It would be worse than now, because it means that the board members would appoint four of their own cronies to the board rather than have them elected. “The 10th spot will only be filled as required,” you say. I’m betting that the 10th spot will be “required” to be filled whenever it is vacant. What are the requirements and who decides on them ?
I believe there should be eight members elected and a maximum of two appointed if necessary.
You mean by letting the heirs to the stuff-up kings appoint more pusillanimous stuff-up merchants in their own image and likeness ? After the Board’s dismal performance during the Saga — a mixture of faint-heartedness and ineptitude — why should we ever trust a Board again unless we, the Members, have full control over it ?
There is no evidence to show that a Board with an overwhelmingly elected membership would behave any worse than the one we had through the Saga, run by a succession of self-interested businessmen who paid lipservice to the Club, but whose actions and inaction belied their altruistic claims. In fact, I believe that a 10-person Board with eight elected members would behave a lot more ethically than one with only six.
And you believe that an ex cop and an ex politician are per se incapable of being manipulative businessmen ? Come off the grass !
Sean Wellman was a favourite of mine on the footy field. I used to go to matches just to see him at CHB. Nowadays he’s a businessman; he organises home loans. A mortgage broker — In old-fashioned language, he’s a moneylender.
There’s nothing wrong with that, as long as he runs his business ethically, and I’m sure he does. There can be no doubt that his business ethics are streets ahead of Combank, NAB & co.
In fact, he’s just the sort of person you would want on the Board - and he was elected by the Membership !
Stop making things up! I get you want to find an issue but you’re very good at using examples that don’t even align with what you’re arguing. Katie’s quote which you have highlighted was about filling the 10th seat with a woman, which is completely different to if the seat would be permanently filled.
Darlis just been argumentative for the sake of being argumentative. Saga thread has died so hey let’s take that lingering angst into whatever thread it can be shoehorned into.
Right I get it you can’t trust anyone. Clearly anything anyone says isn’t going to change your view.
However your argument on the board positions and manipulative businessmen is factually incorrect and you contradict yourself on Wellman. One could argue that if he’s a manipulative businessman then any business owner is.
I didn’t say the whole Board was made up of manipulative businessmen — I said it was controlled by them already, without giving them the chance to appoint yet another one to their number.
There are currently nine members on the Board. Four of them were elected (Madden, Barham, Lio and Wellman). Four of the others "joined the Board "(Tanner, Green, Lay, Muir) while Brasher “was appointed to the Board.”
The longest serving members are Brasher (2011) and Madden (2013).
The Board members I actually like are Madden, Lio and Wellman (a businessman, but not mainpulative).
I don’t know much about Ms Green.
I’m not too keen on Tanner, Brasher (there since 2011, so he must be teflon -coated), Lay, the ex-police commissioner and Muir. I don’t particularly like Barham either, but at least he was elected !
That’s five suits - a majority of the current Board, all of whom got there by appointment. Now they want the power to appoint a tenth member, to reinforce their hegemony. No thanks.
So harsh on volunteers standing up for us when needed.
Your central point, why appoint instead of elect a currently appointable position, has merit. But your criticisms- “there a long time, must be Teflon coated”! Did you ever consider Brasher might be there a while because he’s doing an excellent job? “I don’t like him”- what, did Tanner look at you funny one day?
An argument against electing all positions is that members revert to lazy unsubstantiated assumptions when voting.
I’m more interested in the fact that one of our board members might get hauled before a Royal Commission in the not too distant future. Ken is a very very good man with high levels of integrity but he’s going to be asked what he knew just like every other CCP from around that time
People in a football club generally vote for past players or big profile people. Some of these people have skills that the board needs, for example James Hird has quite a business skillset by the look of it, and would no doubt walk it in if he decided to run, others might get the vote, but not bring much to the table. No one really votes for the brilliant financial person who will ensure the financial side of the club is well run, because that is, no offence to those who run the books and do the taxes, rather boring.
So the board needs the ability to bring in skills when they are lacking. Simple as that. The elected members of the board can be held to account as to who and why as they go to the vote of the membership.
As for boards always meeting targets, I have been a holder of many a stock where the board has done the opposite. The board will say that the members voted one way and that is how they came to miss out. The have no control over how we vote.
On the issues of targets/quotas and the like. When the bias has been so long and so entrenched we need to get people other than white males into positions of power so that the original bias can be addressed. Saying you have an inclusive policy whilst allowing the white men to continue to pedal their bias in the boardroom will only produce the same outcomes we have seen for generations.
The 10th position is currently the CEO, which is a position appointed by the board. i.e. its effectively an appointed position, so little has changed. The main reason not to make it elected is that would skew the number of elected seats up for election in a year (so that in some years its more/less than others) and because we may need skills.
When you’re working with an organisation where if a past member of the football team puts up their hand they’ll get elected, regardless of whether or not they have the right skills, then yes, you absolutely must keep seats free for people with the right skills. Or otherwise you might get a bunch of people who don’t know the first thing about running a large organisation in charge.
The SAGA should have shown the problems of not having competent people around. Large organisations need a broad set of skills, and frankly they’re getting more complicated not less. You didn’t need people who were experts in IT, governance, health and safety etc. 25 years ago. You do now. And the technical skills around investing, finance, marketing and other areas are probably all far more complex than 25 years ago.
That we’ve gone from having 3 specialists to 4 specialists (potentially) on the board is a good thing.
Can you show how switching the seat from the CEO to someone else appointed by the board suddenly changes things? Unless you think the CEO was a free spirit or something?
The irony is that the biggest impediment to normal members being on the board are the players and coteries. We had two on the board, but Paul got voted off because Wellman ran.
So there are a whole set of assumptions that have to be true for your conspiracy theory that the board is angling to use the seat to reach the target correct. I’m glad we’re agreed.
They could have. They decided not to remove a seat that is currently available, and leave the board at up to 10 people. This seems an eminently sensible to me for an organisation who cannot count on the people electing the board to value the skills actually required in a board.
I’m not sure what the issue is with the last point. Its a seat, of course it could be given to someone.
