Agree @Begbie
The Board have provided a summary of the external review (although only very scant details imo (that’s another matter!), beauty of this is we now get to hold them to the progress against the 19 recommendations… Although I think we’ve only been informed of 4-5 of them🤷♂️
I agree @MattPocock18 you certainly should. That program type should be something feeding into our programs engaging community and supporting its membership ambitions.
Credit to the Bulldogs, they’ve taken the initiative in running a successful grass roots program of engaging communities in the western suburbs. They’ve hit the school, communities and have succeeded in turning the Western Oval into a regional sports and community meeting place / hub. Pains me to say it, we can learn a bit from our western neighbour. How does this then work hand in hand with The Hangar and Windy Hill? I’ve said elsewhere we’ve been left back on our heels with The Hangar fan experience, AFLW aspects (merch & membership) and non footy business opportunities. The Hangar may have been improved, it’s still quite sterile and soulless to me. Never thought I’d ever be congratulating the Bulldogs on showing us a thing or two about engaging the community.
Nick Truelson (once EFC employee) and Ameet Baines have done a good job.
If you have the want and $ there are definitely agencies that specialise in this type of activation., a quick call to Rama at TLA and you’d be away. We simply don’t have most or all of a strategy, plan or the heart for it.
This sort of thing. That’s how to engage with fans and creatively add value to one of the membership packages. Why is it North Melbourne doing this sort of thing….
Inexpensive, every member would appreciate it, can be covered off by players after training one night… Gee whiz!
the hanger shouldn’t be for fan engagement activities, it was built so the team could focus on football.
do the one day a week at windy hill if you must, to appease people who want to complain that the random odd time every now and again that THEY want to pop along to feel connected to the club, they have to go to a “cold, heartless and spiritless place”.
Fully endorse fan engagement activities for kids, I remember the school holiday camps and that back in the 90’s they’d have and all that.
their first and main focus however should be you know actually football seeing it is their main job.
then again i don’t need to hang around players or a specific joint to feel connected to something, so who knows.
Also have you seen the reaction on social media that these poor buggas have to cop. people actually seem to think these guys and girls behind it are taking notes about all the angry stuff people want to express to the club, and running and giving it to the appropriate people.
it’s like having a go at the 16 yr old kid serving you at coles or safeway cos they’ve jacked up the prices on everything.
Each to their own. I think the review feedback was very clear Club has work to do reconnecting with its supporters. This aspect is multifaceted. Clubs wants to be connected to its fans and members at every level. Includes via socials, on match-days and even training. It’s invested millions $$ on a museum and merchandising outlet at Tulla. It wants fans there but hasn’t provided the infrastructure or an inviting precinct.
Windy Hill is also part of its plan, challenge is there’s limited value in training at Windy Hill presently because the grounds too small. Thry plan to spend money there and I think the ground will be enlarged. Suspect Truck was a major driver of training back at Windy Hill to reinforce player understanding of Essendon. In the interim, I will be interested to see if Brad Scott has training sessions there. Gut feel is this will become more of a rarity now Truck has moved on. At least until the ground is enlarged as part of the redevelopment.
yep absolutely this. I have an 8 year old who is footy mad & loves his Bombers but has no real connection to the players. When I was his age I had met every one of our senior players & had their autographs. A chance for my son to meet a few of the boys (especially Draper) & get an autograph would be massive in creating that memory that could bond him to the club for life. The club have long taken it for granted that we have a huge supporter base but done nothing on or off field to ensure it remains that way. This is the minimum we should be doing.
Holding the odd training session in the late afternoon at Windy Hill would allow greater access for fans as part of a fan engagement event.
Given we play night games it’s not unreasonable to do it as part of our conditioning.
I’m thinking it can coincide with a Captain’s Run session as they are truncated affairs.
But definitely something substantial during school holidays for the kids has to be an obvious thing to do.
There’s obviously heaps of stuff they could do. It’s about making a genuine effort to build and maintain something special across the entire fan base.
and yet somehow it does remain that way year after year.
There is no incentive for the club to invest more in fan engagement because they know they have the fan base locked in and spending cash each year irrespective of what they dish up.
crap merch, delayed mbr packs, bottom 4 finishes and no finals, limited fan engagement and yet record mbrship numbers year after year and still some of the best attendance figures in the league.
Muir mentioned on the Lunchtime catchup the club prioritised upgrading Windy Hill facilities for VFL / AFLW vs expanding facilities at the hangar… not sure if true or not.
Have they been able to find the cricket club an alternative venue?
Be a good question at the AGM.
Ditto about new home for Bowls Club, and if they and cricket clubs have been agreeable.
I think people are getting abit confused between all the types of ‘engagement’.
spectator infrastructure (consultation with supporters on infrastructure projects that improve football viewing)
Membership engagement (open training sessions, game day activities around the ground, family days, consultation on membership improvements)
Football academy programs (football clinics for CALD kids and families, intensive football programs in academy regions, primary school football clinics, school holiday football camps)
Community engagement (non-football related: after school drop in programs, homework clubs, youth leadership programs, youth mentoring programs, breakfast clubs, homelessness support programs)
Edit:
Good summary.
I think engagement is multifaceted as you point out. It covers many aspects of the fans interactions with the club and all feed into a sense of ‘connection’ which drives fan satisfaction and translates into membership, attendance and involvement.
The ‘match-day experience’ was a focus area 3-4 years ago. It seems to have become less of a focus as time goes on. “The Pressure Cooker” and other efforts to make Marvel feel like a home venue have stagnated somewhat. Marvel is becoming more corporate, seating areas making way for corporate experiences as the venue becomes a generic venue.
Membership to me has become a problem. Club trying to reduce costs means value is diminishing as time goes on. Our national fanbase still isn’t being provided packages thst deliver sufficient value to warrant taking up offers. Note Kangaroos ‘first autograph’ idea as innovation into packages that increase value and make membership more attractive to those that may not go to games. National following largely disconnected is at odds with its strategic plan to harness this support to get to 125,000 members. You can’t expect these fans interstate to just donate for love! You need to make it attractive. Inclusion packs, lesser quality bars, trying to get rid of tickets etc. members want more value not less.
Then there’s the whole training thing. Windy Hill / The Hangar. How do you encourage fans to feel part of the club again. Big atrium entrances and cold soulless cafes don’t cut it. I don’t know why it’s so hard to make the Jack Jones Cafe a proper cafe you’d go to in your community? Get a successful cafe owner in to advise and fix it. Right now it’s basically ticking a box and that’s it. The merch shop is average and the precinct lacks any atmospheres. Then there lack of seating etc… The whole joint feels a bit like a business within a business park.
Then social media. Essendon used to be leaders. Not now. It appears under resourced and lacking creativity. Just my view. There’s fewer tweets, stories etc. We largely haven’t heard from our new senior coach (other than TV news or AFL podcasts). There’s been negligible training reports in the socials. Thank god for @CJohns @nackers and @Begbie etc keeping us informed!
Lots of stuff here. All in all it feels the saga, covid and failed football has diverted focus from these elements that make up the term ‘connection with fans’ on many levels. Hopefully Vozzo, not a natural marketer and consumer person, can ensure investment back into this area of the club to get things back on track.
This chair situation at the club, feel that some blitzers need to like bring down some church pews.
or maybe rather than sponsoring players put in for a temporary grand stand 
If they are having some VFLW Games there would make sense to ahve a grand stand there.
Hopefully the new board members can raise this after they are elected.
IF they don’t want to add stands given upgrade of windy hill, then put a captains run down there every week where they encourage fans to come along. And do some signing/photos after.
But still put in 2 seats for Nackers and CJohns
I wonder if you’ll get the same people i did saying oh no you can’t do that, it’ll cut into recovery time if they do that 
by the sounds of it, that merrett was a driving force moreso in this (sure rutten implemented it) but he does say it was one of the areas he brought up with the club when deciding his last contract and if he was going to stay or go.
you keep using the review as some fallback position as oh the review said this the review said this.
ask yourself this, if this actually happens to be the turning point in the clubs history (only time will tell) do you want them focussed more on actual football right at this point in time, or do you want them focussed on “fan engagement” ?
what is it exactly you want them to do, 3 odd months after the findings, in the of season ?
what more info on how much running the players are doing ?
what is it exactly in the off season of all times you think that is magically going to bridge the gap “the review” found in fan engagement ?
what more fluff pieces that adult supporters are sick of ? maybe a tour of players houses like mtv shows ?
other than kids, cos i get that it means more to them and things for them should be a priority, what exactly is it that you think is going to fix the gap, that actually winning football doesn’t achieve ?
IF they ever win another flag, are you gonna be sitting there like, geez i feel kinda empty cos you know that review told me the club doesn’t engage with me enough, and they didn’t provide enough sausage sizzles for me to feel apart of it enough.
Just buy 100 of these. You’d even get a trade discount. Place them around the fence on the main oval
The point of large organisations, is that they can do multiple things at once.
It’s like telling local Council’s to stop focussing on Bins, Libraries, gardens, pools, planning permits…… and just focus on road maintenance.
Which is ridiculous, because people expect all those services to be delivered as part of their rates.
Same goes with members of a football club…… yes, we expect the football department to perform. And it’s the core business. But that doesn’t excuse the rest of the club’s services from falling away either. And most members want to feel valued by the club.
