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Chairman's Update - 13th July 2020

I hope that everyone reading this is in good medical & mental health as this pandemic continues to cause major disruption to our community?

A lot has happened since my last newsletter and hopefully a lot is about come to fruition within the next few weeks.

As everyone will know it is now confirmed that we will be competing in SPFL League One over a 27-game season commencing on 17th October 2020. Prior to that the Betfred Cup, which is an optional tournament for clubs this coming season, will start on the 3rd October. From our point of view there is no question that we will ready, willing, and able to compete in this competition. It will be a bit different this year as all the Premiership clubs will have been playing competitive games for 4-5 weeks before the Betfred kicks off meaning that there will be less chance of ‘catching them cold’ in the group stages. We will of course relish the opportunity to pit ourselves against whomever we are drawn against.

Our volunteers have already started work on preparing the stadium for games to commence and as always, I thank them for their continued hard work. We are monitoring the Scottish Government’s daily briefings as well as the regular updates we receive from the SFA & SPFL to see if there are any changes that will affect what we have to do to be able to ensure everything is in place in plenty of time.

As things stand, we expect the players & management to commence ‘preseason’ training in the last week of August, initially back at the Oriam in Edinburgh, augmented with weekend seasons at Bayview. The most onerous part of the return to training is undoubtedly the testing of the players for Covid-19 both financially and practically. At the moment we are being advised that all players & staff will require to be tested once a week which could be a logistical nightmare for not only us, but all part time teams in Scotland. The financial implications of this is also very onerous but this is a cost we will have to bear.

Now that we have some degree of confidence, we are pressing ahead with looking at sponsorship across all parts of the club.

Some of you will have noticed that we have opened up the player kit donations for next season. This is always a well-supported fund raiser for us, and I hope that it continues in that vein. This can be done through the club shop and I would advise getting in early to secure your place for your favourite player.

Our priority is to source a main sponsor for our unique home top. We will soon be launching a media campaign for this. The pre-sales of these tops have been fantastic, and they are now in production. I hope to be able to advise a delivery date for these very soon.

If anyone has any ideas for potential sponsors please feel free to contact us, any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

That brings me round to season tickets for the forthcoming campaign. I apologise for the delay in releasing details of this but as you will appreciate it just wasn’t practical to make any decisions on pricing until the full details of the make up of next season had been confirmed.

As everyone is aware, this season is going to be very hard for all clubs and we are no exception. That being said, we are acutely aware that it is the same for you our loyal fans. With that in mind we have decided to keep the walk-up admission prices the same as the last 3 seasons and also peg the season ticket prices at the same level as last season. A full list of the prices follows this newsletter.

Unfortunately, until the final fixtures are released, we do not know if we will have 13 or 14 home games. This will ultimately affect our income for the season therefore the prices are based on three quarters of the full season.

The child season ticket has risen from £20 to £40 but this still represents a 40% reduction of the walk-up prices.

In event of the season starting behind closed doors, ALL season ticket holders will be provided with ‘free’ access to EFtv’s live streaming of home games. This will apply until the U.K. & R.O.I. broadcasting restrictions are reintroduced. I know that the EFtv media team are already working on ways of improving their already excellent service to ensure that you can get the best possible coverage. It is hope that fans will be allowed into games by the time we start but should numbers be restricted then season ticket holders will be allocated entry before any individual match tickets are sold.

I am sure that you appreciate that these are difficult times for the club but with your continued backing we will emerge on the other side even stronger.

Jim Stevenson

Chairman

Tickets are now on sale, click here to buy