Members Update from Gerry Mallon

We are always grateful to members for feedback we get from them, and some of the most frequent are on the subjects of communication and engagement. These are issues which are challenges for any organisation and ones which we have been focusing on both at board level and among the volunteers who do such great work under the banner of what is now called our operations group.

Recently our two new board members, Claire Hammond and Gary Locke, were interviewed on the Scarves Around the Funnel podcast, and these and a whole range of other topics were discussed. If you haven’t heard the interview, I’d really recommend it to you. You can find it at this link.

We’ll be stepping up this kind of engagement - producing videos and getting more involved with podcasters and broadcasters - so that you and fellow members are kept informed about our strategies and activities through this medium. And we’re putting other developments in place which we believe will also help on this important front.

As a further platform, we’ve been reviewing how people get in touch with the Foundation, what the key areas of concern may be, and how we deal with the queries. We’ll do this analysis on a regular basis, and to make the whole process more straightforward for everyone, we’ll be reducing the number of our email addresses so that there’s no confusion about which one to use. Leading on this will be the info@foundationofhearts.org address.

Backing this up, we’ll also be putting a list of frequently asked questions - and the answers - on the website. We’ll add to these regularly on the back of the queries that come in.

We’ll also be hosting regular Pub Nights at the 1874 Bar at Tynecastle. Representatives of the Foundation will be there, and we hope that members and non-members will come along to meet them, chat, and ask questions. These are free, informal sessions and no sign-up is required. The first Pub Night will be on Friday 28 February from 6.30pm. Hopefully see you there.

This year will see many more events run by the Foundation, all with the aim of engaging with members and keeping channels of communication open. We’ll keep you up to date with more details of these, but for the moment, I’d mention a few of them.

First, the ‘Boys in Maroon’ event on Sunday 16 March, with some special guests to explore the Hearts story through match shirts. Exclusively for members, this sold out very quickly, and the idea of having events open only to members - as a reward for everyone’s commitment to FoH - is one which we are building into our planning.

In that vein, we’ll be hosting more ‘90 Minutes With…’ evenings, featuring individuals whose expertise and experience is directly related to the club and its progress. These will be fascinating events, exclusively for Foundation members, as will events around the Trusted Voices programme which we are well down the road of creating. This programme centres on legends of the Hearts community - players and others - and again we believe that this will make for great experiences for Foundation members. More on this to come.

Finally, our famous plot ceremonies return in March, with an event on Sunday 23 March. We’ll be sending out invitations for this very soon and look forward to welcoming more legends in the stands to take possession of their plots.

This is a flavour of what will be a busy year for the Foundation. It’s also indicative of our commitment to improve our communications and engagement with you and all members. We’ve been listening and we’re acting!