We are delighted to introduce our newly appointed club Coordinator Gary, Gary will be instrumental in the day to day running of the club over the next few years! I’m sure you will join us in giving him a warm welcome.

Get to know a little bit about Gary by reading his biography below!

I was absolutely delighted to recently be appointed as the new Club Coordinator for Dundee Dragons. I have always been involved in sport and exercise from a young age and as a teenager I was involved in football, swimming, tennis and golf and continue to remain active as I feel it is so important for both your physical and mental health.

In 2020 during the covid pandemic, I left my job as a quality assurance officer with A.G. Barr after 14 years and returned to university to complete my honours degree. Although initially planning to finish off sports coaching and development, I decided to specialise in physical activity and health in order to broaden my knowledge of these areas. I was delighted to graduate in the summer of 2023 with a 2:1 honours degree after three years of hard work and effort.

I currently work for both Angus Cycle Hub and Ancrum Outdoor Centre in a freelance role as a Bikeability Scotland cycling instructor. This takes me across Angus and Tayside delivering to a range of primary and secondary school pupils. I also work for Angus Alive as a swimming instructor across sports centres in the Angus area.

I am the current head coach of Forfar amateur swimming club, taking up this post in 2017 when the club moved into the new community campus. In recent years we have seen swimmers qualify for national level competitions for the first time in the club’s history. I have also been an assistant coach with Scottish Swimming’s junior academy programme in 2022 and again in 2023, working across the Midland and North of Scotland districts. I previously spent 18 years as a player and manager at Finavon amateur football club, also spending time as the chairperson of the club between 2015-2017.

Socially, I enjoy keeping fit through swimming, cycling, and running and continue to compete in masters’ events. I like to relax with an audiobook wherever I can, usually alternating between a comedy biography or, at present, the books in the Richard Osman series.

I am very much looking forward to getting to know everyone within the Dragons setup and beyond. I plan to use the coming weeks and months to see how the clubs runs and how best I can contribute to the great work already going on!

You can contact Gary via email at: gary.nisbet@dundeedragons.net

Dundee Dragons recently celebrated 10 Years of changing lives through the power of sport. To enable us to continue changing lives and providing inclusive sport and physical activity opportunities for the next 10 years and beyond, we are looking to hire a Club Coordinator who will be instrumental in the development of the club.

For more information on this role please read the job description below (if you would prefer this in an alternative format please email contact@dundeedragons.net).

Revised Recruitment Timeframe

16/10/23 – Advert goes live
31/10/23 – Application closes at 5pm
5/11/23 – Notify successful applicants
9/11/23 – Online interviews (evening)
10/11/ 23- Online interviews (evening)
Role Commences ASAP

To apply for this role please send a covering letter, which provides clear examples of how you meet the person specification and a copy of your CV to contact@dundeedragons.net

We welcome, and actively encourage, applicants from diverse backgrounds especially from ethnically diverse, LGBTQ+ and disabled communities as well as those with lived experiences of tackling inequalities. We believe diverse voices are instrumental in creating transformational change.

Be sure to check our Facebook Page as that is where you’re most likely to find the latest posts about club activities.

As a volunteer led charity we don’t have as much time as we’d like to dedicate to our social media presence, meaning our website can lag a little when it comes to posting club news.

(This seems like the perfect point to give a shout out to all those budding social media specialists out there; we’d love to help you use your skills for good through volunteering for us! Maybe you can’t play wheelchair sport just now but you’d still like to be involved with the club? Here’s a great opportunity!)

We’ll of course do our best to update this site as regularly as possible, and please don’t worry; all contact form enquiries made through the website are answered as soon as they come in.

To be on the safe side though, head over to Facebook, have a look at the latest posts on our Page and drop us a line through Messenger.

Our bus has sadly reached the end of its working life.

We know that the cost price for a vehicle that meets our needs could be anything up to £60K so we’ve had to look at every available option we can in order to get the club moving again.

Sadly though, whilst our beloved old DragonsWagon was waiting to go to the forever home in the sky for busses, it was vandalised.

This was a really sad end to what had been a faithful friend to the club, and it has greatly impacted how we were planning to offload it.

So where are we now? 

The club is currently without a bus and that’s a big blow. 

The minibus was a vital tool to get us to matches, local events and club outings. 

Our old bus took us everywhere from Elgin to Wrexham and many stops in between, so at the moment we’re reliant on using multiple cars to complete these journeys, or where that’s not feasible we face not being able to make the journey at all.

What’s next?

Given the huge costs involved, we had to look at every avenue open to us in order to fund a new minibus. 

Our options included corporate partnerships, longterm sponsorship prospects and good old fashioned bucket shaking! 

We’ve been very fortunate to secure the support of a wonderfully generous corporate donor who, in partnership with a well known motoring brand have granted us almost all the funding we will need to take ownership of our own brand new, fully wheelchair accessible minibus. 

This is such an exciting prospect for the club; we’re absolutely thrilled to be the recipients of such generosity, and we simply can’t wait to share more information about our donors as time goes on, and of course to get the wheels of the new bus turning!

So why do we need your help?

Despite all this exciting news, there’s still one major hurdle to overcome. 

We still need to raise approximately £10,000 to meet the remainder of the purchase costs. 

Being 90% of the way to the target is a fantastic feeling, but it doesn’t see us over the line, and until we can hand over all of the costs, we won’t be able to call the bus our own. 

We know that everyone is tight for cash just now. 

It’s a difficult time for the entire community and that makes it all the harder for us to ask for your help. 

Being this close to our target and not being able to see it through would be a devastating blow to the club, and so we’re appealing to all our friends and supporters to help us get our bus. 

Specifically we’re asking that if you can support us, you to donate to our KiltWalk Team Page. 

The fabulous folks at The Hunter Foundation will top up any donation by 50% meaning any pennies you can spare will go even further! 

You can find our Club Page below, where you can follow the team as they prepare for their walks on 21st August, and where you can donate directly to their efforts.

https://dundee.thekiltwalk.co.uk/teams/DundeeDragons2022

We know this is a big ask, but you can be sure that when the new bus arrives it will straightway be put to use taking the Dragons Family all across the U.K. to participate in Wheelchair Sporting events. 

Our members have told us how they’ve missed the camaraderie of being together on the bus, travelling to events that help boost their confidence, improve their physical and mental health and most of all provide a fun and consistent way to live their lives fully embracing the Dragons’ motto of #AllAboutAbility. 

So please, if you can spare a few pounds to help us make that a reality once more, head over to our fundraising page. 

💙🐲💙 Thank You 💙🐲💙

The DDWSC Newsletter is back! Find out what we’ve been getting up to this summer by clicking the download button below.

This issue features lots of club updates (We’ve been very busy!), the inside scoop on our surfing trip and an interview with our wonderful trustee Brian McArtney.

Download the latest issue here

We have some very exciting news to share with you all…. Baillie Gifford, who are an independent investment business based in Edinburgh have been incredibly generous and donated to the club. Their funding will support our club coordinator to continue in their role, which is vital for the growth and day to day running of the club. This ultimately allows us to change even more lives through sport! As you can probably all guess we are over the moon, here is what our chairperson Elizabeth Ferris had to say about the donation ….

“We were absolutely bowled over with the news of Baillie Gifford’s generous donation to the club.

It honestly took me a little while to digest it when I first heard – what a fantastic gift!

Every penny of this money will go to ensuring we can continue to provide active wheelchair sport for all; and specifically in this “new normal” we all find ourselves in just now – having such support means more to the club than words can say”

This issue features club updates, Scotland callups and chat corner with our newly appointed wellbeing leads and champions!

As mentioned in the newsletter Kevin, Gemma and Blair are taking on the Kiltwalk this weekend!

Gemma is raising money for the club, you can donate here; https://virtual.thekiltwalk.co.uk/fundraising/ScotlandsVirtualKiltwalk2021-GemmaLumsdaine

Kevin and Blair are raising money for Dundee City Disability Sport, who have supported us from day one, you can donate using the links below;

https://virtual.thekiltwalk.co.uk/fundraising/ScotlandsVirtualKiltwalk2021-KevinRattray

https://virtual.thekiltwalk.co.uk/fundraising/ScotlandsVirtualKiltwalk2021-BlairBrown?fbclid=IwAR3iAzN4PoFGLjeI7Sv722XT02ic6LIN5AiEEskOjKrLP1l7plwzu6RLLlU

This issue features club updates and chat corner with one of our wonderful volunteers, Adam Elder! Click the link below to download this issue.