Collingwood AGM

[76woodenspooners]

These might be silly little trivial things but I think these sort of questions just illustrate frustration at not being heard, and having these matters dealt with in a much simpler more responsive manner.

It's sad they have to take it to the agm to get (hopefully) some action

Exactly this

 

[76woodenspooners]

People had asked questions in this thread about Membership $ going to support other clubs.

Eddie pre-empted this issue and implied it was a very hot topic between the club and the AFL, and he and Pert are working hard to ensure that members $ stay within the club.

TBH, I found this confusing. The AFL receives $1 billion a year from TV rights to distribute as they see fit. I dunno why they need to tax members' contributions?

 

[Vicky Park]

Yeah, not every question would have been to everyone's tastes. That's always going to happen.

But there were a few questions there that, whilst they may seem petty, were borne out of frustration that the person had tried to get an answer out of the club through the normal channels, the person had not received an answer (or had received an unsatisfactory answer) so they escalated it to the AGM.

So the complaint wasn't just about "my seats are hard" or "the food is rubbish" or "why can't my mate on dialysis get a 7 game membership?" ... there was a strong subtext of "Why isn't the club listening to us?"

At one point Ed claimed that every email gets responded to, and there was some indignant murmurs amongst the members to that.

I can confirm they do not respond to every email. As a crank who has occasionally emailed the club, on various topics of importance (to me anyway), I have never received a response. But I do get it, they must get 1000s of emails. I dont expect them to reply to all, or even to sift through them to find the juicy ones (like mine). But emailing the club makes me feel better, and I get the issue off my chest.

 

[Victoria Park]

Work kept me away from this year's AGM unfortunately, but it sounded like I could have sold a few VFL Season 2014 Calendars there.
http://www.victoriapark.net.au/vic_park_shop_87.html
Oh well, next year.

 

[blaze036]

Work kept me away from this year's AGM unfortunately, but it sounded like I could have sold a few VFL Season 2014 Calendars there.
http://www.victoriapark.net.au/vic_park_shop_87.html
Oh well, next year.

Subtle plug

 

[HappyRed]

Ugh.. What's an AGM?

 

[76woodenspooners]

Ugh.. What's an AGM?

Annual General Meeting

 

[Baltimore Jack]

I can confirm they do not respond to every email. As a crank who has occasionally emailed the club, on various topics of importance (to me anyway), I have never received a response. But I do get it, they must get 1000s of emails. I dont expect them to reply to all, or even to sift through them to find the juicy ones (like mine). But emailing the club makes me feel better, and I get the issue off my chest.

I agree, I emailed twice last year and didn't get a response to either email

 

[Victoria Park]

Ugh.. What's an AGM?

A Gathering of Malcontents?

 

[MyManLynch]

Work kept me away from this year's AGM unfortunately, but it sounded like I could have sold a few VFL Season 2014 Calendars there.
http://www.victoriapark.net.au/vic_park_shop_87.html
Oh well, next year.

With the club rolling in cash & the inevitable cap on Football Department spending coming, we can surely hire a full time member/supporter communications staff, to sift through & answer emails, to provide feedback & pass on suggestions/queries to the relevant parties (bar pure football selection/positions/coaching & training matters).

Edit: I was actually responding to Vicky Park, but clicked on Victoria Park instead

 

[Baltimore Jack]

A Gathering of Malcontents?

Comedy Night?

 

[MyManLynch]

Another Goddamn Meeting

 

[MarkT2]

People had asked questions in this thread about Membership $ going to support other clubs.

Eddie pre-empted this issue and implied it was a very hot topic between the club and the AFL, and he and Pert are working hard to ensure that members $ stay within the club.

TBH, I found this confusing. The AFL receives $1 billion a year from TV rights to distribute as they see fit. I dunno why they need to tax members' contributions?

It isn't that they need to tax the membership revenue. More that there is a push to penalise "excessive" football department spending. In the end some form of financial penalty for exceeding a football department cap will be applied to redistribution. There will be some atempt to break the link between membership $ and that tax so as not to discourage memberships but it is all a question of $ in and $ out.

 

[Victoria Park]

With the club rolling in cash & the inevitable cap on Football Department spending coming, we can surely hire a full time member/supporter communications staff, to sift through & answer emails, to provide feedback & pass on suggestions/queries to the relevant parties (bar pure football selection/positions/coaching & training matters).

Edit: I was actually responding to Vicky Park, but clicked on Victoria Park instead

I think it is a great idea Lynch Man
...and I love the double plug it gave the SEASON 2014 VFL CALENDAR too

Subliminal advertising O_O

 

[MyManLynch]

I think it is a great idea Lynch Man
...and I love the double plug it gave the SEASON 2014 VFL CALENDAR too

Subliminal advertising O_O

I just ordered a calendar, mugs, stubby holder etc.

 

[Victoria Park]

I just ordered a calendar, mugs, stubby holder etc.

Looks like it worked
Thanks heaps!

 

[Maggie5]

I can confirm they do not respond to every email. As a crank who has occasionally emailed the club, on various topics of importance (to me anyway), I have never received a response. But I do get it, they must get 1000s of emails. I dont expect them to reply to all, or even to sift through them to find the juicy ones (like mine). But emailing the club makes me feel better, and I get the issue off my chest.

Here's an idea, when you email them perhaps cc to AFL and the HUN, then they may respond.

One thing about the AFL and I would imagine that they would get a lot more emails, they always respond.

 

[Vicky Park]

Here's an idea, when you email them perhaps cc to AFL and the HUN, then they may respond.

One thing about the AFL and I would imagine that they would get a lot more emails, they always respond.

That's interesting Maggie, re the AFL and emails. I have not tried them! One thing I did email the club about in early 2013 was how they could improve the Legends cocktail party, or whatever it was called in 2013, without neccessarily spending much more $$. Of course I got no response! That night we were handed out brown paper bags of dried stuff vaguely resembling food, and sat through some PowerPoint presentations where the opening slide indicated the presentation had been prepared for the AGM. I thought it was a pretty poor showing, and probably won't go again. There were some entertaining segments, and I know some members enjoyed the night, and fair enough, but it was not to my liking. I haven't seen any announcement about this year's Legends event so maybe it has been dumped.

 

[Maggie5]

That's interesting Maggie, re the AFL and emails. I have not tried them! One thing I did email the club about in early 2013 was how they could improve the Legends cocktail party, or whatever it was called in 2013, without neccessarily spending much more $$. Of course I got no response! That night we were handed out brown paper bags of dried stuff vaguely resembling food, and sat through some PowerPoint presentations where the opening slide indicated the presentation had been prepared for the AGM. I thought it was a pretty poor showing, and probably won't go again. There were some entertaining segments, and I know some members enjoyed the night, and fair enough, but it was not to my liking. I haven't seen any announcement about this year's Legends event so maybe it has been dumped.

That's terrible, certainly not value for money.
AFL are really prompt, they made a mistake with my memberships this year and not only acknowledged my email but then rang as well, Never had any problem.
Sometimes, I put in the cc in emails to other organisations/managers just to let them know I am not happy with their customer service.

 

[76woodenspooners]

The communication between the club and the members / supporters is clearly an issue.

The relevant points made at the AGM were ...

(1) "The club responds to every email" ... to indignant murmurs implying "No they don't"

(2) Eddie does not see the correspondence that is addressed to him at the club (I took it to mean that somebody else attends to it). He does not have time to respond to it all, and specifically he does not have time to write letters.

(3) Sometimes things do fall through the cracks but they can get escalated at the AGM where they can be sorted out.

(4) The club has invested in improving membership services and communication as part of Westpac upgrade phase 2.

(5) The club is investing heavily in media operations to allow members and spectators to feel closer to the club than ever before.

I can appreciate the problem. We have a kazillion bazillion members and supporters. Imagine if all of us pulled out the fountain pen and scribed "Dear Eddie, Can you please provide me with a detailed explanation why we didn't tag Gary Ablett Junior in the Suns game. I eagerly await your prompt reply, Yours Sincerely, ..."

It doesn't work.

It'd be much easier to treat the membership / supporter base as a collective and respond to them via mass media - as the club are now working on doing. It's a good idea, but IMHO it's only part of the solution.

 

[Vicky Park]

76er, as I posted, I completely understand that the club could not possibly respond to all emails, letters, etc from members and fans. I'm sure those resources could be better spent.

On a different but related topic, a friend of mine is a Dogs member. She has an ordinary membership, not a high level or costly one. Every year she is invited to an end of year function, where members meet and greet, including the players. And every year she comes to work the next day with pictures of herself with Boyd, or Murphy, or whoever. She also gets to talk to the senior coach and other coaches, in a friendly and relaxed environment. Light years away from us!!

Again, I get it, we are a mammoth club, and we benefit from our enormous membership and fan base. But I am always just a little jealous of her, particularly as I pay at least double if not three times what she does for my membership.

 

[blaze036]

76er, as I posted, I completely understand that the club could not possibly respond to all emails, letters, etc from members and fans. I'm sure those resources could be better spent.

On a different but related topic, a friend of mine is a Dogs member. She has an ordinary membership, not a high level or costly one. Every year she is invited to an end of year function, where members meet and greet, including the players. And every year she comes to work the next day with pictures of herself with Boyd, or Murphy, or whoever. She also gets to talk to the senior coach and other coaches, in a friendly and relaxed environment. Light years away from us!!

Again, I get it, we are a mammoth club, and we benefit from our enormous membership and fan base. But I am always just a little jealous of her, particularly as I pay at least double if not three times what she does for my membership.

Maybe if you buy a membership you could go into a draw for a meeting like this rather than inviting all 80k people, certainly would be an incentive to buy more memberships.

 

[76woodenspooners]

76er, as I posted, I completely understand that the club could not possibly respond to all emails, letters, etc from members and fans. I'm sure those resources could be better spent.

On a different but related topic, a friend of mine is a Dogs member. She has an ordinary membership, not a high level or costly one. Every year she is invited to an end of year function, where members meet and greet, including the players. And every year she comes to work the next day with pictures of herself with Boyd, or Murphy, or whoever. She also gets to talk to the senior coach and other coaches, in a friendly and relaxed environment. Light years away from us!!

Again, I get it, we are a mammoth club, and we benefit from our enormous membership and fan base. But I am always just a little jealous of her, particularly as I pay at least double if not three times what she does for my membership.

I has (badly) introducing a different point.

And that is: the fact we are a big club doesn't have to be an excuse for poor engagement with the membership.

Yeah, it provides its challenges. We'll never be able to offer all of our members a ticket to the MCG to see our team play in a Grand Final. We can't so much about that - short of becoming very good at forcing draws.

But there are things we can more easily do something about.

Improving our media broadcast capability may address some issues, but it's not the panacea.

It's 2014. CRM systems (Customer Relationship Management) have been around for a long time and are very mature. Perhaps they've not spread into the footy club membership industry ... but hey, isn't that an opportunity to develop some IP?

Justin Reeves brought Foxtel's membership engagement and renewal systems to Collingwood to great success.

I dunno, can't we headhunt the guy/gal who looks after Reader's Digest's customer engagement program? (Yeah, that's going too far, but you take my point!)

 

[76woodenspooners]

Maybe if you buy a membership you could go into a draw for a meeting like this rather than inviting all 80k people, certainly would be an incentive to buy more memberships.

Absolutely Blaze, I couldn't agree with you more!

I was scratching my head over our membership promotion last year "win a car". I disagreed with that on two levels.

(1). "oooo, I'm going to become a Collingwood member because I might win a car!!!"

Really???? Is that what we want our membership to be? Buying Collingwood membership shouldn't be like buying a raffle ticket to win a motor car

(2). Now if it had been "win a seat in the box with Bucks" or "Win a ticket to training camp" etc then that's a different matter.

Our club does offer fantastic access and support ... You can go away in training camps with the players and sit with them at dinners, etc, etc ... If you have the money (or if your employer has the money). Our club uses that money, we do good things with it. But those opportunities of getting access to the club and players should also be made available to people who don't have the means (eg: lotteries as you suggest) ... Think Charlie Bucket.

 

[Baltimore Jack]

Absolutely Blaze, I couldn't agree with you more!

I was scratching my head over our membership promotion last year "win a car". I disagreed with that on two levels.

(1). "oooo, I'm going to become a Collingwood member because I might win a car!!!"

Really???? Is that what we want our membership to be? Buying Collingwood membership shouldn't be like buying a raffle ticket to win a motor car

(2). Now if it had been "win a seat in the box with Bucks" or "Win a ticket to training camp" etc then that's a different matter.

Our club does offer fantastic access and support ... You can go away in training camps with the players and sit with them at dinners, etc, etc ... If you have the money (or if your employer has the money). Our club uses that money, we do good things with it. But those opportunities of getting access to the club and players should also be made available to people who don't have the means (eg: lotteries as you suggest) ... Think Charlie Bucket.

So your concerns are more about the actual prize, not the principle involved?