SMISA is now the majority shareholder of the club having completed our takeover in July 2021. Although St Mirren and SMISA remain two distinct groups, we do provide four SMISA-appointed directors to the St Mirren board who help ensure the club is run in a professional and efficient manner. We also work in conjunction with St Mirren to provide financial support for programmes such as the pre-match children’s entertainment, while we have a pot of members’ contributions that helps to fund ad-hoc club-related projects. Our former £2 spend scheme also paid for the viewing platform in the main stand and the St Mirren murals dotted across the stadium.

SMISA has been a long-standing supporter of the work undertaken by the charitable foundation since its rebirth in 2018. The foundation organises and runs an eclectic set of programmes including Buds Bootcamp, Football Memories, Paisley Men’s Shed and Time To Tackle, many of which help to support some of the most vulnerable people in society. Since the restructure of our financial model following the July 2021 takeover, SMISA now gives 10 percent of our net income every year to the foundation to help support their syllabus.

St Mirren as a club places a lot of pride in its youth programmes and SMISA has always been happy to support that in a number of ways, including paying for a new artificial pitch at the Ralston academy, sponsoring strips, and helping to fund trips and other football equipment. That funding has now been formalised with 30 percent of SMISA’s net income going to the youth academy to help support their ongoing projects. SMISA director Dougie McMahon is a regular visitor to Ralston in his role as club liaison officer and works closely with head of youth Allan McManus to help deliver the best service possible to the academy.

SMISA has backed the women’s team from its inception and was one of the first sponsors to get on board in the early days. This summer SMISA members helped pay to send the first team to an important pre-season tournament in Germany. Although the women’s team has latterly become more integrated into the club, SMISA still retains strong links with head coach Kate Cooper, her players and the rest of the girls academy, with SMISA director Janette Swanson recently also taking on the role of chair of the women’s team.

SMISA is ultimately a fans’ organisation founded in 2002 and to that end we try to work closely with the three club SLOs, John White, Karin Pointon and John Allison, and have a representative, SMISA director Eddie Devine, working with the Marching On supporters group who are looking to improve the matchday experience at the SMISA Stadium. Although a member organisation, SMISA will always look to support the welfare of all St Mirren fans.

This season we have reintroduced the SMISA Community Season Ticket scheme whereby we buy 30 season tickets for the Tony Fitzpatrick Family Stand then distribute them to local community groups to enable people to attend a match who may otherwise not be able to do so. SMISA director Jim Cumming works closely with Engage Renfrewshire to identify groups who might be interested in going to a game and then helps pass on the tickets. Engage Renfrewshire is a third sector interface that supports local charities and other not-for-profit groups and has been on the go now for 12 years.

Kibble is a Paisley-based charity and social enterprise that supports at-risk children and young people across the UK. SMISA and Kibble came together to buy out Gordon Scott’s shareholding in July 2021, making it the first deal of this nature in European football to involve a charity. Kibble provide two directors to the St Mirren board who work together with the SMISA representatives to help steer the club in the right direction. They also provide training and learning opportunities for the young people in their care within various St Mirren departments.  

Supporters Direct has been working throughout the UK since 2000 to help supporters gain influence in the running and ownership of their club and were instrumental in helping to inform SMISA during both phases of our takeover in the club in 2016 and again in 2021. SDS continue to help us with information and guidance on governance and legislative matters.