For the last two seasons of it’s short lifespan, the Supporters Trust has auctioned off the Season Ticket it receives to the highest bidder. To celebrate our first season running the Queen of the South Junior Blues we decided to give something back to some of those that have supported the JB’s Club in recent times. Some 29 of our Junior Blues are too old to be members this season but we thought we could help a few of them bridge thte gap between the £18 JB ticket and the next one up, so we exchanged our ticket for three ‘Student’ season tickets and those drawn out were Callum Rafferty of Ae Village, Martin Houston of Dumfries and Richard Hopkins of Kingholm. Congratulations to all our lucky winners.
Monday 25th June
What a fantastic job the Action Group did for this years Guid Nychburris event. The amount of effort that went into producing the Railway Line themed Thomas the Tank Engine was phenomenal. A great PR job for Queen of the South FC. A thousand goody bags were supplied by the ST to house the goodies that the Action group had paid for from their car boot sales. Our thanks to D&G signs for supplying Junior Blue signs for us free of charge. In each goody bag was a JB season ticket application form which hopefully will add to the other work we are doing to market the JB's this season.
After the Guid Nychburris 5-a-sides volunteer Queens fans went along to the Caskie tournamant at Locharbriggs and at least 200 more forms went out to youngsters attending the games.
The Trust meeting on Monday night at the New Bazaar saw us planning out the next 2-3 weeks of effort. As a result we will be attending Lochmaben Childrens Sports Gala next Saturday. We will also be sending a couple of Queens fans away to Glasgow to represent us at the Supporters Direct conference at Glasgow Royal Medical School. We'll be at the Action Group car boot sale on Sunday and then the following week we will be at Moffat Gala 5-a-sides on the 8th then Moffat Gala itself on Saturday July 14th.
Thursday 14th June
Hundreds of youngsters attended this years Guid Nychburris 5-a-sides at Kingholm park this week and for the first time the Supporters Trust were in attendance to promote Queens and, in particular, our Junior Blues Club. We covered the 3 qualifying sections on Monday through to Wednesday. Over 300 Junior Blues Pound a Game season ticket forms were given out and on Tuesday night we took Dougie the Doonhamer along as it was the P6 & P7 qualifying rounds. The kids loved Dougie and it wasn't long before he was signing autographs and posing for photos. We even christened our Trust gazebo which came in handy on Wednesday as the heavens opened. All in all a highly successful week and well done to the QOS coaching team and youth players for running another successful event.
Tuesday 5th June
We know quite a few Junior Blues are looking forward to tomorrow when we will be announcing the winners of our JB Club 'Train with the First Team' competition. 16 lucky JB's will be drawn out of the goldfish bowl and get their chance to spend a training session with the first team squad.
A week on Saturday sees the Guid Nychburris Big Parade. As well as our Junior Blue advert in this years Guid Nychburris magazine, we'll be supplying a thousand poly bags for the Big Day. We spent a couple of hours with around 30 fans helping decorate this years float last night. It's great to see everyone working together on what has become a very professionally run annual event.
Next week we will be at the Guid Nychburris 5-a-side tournament for the knock out stages. Weather permitting we hope to have the Trust Gazebo at the Kingholm from 6pm onward on Monday 11th, Tuesday 12th and Wednesday tthe 13th of June. As well as promoting the Junior Blues we'll be holding a free raffle for all the youngsters taking part.
Friday 1st June 2007
Well, it wasn't to be. Even a new giant goldfish bowl and bigger balls didn't make any difference and Aero Leather Clothing Ltd will be the name on the First Team shirts next season. Never mind, congratulations to the new sponsors and well done to all the Supporters Groups, individiuals and businesses who supported the draw this year. Queens need every ounce of effort and financial support over the forthcoming period and it's great to see so many firms keeping the faith.
We have fixed up support for the first 3 days of the Guid Nychburris 5-a-sides so the next stage of the JuniorBlues Summer programme will move to the Kingholm in Dumfries from 6:30pm on Monday 11th through to Wednesday 13th which covers all the preliminary rounds of the tournament. That will allow all the youngsters involved to obtain a Junior Blues form and enter our free raffle which we will be running each evening.
Think we already mentioned that our U-15's will be kitted out by Supporters Groups at the Milk Cup again this summer. We will be providing training tops again this year with the Trust logo on the back. In addition, we will also be providing t-shirts for the lads as they embark on another Milk Cup tournament in Coleraine this summer. It's a prestigious tournament involving clubs from all over the world. We'll give more details nearer the time.
Wednesday 30th May 2007
Only one more day to go to the Shirt Prize Draw and fingers crossed one of the Supporters Groups gets a bit of luck this year. It’s only our 3rd year in the hat so we haven’t had many disappointments but it would be nice to see the Supporters Trust logo on the front on the new Surridge shirts. Lets hope it raises lots of cash for the Club. Given the £20,000 fine for illegally fielding Jamie Adams in the Cup plus the rumour that Palmerston needs a £40,000 floodlight upgrade (and it IS just a rumour at the moment) then the Board don’t have their problems to seek on the financial front.
We were fortunate enough to see the new shirts ‘in the flesh’ and the consensus was they were excellent. Distinctive, good quality and with the right logo on the front J they should be very popular this year.
If the Shirt prize Draw doesn’t go our way we’ve came up with another sponsorship idea which has been put forward to the Board. Hopefully that will work out.
The Junior Blues Summer programme continues. Apart from Calside School Fayre we are planning to cover the Guid Nychburris 5-a-side tournament which is run at the Kingholm from Monday 11th June until the 14th. It’s generally very popular with loads of schools from the region involved. Providing we can get enough volunteers, the aim is to cover as many events as we can over the summer. We also have an advert running in this years Guid Nychburris magazine to promote the Junior Blues and our Supporters Trust.
We’ve a team meeting tomorrow night after the Prize Draw where we’ll probably be drowning our sorrows but you never know. Whoever wins, I hope they have a good logo – don’t want the new shirts spoiled!!
Saturday 19th May 2007
Today 7 of us went along to Calside Primary Fayre to support the event and promote the Junior Blues. Club Captain Jim THomson and Dougie the Donhamer came along to help on what turned out to be a rather damp and blustery day. However, having been given a warm berth inside the P2 class, we were able to avoid the rain for most of the morning. Dougie the Doonhamer, however, was not so lucky, and spent about an hour outside in the showers trying to save penalties from eager youngsters. Jim as inundated with requests to have his photo taken throughout the morning while Dougie had to do some mending of emotions after a toddler wearing a firemans hat turned round from a doorway to find a 6ft Collie Dog staring at him. The wee soul immediately burst into tears and had to be consoled by a combination of his Mum and Dougie. Within a minute or two he was smiling again and giving Dougie high fives! Around 7 Trust members came along to help, selling Queens merchandise, giving out free raffle tickets to win autographed footballs and promoting the Junior Blue Season ticket by giving out Pound A Game forms. The stall proved popular and we look forward to being invited back next year.
Thursday 26th April 2007
A visit to Palmerston tonight with some of our Junior blues to present Stevie Murray with his Junior Blues player of the Season trophy. It was the first time we'd met Stevie and we were impressed with the way he presented himself, talking to the kids and having the patience to wait around while photos were taken. Two of our Junior Blues, Oliver Spence and MacKanzie Lawrie received their compeition prizes and all the JB's present had their photos taken with Allan Shuttleworth from Mabie Farm Park who sponsored the JB POTY award. Was also impressed with the players, who all came out to sign autographs and talk tot he JB's. Stevie also posed for a photo with the latest edition of Blue & White the JB magazine and was so impressed with his photo on the front cover he asked if he could keep a copy! All in all a great night especially for the Junior Blues who came along. We must thank Margaret Heuchan for arranging the trophy and the players for doing their bit for the young fans.
Saturday 4th Nov
Saturdays and a home game usually spell ‘Pando’ in our house. Yesterday wasn’t too bad as the only major item on the itinerary was to make sure all the kids at the
After that it was a bit of family car ferrying about followed by the usual last minute rush to make it to Palmerston in time to set up our little tables for the Supporters Trust Stall. We started the season distributing leaflets and selling second hand programmes but have swiftly moved on to selling Trust merchandise and tickets/quizzes for various Supporters Groups.
We also recently persuaded the lads from the Club shop to let us sell QOS merchandise on their behalf. This is proving to be a big hit and having received our first stock of
Now, since the Trust started I’ve given up a few things in order to support the Trusts efforts, but yesterday Martin and I made the ultimate sacrifice. Yes, in order to make sure we didn’t disappoint our customers, despite hearing the roar as the players re-entered the fray for the second half, we kept serving, knowing that every little penny was another penny for the Supporters Trust. However, after what I thought was a couple of minutes a huge roar went up as Weiro hit the back of the net to score
The good news is we've sold nearly £200 of Official Queens Merchandise in the 3 or 4 games we've been promoting them. Not bad considering considering early on most of the items were a pound each! We've also made over £200 for Trust funds.
