DARKBLUENATION FUNDRAISING INITIATIVE
As everybody knows, Scottish football is facing challenging times and a number of Clubs are struggling to deal with this along with the current economic climate. We, as Dundee fans, know more than most how fragile a Clubs existence can be.
As a Club and as a support, it is imperative that we work together to ensure a bright future for the generations who will hopefully support our Club when we're long gone.
In the 21st Century, whether it be as a business or a football club, we need to be innovative to survive and prosper. I wanted to come up with an idea which galvanised the Dundee support and which embraced the business community. I also wanted to harness the power of the internet, so that Dundee fans all over the globe could get involved.
When I set up the Exiled Dark Blues, I sensed a real willingness of supporters globally to support the Club with ideas, as well as fundraising. We initially started off with a Buy A Kiddies Season Ticket Scheme and are currently running a Sponsor a Goal Initiative. I wanted to take this a step further and that's when Dark Blue Nation was born.
Last year we had an Exiled Dark Blues Think Tank session where Dees around the globe sent in Fundraising ideas. Myself and Mark Traynor came up with a similar idea of a Fans Photo Mosaic, which is essentially hundreds of smaller photos merged into a large overall themed photograph, for example the DFC crest. It works along the same principle as the hugely successful Fans Flag (which Graeme Brymer created and raised almost £40k with in our dark Admin days), whereby fans pay to have their photograph included in a larger Mosaic. As well as raising significant funds in the short term, I believe that in years to come it will provide a snapshot (if you'll excuse the pun) of our support in 2013.
I went ahead and bought a website and a domain name (don't tell the missus) and built the website that is www.darkbluenation.com (apologies that the website is not too flashy but I do have very limited IT and web