2023 AGM - general discussion

Football Discussion Dustin Fletcher Hangar
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One thing I would say is that footy fans including most on this forum wildly underestimate the importance of getting the off field right to actually winning games on field. It’s not sexy so gets largely ignored, but the list of clubs who have won flags without having it right off field first in the last 20 years pretty much doesn’t exist.

Convincing people to vote can be very hard work, and seeing how low the vote count is at the end of a long campaign pretty demorilizing, yet when things then go bad on field everyone immediately screams at the board and exec as the issue. It can be a very frustrating space to occupy, I applaud you for putting yourself forward Graham.

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As someone who has fought more elections that most, won some and lost some, if you do not get access to the voters then you are in a bad spot to get them to vote for you or vote at all. with a turnout of less than 10% most years, I would conclude it is not the candidates or the members, it is the lack of awareness about the election. When a past player or a sheeds stands, the vote goes up, and it is all about recognition enticing more to vote. Most Memebers would have had an opinion on David Evans, Paul Little etc, but they hardly had the chance to vote to on or off.

I would guarantee if you could get to all the Membership directly then your message and worth would get through. Sincerely I think it was a real pity you were robbed of that.

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I put this together and posted it on twitter recently but relevant to this conversation.
Up until 2014 a breakdown of membership type was published, so you could get an idea of the number of eligible voters and work out a rough turnout from that.

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There’s a lot of caveats, obviously not everyone will vote twice, but it’s an educated guess. Interesting to see in the case of Sheedy that he not only received a vote from ~92% of voters in 2020 but also led a huge increase in turnout. There’s been some anti-Sheedy sentiment here and elsewhere online, and a lot of people under 30 don’t really have memories of him leading us to premierships, so while I have no doubt he’ll be the clear leader this time around I’m curious to see if he still has the same ability to influence turnout.

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@Paul_Cousins Thank-you for your encouraging words. At the end of the day we all want the club to be the very best version of itself.

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The vote has been unofficially declared and will soon be released on the club’s website.

Congratulations to Kevin Sheedy and Tim Roberts for being elected onto the Board.

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lot of people like to yap. very few like to do

good on you for having a crack

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You had a crack, and tried to do something, good on you.

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The Essendon Football Club is pleased to announce the results of the 2023 Director Election following the closure of voting on Friday, December 15, 2023.

Elections for directors are conducted in accordance with the club’s Constitution and Election Rules.

The candidates elected to the Essendon Board are KEVIN SHEEDY and TIM ROBERTS.

These candidates received the highest number of votes.

Kevin Sheedy joined the Essendon Board in October 2020. He was senior coach at Essendon, winning four premierships over his 27 years, and was also the inaugural coach and a former director of Greater Western Sydney. He has made a significant contribution to the AFL industry over many decades including creating the iconic Anzac Day and Dreamtime matches, enhancing the AFL Coaches’ Association and establishing the AFL Sports Ready Program. He is an Essendon Football Club life member and Hall of Fame Legend, an AFL and Richmond Football Club life member and an AFL Hall of Fame Legend.

Tim Roberts joined the Essendon Board in November, 2022. Tim is the Executive Director of WT Partnership and brings extensive experience in the property and construction industry. With over 30 years at WT Partnership, Tim has been at the helm of large and complex projects across all major industry sectors including aviation, commercial, health, hotel, industrial, infrastructure, residential, retail and sports throughout Australia, Asia, Middle East, Canada and the United States. Tim is a member of the Finance, Risk, Integrity & Governance Committee.

The election of Mr Sheedy and Mr Roberts will be formally declared at the 2023 Essendon Football Club Annual General Meeting on Monday, December 18, 2023. Each director is elected for a three-year term.

The Essendon Football Club thanks all candidates and members who voted for their contributions to the election process.

CorpVote Pty Ltd ran the independent voting process.

All votes were submitted through the CorpVote system run as a secret ballot process. Voting closed at 5.00pm AEDT on Friday, December 15, 2023.

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That’s true. I always remembered what recently retired Geelong President Colin Carter said was a key trait of Clubs who achieved sustained success…

He said the successful Clubs get 8 or 9/10 decisions right across the entire Club. That’s on field, off field. He says the mediocre clubs only get 4 or 5/10 (on average) right. It’s the decisions they keep getting wrong compared to successful clubs that result in them being under-performers.

When you think about it this makes great sense. Great clubs who achieve sustained success do so because they build and maintain high performance, great cultures. To build a great culture, everybody must buy into the desired behaviours etc. Can you imagine how hard it must be to build great cultures, then maintain it given the amount of individual decisions get made in a Club each day, week, month etc? So easy to fail, so hard to succeed.

Thats why Essendon’s been a complex, difficult case. The Sheedy era (1981-2002) period was a great Club, strong culture. Then some poor decisions were made progressively which saw breakdown in a great culture. Big fails: Stop spending on footy and mistake theory Club had to accept a rebuild (proven wrong). Knights appointment, weak Presidents, into The Saga… A culture destroyed in a decade.

It’s taken Essendon the next decade to stabilise, recover and rebuild. So many bumps along the way trying to rediscover itself, rebuild a Ckub. Rebuild a culture. Several coaches tried without unconditional support and commitment. Now, it appears we’re seeing a light at the end of the tunnel with a committed, united group of leaders who’re not taking shortcuts. Decision by decision. Step by step. Rebuilding the culture.

A bit of an aside but I agree with you. Off field direction, stability and leadership sets the tone. Then it’s all the decisions they make, and those they appoint, and who they appoint who’re responsible for getting 8 or 9/10 decisions right from here (here’s hoping).

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I guess voting numbers will be released at the AGM, but it is disappointing not to do it when declaring the vote.

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It just looks suss to not declare the numbers…I don’t understand it.

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Numbers declared at AGM on Monday.

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Well it was a secret ballot according to the article. I don’t know why we had to have a secret secret vote.

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Appreciate your response and insights, cheers Paul!

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Clubs ■■■■■■.

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This club deserves everything it gets . Thanks for setting us back another 5 years whoever voted for that washed up fossil

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Wow, Essendon members really do have the smoothest of brains, the drooliest of open mouths, and the most contempt for success.

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But I bet you are not surprised at the result.

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Not really no