Strategy Congratulations, you're on the board. Now what do you do?

[The Old Dark Navy's]

This a structured thread, free from ranting. Board room decorum applies.

You are now on the board. You have an opportunity to shape this club moving forward. Bear in mind that spending is limited by a soft cap. If we affect revenue, we need to replace it. We need to maintain sponsorships and keep those sponsors happy. You may also want to offer up a change to the way we elect the board and the criteria for allowing someone to nominate.

You can choose to be the football director and concentrate on that area, but you need to be mindful of how your decisions affect the club as an ongoing concern.

What do you want to do, and how to you propose to achieve it?

Others can ask questions respectfully, but can't outright dismiss or be rude about your ideas.

 

[dragonsblues]

The first things is to gut the influence of all ‘power brokers’ who’ve used this club as a play thing for decades.

Thank you to the Pratt’s, Matthieson’s and their factional allies. But you are no longer needed outside of turning up to functions.

 

[katmanblue]

At one of the sponsor dinners Cook having a chat with a couple of fellas and was comparing the fans/sponsors of the cats vs ours.

Was saying when Geelong needed cash for something they'd need to present a business case and perhaps some would pitch in.

Compare that to ours, if we need some money for something they just get it. Plenty of passionate types with who will put their hand in their pocket.

Not sure which is better. But he said it was nuts how easily we could raise funds compared to Geelong who had to work for every dollar.

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

The first things is to gut the influence of all ‘power brokers’ who’ve used this club as a play thing for decades.

Thank you to the Pratt’s, Matthieson’s and their factional allies. But you are no longer needed outside of turning up to functions.

I assume this means not requiring any ongoing financial support from them? How much do they contribute and do we need to replace this money?

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

Cook was comparing the fans of the cats vs ours.

On SM-F926B using BigFooty.com mobile app

Sorry, is this board related?

 

[dragonsblues]

I assume this means not requiring any ongoing financial support from them? How much do they contribute and do we need to replace this money?

Carlton’s books are good. A club with 90k members doesn’t need money that clearly comes with strings attached.

Club has done a good job at diversifying income streams.

My second decision would be to add an ex coach into Voss’s coaching assistants. Collingwood, Richmond and Sydney both benefit from the extra experience from such assistants.

 

[Michael Jezz]

1. Change the constitution. Full member elections for every board position every 3 years

2. 7 Board members, must include
2 ex players. 1 must have played within last 10 yrars
1 woman's sport backgrouns
1 Finance background.
1 AFL admin experience.
1grass roots members
1 marketing background

3. No reviews conducted just following decisions.
- Cook and Voss stay
-New head of football- lloyd out
-New head of fitness- Russel out
-Assistant coaches replaced, includes an ex coach like buckley or simpson

• Charlie Curnow made Captain
• Austin instructed to profile 5, 10, 15 list replacements based on 75% of new players capable of immediate senior selection. Minimum 5 players drafted.
• All deals for senior, contracted players to be considered apart from: Curnow, saad, cerra, weitering and walsh
• Focus on recruiting 2 players with premiership experience

- President to announce, the objective of the football club is winning, our goalto make finals in 2024 and to aspire to win a premiership within 5 years

 

[katmanblue]

Sorry, is this board related?

Accidentally posted before I finished ... Have edited to flesh it out.

It was a type of reply to the poster saying they'd curb the influence of the power brokers.

Not sure it would be easy to do.

I think we are too addicted to the cash and therefore the power brokers have more sway. Whereas, at Geelong they don't really have power brokers as such and so they had to really work hard for injection of funds. Perhaps it's different now because they have good revenue coming from their stadium.

On SM-F926B using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

1. Change the constitution. Full member elections for every board position every 3 years

2. 7 Board members, must include
2 ex players. 1 must have played within last 10 yrars
1 woman's sport backgrouns
1 Finance background.
1 AFL admin experience.
1grass roots members
1 marketing background

3. No reviews conducted just following decisions.
- Cook and Voss stay
-New head of football- lloyd out
-New head of fitness- Russel out
-Assistant coaches replaced, includes an ex coach like buckley or simpson

• Charlie Curnow made Captain
• Austin instructed to profile 5, 10, 15 list replacements based on 75% of new players capable of immediate senior selection. Minimum 5 players drafted.
• All deals for senior, contracted players to be considered apart from: Curnow, saad, cerra, weitering and walsh
• Focus on recruiting 2 players with premiership experience

- President to announce, the objective of the football club is winning, our goalto make finals in 2024 and to aspire to win a premiership within 5 years

Q1 - So when the elections take place, the challengers need to be like for like? For example, a grass roots member needs to be specifically challenging for the grass roots spot on the board. An ex player who played more than 10 years ago, can only replace the same on the board.

Q2 - Do we need to have someone lined up to replace Lloyd and Russell, or are we sacking them and having an open process?

Q3 - Why Charlie Curnow as captain? Are we doing away with the players voting for the leadership group? I'm good with the latter incidentally.

Q4 - Is this essentially announcing a new 5 year plan?

Q5 - How to we produce the draft/trade capital to pay for so many senior ready players and how do we pay for their salaries? Is this similar to when we recruited Mullett, Shaw, Sumner, Lamb etc, essentially free senior players to hold sway while others developed?

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

At one of the sponsor dinners Cook having a chat with a couple of fellas and was comparing the fans/sponsors of the cats vs ours.

Was saying when Geelong needed cash for something they'd need to present a business case and perhaps some would pitch in.

Compare that to ours, if we need some money for something they just get it. Plenty of passionate types with who will put their hand in their pocket.

Not sure which is better. But he said it was nuts how easily we could raise funds compared to Geelong who had to work for every dollar.

Okay, so in the form of a question ... you want to know how we propose to raise funds if we can't just ask for money from powerbrokers who want to have a say as a result? The forthcoming answer was that we have 90k fans and are flush with funds and have been investing in alternate income streams. This requires any board member to look at our annual statements and determine how much money we earn from 'donations' and how much we earn from our revenue streams that are not beholden to these powerbrokers.

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

The_Wookie, have you delved deep into our figures recently? Any insight you can offer as to where our revenue comes from would be useful.

 

[The_Wookie]

The_Wookie, have you delved deep into our figures recently? Any insight you can offer as to where our revenue comes from would be useful.

Big increases in sponsorship and hospitality, and members/gate revenue.

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

Big increases in sponsorship and hospitality, and members/gate revenue.

Would sponsorship include donations from powerbrokers or are they genuine deals?

Also, can Mathieson take the pokies off us if we cut him loose, or were they given to us lock, stock and barrel?

 

[The_Wookie]

Would sponsorship include donations from powerbrokers or are they genuine deals?

Also, can Mathieson take the pokies off us if we cut him loose, or were they given to us lock, stock and barrel?

Donations would come under philanthropic donations or fundraising.

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

Donations would come under philanthropic donations or fundraising.

So, it's a decent sum but quite manageable by and large.

 

[The_Wookie]

So, it's a decent sum but quite manageable by and large.

3m in fundraising last year, its not a trivial sum but its not the be all and end all.

 

[Blue_Fusion]

Not sure being on the board necessarily gives you power to make these decisions... let's say instead, I'm replacing Greg Williams as director of football. That position should be able to make the following decisions:

Head of football needs to be replaced. Not sure yet who we go after, I'll think about that one. Whoever comes in needs to be aggressive and previous playing experience.

We really need to rejig our coaching staff... starting with senior assistant/coaching director to help Voss.

I'd throw the kitchen sink at Dimma. If he rejects, I'd try and poach Simpson. If can't get him, I'd go after Don Pyke or anyone lese who's had decent success as a senior coach in the past.

Then its time to move on from Tim Clark, Ash Hansen and Hamill. I'd try and bring in Brenton Sanderson

Brenton Sanderson

Age

50

Ht

185cm

Wt

90kg

Pos.

Def

Career

Season

Last 5

D

15.7

4star

K

11.0

4star

HB

4.6

3star

M

4.8

5star

T

1.4

3star

No current season stats available

D

22.4

5star

K

16.0

5star

HB

6.4

4star

M

6.4

5star

T

1.6

4star

or Joel Corey

Joel Corey

Age

42

Ht

191cm

Wt

88kg

Pos.

Mid

Career

Season

Last 5

D

22.4

5star

K

11.5

4star

HB

11.0

5star

M

4.0

4star

T

4.1

5star

CL

3.9

5star

No current season stats available

D

12.4

4star

K

7.8

3star

HB

4.6

4star

M

2.2

3star

T

1.6

4star

and make them head of strategy. I'd also try and go after Nigel Lappin. Cook might be able to bring a couple of those guys over... as for the soft cap, I'd cull our overall coaching staff to free up room. Greaves, Kreuzer... we don't need so many chefs...

I'd give Voss and Austin free reign to trade whoever they think will get us the trade capital to bring in players that will better fit our side, even if it means paying part of their salary while they're at another club. For me, Charlie and Walsh are the only untouchables. I'd also be having a good chat to them about bringing in a couple of players who have won flags and are also in the twilight of their careers. Breust, Grimes, Duncan etc.

 

[Kruezing]

Hire a mentalist immediately … the best in the business …

 

[Michael Jezz]

Q1 - So when the elections take place, the challengers need to be like for like? For example, a grass roots member needs to be specifically challenging for the grass roots spot on the board. An ex player who played more than 10 years ago, can only replace the same on the board.

Q2 - Do we need to have someone lined up to replace Lloyd and Russell, or are we sacking them and having an open process?

Q3 - Why Charlie Curnow as captain? Are we doing away with the players voting for the leadership group? I'm good with the latter incidentally.

Q4 - Is this essentially announcing a new 5 year plan?

Q5 - How to we produce the draft/trade capital to pay for so many senior ready players and how do we pay for their salaries? Is this similar to when we recruited Mullett, Shaw, Sumner, Lamb etc, essentially free senior players to hold sway while others developed?

Q1- Yes. Each ticket needs the right composition

Q2- Yes

Q3- Curnow is Captain. Governance and process has not delivered us success. Our players don't know the meaning of leadership, so should not vote for captain

Q5- There is no 5 yr plan or bound report. There is leadership that drives the correct decisions, supported by a transparent regular, fully democratic election

Q6- 5 draftees, 5 VFL/ state league 2 ex premiership players. Austin is set an objective to recruit goers. Give me a few more cincotta types. The players are there throughout the country

 

[The_Wookie]

So, it's a decent sum but quite manageable by and large.

This might be more what you are after for board members

 

[Blue and Blue]

What I've seen so far, the first thing I do is hide the key to the drinks cabinet.................

 

[Michael Jezz]

The Pratts sure poured the money in.

 

[windows1]

As a Board member I think I would be trying to understand what our point of difference was or could be. I would hypothetise, for discussion, that it’s the long term winning and high performing culture symbolic of the club. It got hijacked along the way by a desire for quick fix. We can fix that. We build great facilities. In a great location. How many clubs have a stand to train in front of? Let the fans in!!! We only recruit and keep excellence. We are clear when recruiting what we expect and we insist on it. Same for staff. Everyone knows their job.

All clubs try and trade and recruit well. All try and get good off field leaders. Fill important roles with good people. I think I would really like to understand objective measures that determine whether people were doing well or poorly. For example, what indicators in combination show High perfomance is working? Is it year to year player by player improvement in doffernt indicators? Health? What about psych? How is mental health and preparation assessed and understood?

Board members should ask questions of all matters, regardless of whether they themesbes are ‘experts’. Genuine experts should be comfortable being questioned and be able to produce solid answers. Only those who are not shun such questioning or fail to produce answers. For example: what does Voss look for in assessing the perfomance of his assistants? How does he know they are performing? Does he ask the players directly? Or does that undermine? What’s his logic? We should demand to be data led in an era of it. Why can’t some guys kick? What can be done about it? What expected improvement is there from coaching kicking? If coachinf can’t fix kicking what can coachinf fix? What is the value of it?

Have we got our capped funding focussed on areas that can be improved? You say we need more coaches? What measure would improve? Is an extra coach better bang for buck than an extra psych? Or extra biomechanics expert?

To what extent does each player take personal responsibility for the upkeep of their body? McKay clearly pays for sprint coaching. Do you ask him why he doesn’t pay for kicking? Does he see that as the club’s responsibility or his? When recruiting do we make it clear to players there are minimum standards in multiple areas they have to meet with no help frlm
The club? That the club adds a layer of specialisation? Not basic stuff like kicking?

Our facilities are apparently great. Our location is really good. Big fan base. As a combination that advantages us over many clubs. Is it enough? I think I would spend a lot of time understanding other clubs. Here and abroad.

Our fan base is active and wants to be engaged yet I feel kept at arms length. Not involved in elections. Very very limited open days (really what IS achieved by keeping fans out????). I think I would seek to work out how to make our fans feel way more welcomed AT the ‘club’ they ‘belong’ to. Physically.

Overall I think the long long term CULTURE of the place is super high performance. Along the way we converted that to “quick fix” instead of “high performance”. I truly believe if we ensure that everyone coming IN knows what they are coming into then there is no reason why we cannot recreate that in a modern form. Our advantages will and could mean we can be very ruthless, yet also a great place to operate. You want to win? Want to be around winners? Want to work FOR and WITH winners? That’s this place. You want to be cuddled? Go somewhere else. Every single job. Clear accountability. Clear standards.

We want you ALL IN. You want to muck around? Go to the Gold Coast. You want to spend half your life surfing? **** off to geelong. You want to perform? Stay here. We win.

The brand of this club is WINNING. High perfomance. High standards. We can def be a place where high performers want to come and play. We are not attracting those types right now. We have a confused brand.

 

[windows1]

Carlton’s books are good. A club with 90k members doesn’t need money that clearly comes with strings attached.

Club has done a good job at diversifying income streams.

My second decision would be to add an ex coach into Voss’s coaching assistants. Collingwood, Richmond and Sydney both benefit from the extra experience from such assistants.

Good call. No reason for us to be different for the sake of it is there? We should neutralise our weaknesses and amplify our strengths.

 

[windows1]

1. Change the constitution. Full member elections for every board position every 3 years

2. 7 Board members, must include
2 ex players. 1 must have played within last 10 yrars
1 woman's sport backgrouns
1 Finance background.
1 AFL admin experience.
1grass roots members
1 marketing background

3. No reviews conducted just following decisions.
- Cook and Voss stay
-New head of football- lloyd out
-New head of fitness- Russel out
-Assistant coaches replaced, includes an ex coach like buckley or simpson

• Charlie Curnow made Captain
• Austin instructed to profile 5, 10, 15 list replacements based on 75% of new players capable of immediate senior selection. Minimum 5 players drafted.
• All deals for senior, contracted players to be considered apart from: Curnow, saad, cerra, weitering and walsh
• Focus on recruiting 2 players with premiership experience

- President to announce, the objective of the football club is winning, our goalto make finals in 2024 and to aspire to win a premiership within 5 years

I would bang on about not only the objective being winning. It’s our CULTURE. Our history. We expect it.

But hope is not a plan. We will draft and recruit only those that are ALL IN. We have def failed that. At what point has either Mitch McGovern or Jack Martin appeared all in? Or Zac Williams who turned up out of shape his first preseason? Or Nic Newman who really needs to think about his ‘recovery’ sessions?

I want to suooort a club that always demanded success when I was young. It got confused and thought the only way was quick fix. Doesn’t mean they need to abandon it. Christian Horner (Red Bull F1) is the Modern day Carlton style operator.

I don’t want a ‘family club’. It should be a nice place for families sure. But not a cuddling soft environment. That’s some other club.

We WIN. That means HIRE winners.