Diane Scougall explains why she is standing for FOH elections

What appealed to step up and try to get involved with the Foundation in this capacity?

Because I care passionately about Hearts and everything that the Foundation is trying to do about ensuring that the club is on a firm financial footing going forward. I think it's obvious that it's a strange time for the Foundation because there's almost this so-what factor about it now. Fan ownership's been achieved, so where is my money now going? And I think the fans deserve to know that. But why am I standing? Because I think I've got the right skill set and the right attitude and abilities, quite frankly, and to bring something a little bit different. I'm known for being quite plain speaking and getting things done at work, and it's something I've been thinking about for a while. This time last year, there were only two vacancies, both of which had very specific things attached to them. So at that point, I thought, okay, I'll hold on and see what happens next year. So this isn't a spur-of-the-moment decision. This has been something I've been thinking about for quite a while. It's because I think new blood is needed and I think I'm the right person to be that new board.

You said it's quite a strange time. From your viewpoint as both a fan and a pledger, where do you see the Foundation currently, and what do you think are the main challenges that the Foundation faces?

The main challenge is the challenge in when you're trying to sell anything to anybody, and that's the 'what's in it for me?'. I do a lot of training at work where I'm trying to convince people to do tasks that they don't like to do with financial compliance. I have to spin that round and try and make sure they know why they're doing it and what's in it for them. I've got a background in sales as well. The trouble with the Foundation at the moment is if you look at the mission statement, there are five bullet points. Four out of the five basically say to get as much money out of fans as possible, if you read between the lines, and that's fair enough. That's what the Foundation is there for. Because everything that it talks about, about being financially stable and delivering material advantages and building the fabric foundations of the club. All of that is in the mission statement. All of that takes money. So the challenge is getting people to really buy into what their contributions are delivering.

For me, the gap at the moment is the message about what difference does my money make? I'm looking at the statement from last year that has just come out. The contribution from Foundation of Hearts is down from £1.62million to £1.47m and the club has this operating loss of £1.2m. So is it as straightforward as that loss would have been £2.6m Or is that money still achieving things that we wouldn't have otherwise done?

Again, if you look at some of the stuff on the Foundation of Hearts website, there's a lot of stuff about obviously ensuring success on the pitch, first and foremost. But then they're talking about backing Big Hearts, they're talking about enhancing the stadium and they mention the museum and memorial garden and the renovation sector and all of that. But nowhere do we see any breakdown of understanding: my money made this donation to Big Hearts, which meant that some kids get to go to an after school football club, for example. Or does my money meant we could offer this player a new contract. I know that isn't ever how it actually works but I think people just need to understand where the money is going.

If I'm looking at my outgoings, and I think these days we all do it, don't we? We look at, okay, hang on, where's all the little bits and pieces that I'm handing over? You know, my £3.99 a month STV Player, Spotify's just gone up to Netflix and so on. I mean, you've got all of these little outgoings every month that add up. And if you look at the one that's going out to Foundation Hearts, you can ask yourself, well, why am I doing that? And what's in it for me?

How would you look to communicate that? What would you like to see materialise from that message to fans that this is what your money goes to?

Some kind of understanding about what difference it makes. Whether it's literally just stopping us slipping into more debt or whether we can identify specific initiatives. Because don't forget, I mentioned four out of five of the bullet points are about raising funds. The fifth one is about contributing positively to the local community. I don't think we have transparency on what spend is going on football matters: what's going on youth development, what's going on local community initiatives, what's going on at Hearts Heritage. All of those kinds of things, just that kind of breakdown. I think if people understood that, they would be more likely to continue pledging and perhaps it might bring back a lot of people who stopped pledging once the fan ownership happened.

I think a big area – and I know that work was started on it last year – and that's the faraway fans, to try and get people that it doesn't make sense to buy a season ticket. But this must be a key market to try and tap into. Reading what's currently on the website for those fans, it just absolutely regurgitates all the text from another bit of the website about why anybody should pledge, as opposed to tapping into, 'You can't get to Tynecastle, so do this'. I just think if folk understood what's happening to the money, that would be key to keeping pledgers, bringing back pledgers and getting pledgers.

Is it widely accepted within fans that there is inconsistent communication and engagement?

Absolutely. I mean, ultimately, I think it's great that there's seven of us standing. How people are going to choose between us, I don't know, because generally speaking, we're all recognising the same things and that is that communication is a big issue.

That's very, very broad as well. It ranges from the website – there's only been six news stories posted on the website in the last year. The most recent two were 'here's the candidates' and one about changing the rules for cancelling your membership, which isn't a very positive message. Apart from that, there really hasn't been anything about what's happening. Even things like the Maroon Mile There was a big splash about that and then it's not very clear what's happened with that since – and that's coming from somebody volunteering themselves.

There are a lot of complaints from people who said, 'I emailed saying I've reached the milestones for the 1998 club, where's my certificate and badge?' We'll get that sent out to you, and then nothing. There's all sorts of stories. So it's the big communication and the little communication, and just engaging with the fan base, I think.

Communication will bring engagement. How would you like that to look – or how would you like to improve on that?

Well, in this day and age, we need to accept that communication comes in all sorts of shapes and forms, and we need to embrace them all. It's not just enough to say we send out a bi-monthly email, for example, because some of the younger pledgers probably regard email as something that only people my age use and they'll want to see updates on TikTok videos or Insta stories or whatever. We need bite-sized success stories getting out there. Whether it's something really small, like the new big screens that have gone up in the stadium. Now, I know that was done through a partnership with a supplier, but I don't know if Foundation of Hearts money played a part in that. But that's exactly the kind of thing that you could just immediately do a quick Insta story on: we've worked with so-and-so, put some of your money into making sure we've got these big screens up.

Or we're looking at improvements bringing the museum up to date and where Foundation of Hearts money could go to that. Just frequent stories that keep people engaged and interested and excited about Foundation of Hearts. That it's not just seen as this something that you'd send your money to and then hope that they use it for something.

Are there any other aspects of attracting people to come back or to find the joy that you think that can work or could work?

I think some of the initiatives that have been put in place in the last year are good and we need to keep doing that. The barcodes that are up around the stadium: Sign for Hearts, Be an Owner, Pledge for Life, is all great. But again, it's down to the why. What happens to the money?

Or maybe a bit of peer pressure, maybe a reminder, messages around the fact that out of 15,000 season ticket holders, 'We have X number, why don't you join them?'

There are all sorts of principles of influence that can do that, but it's just to build on making sure the Foundation of Hearts is always front and centre with people – because it's been so important. It's saved the club, let's not beat about the bush here. We were 36 hours away from disappearing and all of this made sure that Hearts survived. We need to make sure that we have a strong, successful club going forward and they need as much people's money as possible to do that.

A huge group that is possibly untapped for Foundation of Hearts is the non-season ticket holders. The people who, for whatever reason, whether they live away, whether they work every other Saturday or whether they're on the season ticket waiting list. If I'm in a pub and someone asks what team I support, I always make it very clear and I'll say, I'm a Hearts season ticket holder. In other words, I'm not just a wee fly by night. I invest in my club, I'm a real member.

For people who don't have a season ticket who want that sense of belonging, that sense of commitment to the club, a Foundation of Hearts pledge is a way of doing that. And a much cheaper way of doing it than buying a season ticket because you can do it for £125 a year and really feel part of the club. I think that's a big market we should be tapping into.

Whether you feel the same but it seems there is a perception that the Foundation doesn't have a big influence on decisions made by the club. How do you think the Foundation can go around changing it?

Like everybody at the moment, I haven't had the privilege to sit in on the board because I don't know what Gerry Mallon does in his role on the board. But, clearly, I always envisage it as the 8,500 members have got the board of Foundation of Hearts as their conduit for what they want to happen, through to the representatives that sit on the board. So at least we have those positions, but what is actually happening with that I don't know.

Potentially, if I'm successful as a director, then hopefully I would get to find out and hopefully communicate that outwards. As you say, I think there's a perception that they don't have much influence. I don't know, I can't possibly comment on whether that's the case or not.

Changing the topic a little bit, you clearly have a real passion for the club's history and making sure that it continues to be relevant and it's important to bridge the gap between the generations?

Absolutely, and bear in mind that for younger fans, history includes the 2012 cup final these days! Since I started volunteering at Hearts Heritage, I absolutely love working in the museum. We get a lot of tourists, guys over on stag weekends from Germany, folk on a city break, and they want to see the stadium. Then they realise we've got this museum and they come in and they ask us questions. We tell them about the history of Hearts, how long we've been on that ground, rooted in Gorgie, rooted in the local community. Working in the museum, it's a two-way thing when it comes to passion for the club because I get passionate in explaining the history, including the more recent things. I'll tell them all about '98 and how it was the first time we'd won the cup for so long.

I didn't get into football until I was 25 so I like hearing the stories when you'll get these old guys that come in and say, I used to have a season ticket in the 60s, 70s. Folk that now live in Canada or Australia and if they're back in Edinburgh visiting their families, they make a point to come into the museum – and they just love telling all their stories. We get people that are descendants of players and it's incredibly rewarding. And just what I've learned from all of that, that makes me think I could really bring something of that to the Foundation, especially because we don't talk to each other.

Foundation of Hearts and Hearts Heritage are terrible at talking to each other. The last time there was a big plot ceremony day, it started at 1pm in the Gorgie Suite and the museum's open till 2pm on a Sunday, so we're standing in the museum with no visitors. Because incidentally, the footfall is, for all that I've been talking about, kids and tourists, is very low and could be improved. To know that there's 30-50 Foundation of Hearts pledgers getting their plot ceremony next door and nobody's told them to come into the museum before the ceremony... so I think we could have real benefits, and just really simple things like that, just synergies between Hearts Heritage and Foundation of Hearts.

What's the most important thing to you getting on the Foundation, and what would you like to see achieved?

I'm not going to disrupt things on day one. I don't think I'm going to go in there and fix everything. I want to go in and find out how the Foundation works, the links between the Foundation and the board and the links between the Foundation and the other departments in Hearts.

So, for example, I've been quite liberally slating the Foundation of Hearts website and how much they've got the disposal of the social media and marketing people that sit within the club. To become a member of the team first – the old forming, norming, storming, performing. Basically find out as much about the current situation as possible before trying to change anything. Find out exactly what the limitations are.

For example, I know that when it comes to what's in it for me, it's extremely limited because if there's a material benefit to donations, then it attracts VAT. So you can't get loyalty points, for example, for your donations, but I think fans need to know stuff like that. It's to find out the parameters that it works under – the relationships with the board, the relationships with other departments – and then identify opportunities for changes and where improvements can be made around communication: around attracting new pledgers, non-season ticket holders, things like that.