. Splits - No

[Viva_Palmeiras]

All that happened on this occasion is we gathered feedback from various groups and individuals, including protest groups. The conclusion arrived at was that supporters felt the club board, directors and manager were too remote and that all the 'engagement' activity was club, rather than supporter initiated. Fife had already created the 'together we are stronger' and 'unity themes' - so adapting the agenda to focus on supporter involvement seemed very timely for all parties. The invitees are all of the club's choice, taken from the pool of supporters that completed the questionnaire.



Jack - it's our understanding that the catering will definitely be discussed at a forthcoming forum - just not the first forum. The club felt that a Unity theme was a more suitable fit for forum one, as it then sets the tone for consultation on other topics. Previous forums have been organised as an opportunity to merely ask questions. We need these sessions to be productive by means of action plans and working groups to take ideas forward

Jack supporter led engagement was done through
HibeesReunited it was arguably a better climate back then I'd
Ask the board what did they learn from that? If the answer is nothing you'll be repeating history.

It needs to be a joint initiative but there will be sceptics regardless.
As mentioned previously lots of good ideas get generated right here on Hibs.net
What would be useful is for the club to review and take on these ideas and credit them. No point in peoples time if it comes to nothing.

We need the board to agree to be measured against targets
Meaningful to the fans and for these to be published and monitored with periodic statements IMO

[PatHead]

They could demand an apology from BBC and ban Paul McBride from Easter Road. That would let fans know they are on our side and that we matter.

[PatHead]

Should have mentioned that relationships are a 2 way street and the board need to be acknowledged for good work that has been done so far in taking the club into the 21st century. They have also listened to fans views on CC and McBride.

Just the slight matter of a manager and players on the pitch he added greedily

[RIP]

Jack supporter led engagement was done through. HibeesReunited it was arguably a better climate back then I'd ask the board what did they learn from that? If the answer is nothing you'll be repeating history.

It needs to be a joint initiative but there will be sceptics regardless. As mentioned previously lots of good ideas get generated right here on Hibs.net. What would be useful is for the club to review and take on these ideas and credit them. No point in peoples time if it comes to nothing.

We need the board to agree to be measured against targets. Meaningful to the fans and for these to be published and monitored with periodic statements IMO

:top marks

Those of us who are going on Saturday need to clarify our expectations at the start of the session with a terms of reference. We need agreed proposals be distilled into an action plan, taken forward by a working group and progress against milestones reported back to the support? It has to be a step change on from consultation to a genuine Supporters/Club partnership

[marleyhib]

There is too much chat/bollox in my opinion, connect with your club by supporting them through thick and thin.

The directors/management's job is to put a decent side on the park. If they don't they should be sacked like anyone else would be in any other job.

FFS is this a joke? What will fans shadowing club directors help to improve?

[HibeeMG]

- Less spin, more truth. Too many times are club officials caught giving a 'PR' non-answer (the AGM was riddled with them). Folk become wary about everything that is said.

- I'm not a fan of fan board positions because I think fans who get too closely involved with the club effectively just become another employee (it's happened before). I've always thought it sad that Reilly, Turnbull and/or Stanton were never given a prominent role at the club though.

- They're going to have to be more vocal about refuting rumours amongst the support. These rumours take hold because the club stay silent.

- They need to employ/contract someone whose sole purpose is to look at the match day offering for all groups of supporters (BTG, food, facilities, entertainment (other than the football) etc). A prime example are Hibs Kids days. I know from experience that Hibs do very little to make the entire day fun for kids. I'd be more popular taking the family to a farm, museum or soft play. The Board need to recognise their weaknesses (who can be an expert in everything?) and get people in with the skills to sort the problems.

- If they're going to 'walk' BTG, it would be good if they went around as many fans as possible rather than just chat with the same folk week after week (and if they're approached with a reasonable query, answer it rather than avoid it).

- I'd be sceptical of PR initiatives like 'follow the MD for a day' (which would just be, rightly, carefully stage-managed) or the club getting directly involved in trying to improve the atmosphere.

- To be brutally honest, the club could save time and money by just reading here and the Bounce. A lot of supporters have spent a lot of time detailing where improvements need to be made and suggestions on how to do it. The club have been 'talking' to fans for years.

What I would say (from a personal point of view) is that the point of me putting in any effort to help the club re-engage me are long gone. In days gone by, Ive written to the club, tried to speak to Board members and posted at length on here too - all with no encouragement from the club (in fact, their response has been actively discouraging). If they want to keep me as a customer past this season, they're going to have to do it on their own.


:top marks

Brilliantly put. I think that about sums up the 'general' feelings of the Hibs support, on this public forum anyway.


Thanks for the feedback Beefster - very honest. Your frustrations are understandable. Hope it's OK to highlight where you made specific proposals.

As to the last one - that's simply not the way we see this engagement going forward. Club management prefer to engage with people face to face, across the meeting table or over a coffee or pint. However real we posters think we are on here, messageboards are too anonymous - it doesn't give us the strong working relationship we need to make real progress on the key issues.

On the matchday offering, the role of matchday manager has recently been taken up by Russell Smith. We have already had dialogue with Russell in connection to themed days but your personal feedback will be very useful in the forum

Taking each embolded part in turn:

Beefster wasn't venting 'frustrations'. These were constructive points, on off-field activities, that we would like addressed.

Messageboards may be anonymous to a point. However, it is not practicable to bring 1000's of fans around a table for a 'coffee or a pint'. Would it not be a good start for the board or a representative of the board to have some sort of presence here. Yes, there is a lot of drivel typed. There are also varied viewpoints on the same subject but I think we would all agree that on any given point we all have a general idea on the majority view over any Hibs related subject by reading through this forum.

'Themed days'! Sounds a little bit novelty doesn't it? How about addressing the real matchday issues that the fans want addressing first before trying ideas like that? Issues such as catering and prices for a start.

I am, in no way, trying to belittle what the group is trying to do. However, if they do not start on a firm enough footing then they are just p***ing in the wind really.

[RIP]

:top marks

Taking each embolded part in turn:

Beefster wasn't venting 'frustrations'. These were constructive points, on off-field activities, that we would like addressed.

Messageboards may be anonymous to a point. However, it is not practicable to bring 1000's of fans around a table for a 'coffee or a pint'. Would it not be a good start for the board or a representative of the board to have some sort of presence here. Yes, there is a lot of drivel typed. There are also varied viewpoints on the same subject but I think we would all agree that on any given point we all have a general idea on the majority view over any Hibs related subject by reading through this forum.

'Themed days'! Sounds a little bit novelty doesn't it? How about addressing the real matchday issues that the fans want addressing first before trying ideas like that? Issues such as catering and prices for a start.

I am, in no way, trying to belittle what the group is trying to do. However, if they do not start on a firm enough footing then they are just p***ing in the wind really.

We have to remember that these forums are run by the club. Somebody I spoke to last night said we should start this first session by setting expectations from the process and agreeing what time we are willing to invest. Those of us who have been fortunate to be invited have a big responsibility to do justice to the thousands of supporters who cant be there.

[HibeeMG]

We have to remember that these forums are run by the club. Somebody I spoke to last night said we should start this first session by setting expectations from the process and agreeing what time we are willing to invest. Those of us who have been fortunate to be invited have a big responsibility to do justice to the thousands of supporters who cant be there.

Well in that case I would suggest you listen to constructive advice, such as Beefster's.

The forums may well be being run by the club but if they have people suggesting themed days for instance then they will implement that and think everything is rosy in the garden!

[Jonnyboy]

To be brutally honest I don’t think the idea of an ‘open’ forum with the club should be corralled by the Hibs 12th Man. The Hibs 12th Man have their own methods through which they gather the mood of the support and to formulate your plans, you have your own agenda, and maintain a dialogue with the club to work through that. That’s good but its not this.

I’m also slightly miffed that the agenda has been changed, particularly away from catering at ER. Last year (???) at similar forums this was going to be looked at by the club. My recent threads on dotnet and the Bounce on the subject ran to a combined 7 or 8 pages with folk bumping their gums complaining about the food instead of eating it – they attracted over 6,000 hits, that’s the mood of the fans. The club must have thought it important enough to have as an early discussion and I agree with them. Things have clearly not improved and for many this is more a part of their match day experience than singing, chanting and all the other good things the Hibs 12th Man has achieved.

I wasn't aware that it had been Jack. I've been invited on Saturday morning and have no formal connection to the 12th man group although I sit near those who are trying to create a decent atmosphere in the ground. I've been invited because when I filled in the online questionnaire on the official site I said I'd be willing to participate in any forum the club wanted to set up.

Having said all of that I reckon there are several good points being made on this thread and will try hard to raise them if I get the chance :aok:

[ancient hibee]

I know I'm an old codger(and I've been to one of the forums)but this connecting with the fans and touchy/feely stuff is in my opinion rubbish.The only thing that matters is putting a winning,entertaining team on the park.Our last great team had a manager in Eddie Turnbull who was renowned for his "rough edges"-Tom Hart was his equal.I had a centre stand season and a group of us complained because there was only one turnstile and we often missed the kick off.Hart's solution was to put up a notice at the gate advising ST holders to be in by 2.45.or else risk missing the kick off.They didn't give a monkeys about the supporters and to be honest that didn't worry us too much because there was a great team to watch in big exciting matches.

[RIP]

Well in that case I would suggest you listen to constructive advice, such as Beefster's.

The forums may well be being run by the club but if they have people suggesting themed days for instance then they will implement that and think everything is rosy in the garden!

It's no me that needs to listen - it's the club!! And as far as I'm aware no supporter or group has ever suggested themed days - unless you know different :confused: Think Russell does that stuff and there have been Turnbull Memorials, Red Card to Racism and Green Day.

Naw - the ideas on here all look much closer to the point of the forum being run by Hibs. Not before time as a lot of us feel pretty disconnected with the people who manage the club. TBH I don't give a flying one what the club want to implement or how rosy they think the garden is. I care about what we supporters want to implement and that's the opportunity we need to sieze on Saturday IMO

[Jack]

I wasn't aware that it had been Jack. I've been invited on Saturday morning and have no formal connection to the 12th man group although I sit near those who are trying to create a decent atmosphere in the ground. I've been invited because when I filled in the online questionnaire on the official site I said I'd be willing to participate in any forum the club wanted to set up.Having said all of that I reckon there are several good points being made on this thread and will try hard to raise them if I get the chance :aok: I'll be there too. I'd like to meet you at long last :-)

[Jonnyboy]

I'll be there too. I'd like to meet you at long last :-)

:thumbsup: