Official Club Stuff 2024 AGM - to be held on Friday 6th December 2024, 1 director to be elected by members. Nominations called for.

[1954]

Maybe the only way to divest ourselves of the current AFL influence on the PAFC Board and get control back with the members is through a public campaign with some sort of public protest?

It would not be the first time club members have forced the AFL to step back. In 1996 the AFL attempted to broker a merger between the Melbourne and Hawthorn Football Clubs. Former Hawks ruckman Don Scott lead a very public and successful campaign to block the merger. Maybe Warren Tredrea could be our Don Scott?

The Melbourne Hawks merger revisited

It is almost 20 years since emotions ran high at both clubs

www.afl.com.au

Maybe we need such a campaign to put control of the PAFC back where it belongs- in hands of it's Members ? One thing the AFL is hypersensitive about is it's public image and a display of unrest might force the AFL to compromise. Lots of 'maybes' I know but I cannot think of any other strategy.

Agreed Pieman, but Tredrea (before he was voted onto the board), and Fiacchi some years back have as far as I am aware been the only ex players to publicly challenge the status quo, with the latter named stating publicly something along the lines that when he was on the board it was difficult to get a word in at meetings due to koch's total domination of proceedings!

Somehow an orchestrated challenge with the support of as many ex players as possible and lead by those two has to make koch and his ginormous ego the number one target, as attacking his underlings is unlikely to change anything much and all we would be likely to get while he remains in the chair is one of his personally chosen sycophants replaced by yet another!

 

[PowerLil]

Any idea when the nominations will be made public given the AGM is only a month away? RussellEbertHandball ?

 

[Enviable Tradition]

The key is whatever happens with the Crows in 2028, they effectively change their structure to gain more control over their board. I'm not sure if that means full member control or what, but I hope it does, because that give us the ammo we need to make a change of our own.

In the lead up to that change, we need a campaign and we need it led by prominent club people such as Tredrea, Ginever, Fiacchi etc. We need Crows supporters to start to give us shit about how they're a real club and we're not.

It may be that we need to unite with the Crows to push for both clubs to have member controlled boards. I don't think their constitutional clause locks in a change, I think it opens up the possibility of change, so they may need to campaign for it as well.

Arguably a campaign that sees Tredrea fronting the media next to a Crows great gets better coverage and helps our push. Ricciuto has been on their board for a while and isn't that popular, i'm not sure who else they've got who would ready and willing to provide a similar face for a campaign.

The Crows constitution does lock in change. It says "the AFL will cease to be a member".

It will either pass to the "electing members" aka the football club members, or another membership category created by the club.

I.e. they could create a governing body that elects the board, or just give the right to Roo.

We should all be pushing our Crows mates to push for full member control. It is probably the best way to ensure we get it.

I drip in on their board every now and then to remind them.



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[Enviable Tradition]

Agreed Pieman, but Tredrea (before he was voted onto the board), and Fiacchi some years back have as far as I am aware been the only ex players to publicly challenge the status quo, with the latter named stating publicly something along the lines that when he was on the board it was difficult to get a word in at meetings due to koch's total domination of proceedings!

Somehow an orchestrated challenge with the support of as many ex players as possible and lead by those two has to make koch and his ginormous ego the number one target, as attacking his underlings is unlikely to change anything much and all we would be likely to get while he remains in the chair is one of his personally chosen sycophants replaced by yet another!

Both Tredrea and Fiachi are fully aware of the Crows and Port constitutional differences.

On SM-G975F using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[El_Scorcho]

The Crows constitution does lock in change. It says "the AFL will cease to be a member".

It will either pass to the "electing members" aka the football club members, or another membership category created by the club.

I.e. they could create a governing body that elects the board, or just give the right to Roo.

We should all be pushing our Crows mates to push for full member control. It is probably the best way to ensure we get it.

I drip in on their board every now and then to remind them.

Agreed, it does lock in change, but it doesn't lock in member control. Does John Olsen seem like the kind of person who wants the peasants to have a say?

I see 2 pathways forward:

1) The Adelaide board do the right thing and hand the club to the members. Crows supporters then roast us mercilessly about how they're a real football club and we're a franchise, and the public pressure buildup sees us make a similar change.

2) The Adelaide board don't do the right thing immediately, but club greats from both clubs band together to formally campaign for this change for both clubs.

 

[El_Scorcho]

Both Tredrea and Fiachi are fully aware of the Crows and Port constitutional differences.

I see those 2 as being fairly key to any campaign.

Let's face it, this is a movement that the average supporter doesn't really know or care about.

But a firm, professional campaign laying out the facts about why member control is important, along with reiterating that what, 16 of the last 18 premiers have fully member elected boards, it won't be difficult to sway public opinion. It just has to come from someone people care enough about to listen to.

 

[TeeKray]

This is a nothing issue for the vast majority of members and supporters. I'd say there would be less than 1000 people who aren't on BigFooty who even know about this and not many more than that who would care even if you told everyone.

It's the kind of thing that only gets traction when a club crashes to the bottom of the ladder and suddenly everyone and everything is on the agenda for media critique. Chairman forced to resign because we just went 3-20 and finished 17th, new Chairman comes in and wants to be seen to be doing something straight away so changes the club to member control, etc.

Until then this is just a BigFooty thought bubble that has a 0% chance of happening.

 

[Enviable Tradition]

This is a nothing issue for the vast majority of members and supporters. I'd say there would be less than 1000 people who aren't on BigFooty who even know about this and not many more than that who would care even if you told everyone.

It's the kind of thing that only gets traction when a club crashes to the bottom of the ladder and suddenly everyone and everything is on the agenda for media critique. Chairman forced to resign because we just went 3-20 and finished 17th, new Chairman comes in and wants to be seen to be doing something straight away so changes the club to member control, etc.

Until then this is just a BigFooty thought bubble that has a 0% chance of happening.

“Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed people to change the world. In fact, it is the only thing that ever has.” ~ Margaret Mead

On SM-G975F using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Any idea when the nominations will be made public given the AGM is only a month away? RussellEbertHandball ?

Maybe this week.

Maybe when they send out the email saying this is how you vote, and voting opens the next day and they give you a link to the nominated candidates profile.

 

[tribey]

Agreed, it does lock in change, but it doesn't lock in member control. Does John Olsen seem like the kind of person who wants the peasants to have a say?

I see 2 pathways forward:

1) The Adelaide board do the right thing and hand the club to the members. Crows supporters then roast us mercilessly about how they're a real football club and we're a franchise, and the public pressure buildup sees us make a similar change.

2) The Adelaide board don't do the right thing immediately, but club greats from both clubs band together to formally campaign for this change for both clubs.

Lol imagine informing Bob McLean or Bruce Weber of this.

“So basically, the club that began life as a piece of paper in Max Basheer’s drawer in 1986 not only shed the shackles of its SANFL masters and the 9 clubs that jointly-owned it, but also direct AFL control, to effectively become an independent club in its own right”

— “And what of Port?”

“Well, after we ceded control of the club to the SANFL, purely to match how their brand new franchise was governed for no particular reason, we then switched to being owned and controlled by AFL House, with no end in sight”

 

[VineValerian]

I see those 2 as being fairly key to any campaign.

Let's face it, this is a movement that the average supporter doesn't really know or care about.

But a firm, professional campaign laying out the facts about why member control is important, along with reiterating that what, 16 of the last 18 premiers have fully member elected boards, it won't be difficult to sway public opinion. It just has to come from someone people care enough about to listen to.

Someone like Bucky Cunningham. Or Greg Boulton. Or John Cahill. Or the Williams family.

They could all be the "headline" acts, and form the "front of store" face of the campaign.

Pity legends like Ebert, Motley, etc are no longer with us, but if other more recent players joined in (Ginever, Gray, Wakelin, Phillips x 2, Fiacchi, Wilson, Primus, etc), as well as high profile business people and sports people with a link to or love of Port (Fairmont Homes' CE, also Sanjeev Gupta, Tony Santic, Phil Smythe, Juliet Haslam, Travis Head, etc) then a lot more members would be emboldened enough to sign up for change.

Enough of a tsunami to force a change!

 

[Papa G]

Someone like Bucky Cunningham. Or Greg Boulton. Or John Cahill. Or the Williams family.

They could all be the "headline" acts, and form the "front of store" face of the campaign.

Pity legends like Ebert, Motley, etc are no longer with us, but if other more recent players joined in (Ginever, Gray, Wakelin, Phillips x 2, Fiacchi, Wilson, Primus, etc), as well as high profile business people and sports people with a link to or love of Port (Fairmont Homes' CE, also Sanjeev Gupta, Tony Santic, Phil Smythe, Juliet Haslam, Travis Head, etc) then a lot more members would be emboldened enough to sign up for change.

Enough of a tsunami to force a change!

I actually don't see any of those people putting their heads on the line for this type of thing outside perhaps Fiachhi. They either have a cosy relationship with the current regime, too cosy a relationship with the AFL, too old to care, simply don't care, or too worried about their own reputation and or jobs to care. How many of these people have been openly critical of the club? Basically none.

 

[bomberclifford]

I see those 2 as being fairly key to any campaign.

Let's face it, this is a movement that the average supporter doesn't really know or care about.

But a firm, professional campaign laying out the facts about why member control is important, along with reiterating that what, 16 of the last 18 premiers have fully member elected boards, it won't be difficult to sway public opinion. It just has to come from someone people care enough about to listen to.

BRING BACK
THE (MEM)BARS

 

[El_Scorcho]

I actually don't see any of those people putting their heads on the line for this type of thing outside perhaps Fiachhi. They either have a cosy relationship with the current regime, too cosy a relationship with the AFL, too old to care, simply don't care, or too worried about their own reputation and or jobs to care. How many of these people have been openly critical of the club? Basically none.

I think Fiacchi and Tredrea are probably the two most likely to step up who could be the face of a campaign.

I don't think you want to set this campaign up as being against the incumbents or critical of the club, in fact i'd suggest they'd probably want those board members as on-side as possible. While we're unhappy with how the club is being run, the campaign is sort of separate to that. Even if everything was going perfectly and we'd lucked out with an amazing premiership-centric Port Adelaide board, we should STILL want member control moving forward.

IMO the campaign should be centred around being freed from AFL control. I think it would be a disaster to pit campaign directly against Koch and the current board. The campaign would be portrayed as "bastard" upstarts who don't have the maturity or understanding to run a professional football club.

To avoid that, I'd probably pay deference to Koch publicly, whether I meant it or not, and say that we've been lucky to have a Port boy from the Peninsula as chairman, but that we can't leave it up to luck moving forward.