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All profits* from our online shop contribute directly to our chosen charities, supporting the DRFC Youth teams and helping us work towards our Aims and Objectives. To purchase any item simply click the "Buy Now" button below the item you wish to buy. We accept card payments through PayPal, even if you don't have a PayPal account!
Coppinger Legend Mug
£8  
Ceefax Wembley Mug
£8 
Ceefax Brentford Mug
£8 
Ceefax Conf. Playff-Off Final Mug
£8 
Ceefax JPT Final Mug
£8 
Please note: Shipping will be added to applicable items at PayPal checkout. For shipping outside of the UK please contact us. Is there anything else you would like to see us sell in our shop? Contact us! Get in touch!
Should you wish to contact the Viking Supporters Co-operative, best practice is to get in touch with our Secretary Martin O'Hara (Secretary@drfc-vsc.co.uk) who will forward your query to the appropriate Board Member if necessary. If however, you would like to get in touch with a specific Board Member regarding community, commercial, membership, communication etc., then do not hesitate to contact us via the details below. We are always looking for more fans to join the board of directors, and would love to hear from you if you are interested in the supporter trust movement and fan engagement! The Viking Supporters Co-operative Elected Board of Directors:
Alternatively you can get in touch by sending a letter addressed to: Viking Supporters Co-operative c/o Doncaster Rovers FC Keepmoat Stadium Stadium Way Doncaster South Yorkshire DN4 5JW If you have any issues with the Viking Chat forum please please email forum@drfc-vsc.co.uk Commercial Partners Is your business based in Doncaster or the surrounding areas? Do you want to grow the reputation of your Business and be seen to help the Supporters Trust, whose objective is to benefit the community that it serves in? Become a Commercial Partner on this website for a low flat-fee of £150 p/a. For that price you get: - a top banner on every page of the website (468px x 60px) (banners designed free of charge if you can't supply your own) - a side banner on the VSC homepage (234px x 60px) (banners designed free of charge if you can't supply your own) - your company logo, contact details and a short description on our commercial partners page (http://www.drfc-vsc.co.uk/commercialpartners) - your company logo on all correspondence we send to our members A few website stats for you: - In an average month this website receives over 17,000 unique visitors, over 118,000 visits and over 1 million page-views - 90% of our visitors are returning visitors, giving your brand repetitive exposure and increasing it's effectiveness - Visitors spend an average of 9 minutes browsing the site, again giving your ad maximum exposure Email commercial@drfc-vsc.co.uk for more information 
The Viking Supporter's Co-operative offers Doncaster Rovers supporters a voice. We meet regularly with club officials to discuss the issues that matter most to you. The Trust Board is made up of individuals who donate their free time to benefit its members and the wider Rovers fan-base, but they need your support! The more members we have, the more chance that Rovers fans can have a real influence in the running of our Football Club.
The VSC continues its great reputation of a good relationship with Doncaster Rovers and club officials, including CEO Gavin Baldwin, so that we can go directly to the people we need to sort out issues of our supporters. Our work with local charities and charitable organisations continues to be high up on our agenda. We have previously raised money for Bluebell Wood Children's Hospice, Chordoma UK, Lewis Jeynes Foundation, local junior football clubs, Stainforth 4 All, LJS Foundation, Olly Duerden and many more. For the 2015/16 season our main charity is Firefly Cancer Awareness and Support. The Aims and Objectives of the Viking Supporters Co-operative are:
What is a Supporters Trust? A Supporters' Trust is a secure, not-for-profit, community-minded and democratic organisation run by its shareholding members in accordance with its constitution and is registered with and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. There are around 180 Supporters’ Trusts across the UK representing over 270,000 members. The umbrella body for Supporters' Trusts is Supporters Direct, a government-sponsored organisation created to encourage the formation of Supporters' Trusts and to provide them with support and advice for the benefit of football supporters and the football clubs they support. Is the VSC the same thing as the forum? No. Viking Chat is the football forum that is provided free of charge to anyone. The forum is, of course, an excellent tool for the VSC to promote fundraising, community projects, fan engagement etc but being a VSC member or not has no bearing on how users are treat on the forum. Everyone is welcome to join Viking Chat as long as they abide by the forum rules and take note of the ban policy. If you have any questions/concerns specifically for the VSC feel free to post them in the VSC Matters section. How do I join the VSC? The easiest way to maintain your VSC membership is via a PayPal subscription, which means you never have to remember to renew. Alternatively you can make a one-off payment of £12 and renew your membership every year. Just click one of the PayPal buttons below to join:   Note: you don't have to have a PayPal account to pay for a single year; you can just pay with your debit or credit card
25 Jul 2013 - Interview with Shaun Lockwood part 2
Has IRWT been copied from anywhere?
It's unique to Doncaster Rovers although there are clubs that work on fan engagement such as Cardiff City who try and work with supporters to improve the club and listen to feedback. Since we have taken it on we have quite quickly been seen as 'Best Practice', we are the only club in the country who every 3 months go to our fan base and survey them to ensure we are doing a good job or see areas where we can improve and check that we haven't let anyone down. What projects are currently going on within the club? The main one is trying to make sure that the Keepmoat Stadium feels more like the home of Doncaster Rovers. We have done things like paint the Belle Vue bar red and ask fans to bring down memorabilia as before it was called the Lakeside Suite which meant nothing to the fans. We have put banners up on the corners of the stadium and the concourses have changed finally and we are now speaking with painters to further make it feel like the home of the Rovers. We have had funding approved for a walking timeline inside the stadium and that will be a big consultation project on how the club has affected the people of Doncaster. What are the club doing locally? Schools-wise, we have a community scheme that is working hand in hand with the marketing department so that when we go into schools we have a PPA session and apprenticeship schemes so there is all sorts going on. We distribute season tickets to the schools and award prizes to kids who do positive things in the community such as 100% attendance which is rewarded with a matchday ticket. We take the players into schools who do physical activities with the kids and quizzes with them which they love and sell tickets. Junior football teams is a huge market for us with 5 a side tournaments and pitchside activities and this gets into the future fan base. Is IRWT championed throughout the club? All senior managers have bought into it due to the culture of it and all stewards and kiosk staff are going to be challenged to buy into it as well and take it one step further. Terry Bramall is obsessed with how the club works in the community, he loves the support liaison project and loves the fact we lead the way in the country with fan engagement. Paul Dickov on his first day rang me at 1045 and said he wanted to get in front of the fans as he had heard about the fan engagement. Basically, everyone buys into it and we hope to continue to build on it in the future. What are you most proud of? Probably the families area, it now has a bit of character about it as previously it was just the family area by name. Now we ensure that Donny Dog is in there on match day and also that the kids can play Nintendo Wii against first team players that aren't part of the match day squad. The kids are given free gifts just for being in that area, facepainting, magicians and also skill schools. Last year we put a price offer of £22 for an adult and a child and we had 95% capacity throughout the season which was a huge success. Its growing all the time and out of the 70 odd football league clubs we are one of 8 who have won the families excellence award year on year for the last 6 years. What's the future for IRWT? We want to create a legacy, its not something we want to do for 1 or 2 seasons or a branding exercise its got to be here to stay. We want to create a Disney experience and IRWT is that experience. Care to comment on the rumoured investment? It can't be discussed here as it is above my level. I was at an AGM last week with Gavin and the question came up there, at the moment there is nothing more we can say on it. Some of the fans are worried about potential signings as well, care to comment? M'Voto has obviously gone to Barnsley and all at the club agree with Paul Dickov, if you aren't 100% Doncaster Rovers or buy into it then do we want someone like that at the club? In terms of existing players, last year we released 5 first team players, 3 of which played less than 5 games between them (2 former youth players and Fowler), we then had Martin Woods who was injury hit for last few years and Gary Woods who were released. Since then we have brought in 3 players Fernandez, Furman and Duffy all of which are first team players that will improve the clubs playing staff. Some players are still yet to sign and we are working hard to get that to happen and the agents are working hard too as they too have heard about the rumoured investment. I would say that by the 3rd of August we will have a squad in place that will compete and if players do come or go, that's football. Last year we built a team from scratch and we did alright! Finally, do you have a message to the supporters? Continue to give us feedback on what we are doing at the club and definitely become a member of the VSC as it is creating positive change, sometimes you have to be patient with positive change but we are getting there and moving in the right direction certainly in the last 12 months. Above all make the feedback constructive and if anyone wants to contact me I am always available and continue with your positive support. Many Thanks
25 Jul 2013 - Interview with Shaun Lockwood
In the first of a series of "Who's who at the Rovers" interviews, Viking Chat forum regular OggyCompton (Paul) met with the Rovers' Head of Marketing, Shaun Lockwood. Here is the interview Paul conducted.
So Hello there, what's your name please?
Shaun Lockwood
How old are you?
30
What is your job title at the club?
Head of Marketing
I understand you have just become a father, how is that?
Ok…had a few little issues to begin with but we are getting there. He weighs 10lb 12 oz at 4 and a half weeks so is a bit of a bruiser. When feeding him at 4:45 in the morning the people at work are getting e-mails off me which isn't nice for them but it's a good chance to get some work done.
What is In Rovers We Trust? (IRWT)
IRWT is a fan engagement program that we have been working with the VSC closely on. We work with an expert in this field Mark Bradley, who works for the FA and the Football League and doing work across the world which he is renowned for as being the best in the field. It's what all clubs should do and it's something that Doncaster Rovers should have been doing for a long time and years gone by. Its customer focussed and allows us to see what fans want, what they want improved and areas that they think we are weak in a constructive manner and we try and fix it. Its trying to make sure that the experience of supporting Doncaster Rovers isn't just on a match day but is also 24/7 and that it works, be it an 8 year old who applies for a the managers job and gets an interview or someone who comes to give blood at the stadium and says they have never been to one before and we give them hospitality at the Motherwell game. It's making sure that the fans are at the centre of what we are trying to do.
How long has this been going on?
It was launched in April 2012 via a mass customer survey where we wanted both positive and negative feedback and priorities for change and we had 900 people respond to that. This created a 'to do list' which we started working on with an aim of implementing changes like cash gate trials and smoking bubbles along with food and drink improvements.
What's a normal day for Shaun Lockwood?
Check my e-mails on my phone to see if there has been any disasters over night, get into office at about 8:30 and hit my job list that I have for the day. We look at things we can do to promote the club and IRWT. Meetings taken on a Monday, including a priorities meeting and then a head of department meeting. During the day I try and respond to all the enquiries that we get from e-mail which can be as much as 150 a day which aren't all customer facing, if Gavin Baldwin is in then that can increase dramatically as he is relentless, good but relentless. I also make sure that all the projects we are doing are going well such as painting the concourses and also the 'We win, you win', that we are doing for the Rochdale game where if we win we will give you money off of a future purchase. For the Blackburn game we are doing something with Avec targeting adult football teams at £30 which is slightly more than normal but they will get a full kit and to watch a full game which isn't too bad at all.
Gavin Baldwin has done well since he's been here hasn't he?
Yeah he's done really well, he came in completely fresh with new ideas and he has changed the culture at the club to be honest, his work ethic is very good and it's something that we all try and aspire too. If you say something to him even if it's in passing, he remembers it and expects you to carry it out.
There was talk of him being targeted by other clubs and also of a pay rise he gave himself, can you clarify this?
I am not sure how much of this was true but he was quite embarrassed by it to be honest. He loves the club and will be here for the considerable future. As for the salary increase in any organisation a Chief Executive cannot increase his salary, it has to be done by the directors so basically that was untrue.
Read more of the interview with Shaun Lockwood by clicking here
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