Creating this topic to keep all the discussion in the one spot!
AGM to be held on Wednesday, December 18, 2024.
Some information about the process of election & appointment of Directors can found on the club site:
Nominations closed yesterday so we’ll hopefully have some more information shortly 
“Board member joins Blitz” season has begun, it must be in full swing
It sure is! That said, I’ve had my own EFC Board page for a few years now and interact with members.
“Blitz member doesn’t care”
I have several concerns broadly with how Essendon has operated for sometime.
The positive is a broad acceptance of systemic transformation culturally is central to its new direction, supported by the outcomes of the external review. We hopefully will see continued progress in development, conditioning and recruitment in the years ahead. Time will tell.
Unfortunately, the club hasn’t delivered on many aspects if its mantra.
Members communication. For reasons I don’t understand, the club isn’t communicating with supporters and members to an acceptable level. It runs minimal scheduled weekly coaches pressers, exposes players post game and that’s about it. Its social media communication is satisfactory, lack of communication from the Board / Executive leaves members feeling disengaged and distant… It feels like the club has closed ranks (probably because of its leaking culture / review feedback that footy dept felt distracted) but like many things, has over corrected. It now communicates at a minimum standard. This isn’t good enough of a club that apparently values members highly.
Non football commercial opportunities. The club has for many years struggled to devise and build a business that insulates itself from on field failure. It has recruited execs and board members to deliver it but it simply hasn’t been realised. Unlike most clubs, Essendon has no future fund, hasn’t optimally commercialised the Hangar site and hasn’t landed non football revenue streams. Consequently, it’s been required to continually tap high net worth supporters when needed and to me this is through sub optimal planning and execution of a business plan. It also has as a result had to reduce its ambitions and spend at Windy Hill and bring forward fundraising initiatives to fund recovery facilities at The Hangar. All because it doesn’t have a strong non football business and commercial setup.
Home game arrangements. A significant majority of members want more MCG games, why has Essendon failed to land the additional MCG home game? The club has had years to lobby and drive this initiative knowing its contract with Marvel expired post 2024. Carlton has secured an extra home game. Even St Kilda has stolen our extra home game! What has happened to Essendon’s swagger, aggressiveness and stature that would see it fail to deliver such an important initiative for its members.
Membership is 83,000. This is a really poor figure, on field form not withstanding. Membership hasn’t grown at all in 5 years. Hawthorn and Geelong and possibly Sydney(!!) will surpass Essendon in 2025. How has this come about? Poor communications, lack of MCG home games, poor on field fortunes all factors. I’d say the member retention rates reflect low expectations for growth in 2025. This must be a concern for the Board, it’s unacceptable and unsustainable for a healthy club like Essendon.
Lastly, Essendon’s persona has morphed into a non confrontational, complicit and conservative substitute of its once bold, aggressive and innovative self. This sits with years of leadership at the club and ultimately isn’t what many Essendon people are proud of.
What part of get more home games at the MCG doesnt the board understand??
Well said mate
Just calling it as it is 
Or, what is the deficiency at the club that resulted in its efforts to land this important strategic initiative failing to transpire? Essendon will probs say eventually we need the Roos, Hawks to fill the void at Marvel left by our extra MCG home game… That’s not an acceptable reason. Why did Carlton deliver and Essendon didn’t? Why did St Kilda deliver and Essendon didn’t?
There’s no acceptable explanation on the surface. It’s a miss and it smacks of a club that isn’t executing as well as other clubs, or as well as it should.
Where does Board governance fit into this? Is there now better governance to contribute to a turn around in the direction of the Club?
And there was an extra home game left by Geelong as they went from 2 to 1. There was no excuse , someone should be sacked over this
If you do a search of essendon requesting an extra home game, you can trace it back to Xavier Campbell asking the AFL back in 2015!
Nearly 10 fkn years and they still cant land not even 1 more home game at the MCG from the AFL.
Fk off.
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Dons turn to MCG
Essendon will look to play more games at the MCG next year.
By Callum Twomey
Aug 4, 2015, 12:33pm
Essendon will look to play more games at the MCG next year as it considers the best mix for its 2016 fixture.
Of the Bombers’ 11 home games this season, seven were set at Etihad Stadium and four at the MCG.
The club has been a major tenant of the Docklands venue since it opened in 2000, with its stadium deal more lucrative than those afforded to rivals.
But chief executive Xavier Campbell said the club was examining ways to increase its presence at the MCG as its membership base topped 60,000 for the second successive season.
“We acknowledge that the MCG is the home of football and our players love playing there, I think our fans love going there and we know that finals football is played at the MCG,” Campbell said.
“For all those reasons, you would always love to be playing more games of football at the MCG, and we’re open to exploring what that looks like moving forward around our home game mix.”
The Bombers spent nearly a decade playing their home games at the MCG after leaving Windy Hill at the start of the 1990s.
They, the Western Bulldogs and St Kilda crossed to the new Docklands stadium for home games in 2000. They played their 150th match at the venue on Sunday against the Dogs.
This year they played a home game against Geelong at Etihad Stadium, which drew a crowd of more than 40,000, and in previous years have played traditional rival Hawthorn there.
Moving that type of contest to the MCG would see the Bombers have a 6-5 split of Etihad and MCG home games.
“Etihad Stadium is a great partner for us and there’s no doubting that. But we need to always operate in the best interests of our members and our members enjoy going to Etihad, but they also acknowledge the importance of the MCG to the bigger picture,” Campbell said.
The club is working through its fixture requests for next season, having been disappointed to have only received two Friday night slots (both against North Melbourne) in 2015.
Campbell hopes the Bombers’ struggles on the field this year won’t impact any decision to schedule them in the prime Friday night spot.
“We certainly haven’t produced form to the level we would have liked, but I’d like to think we have a really strong group of young players coming through coupled with a really good group of 25 to 30-year-olds as well,” he said.
Another marquee game is being developed by Kevin Sheedy in his role as the club’s innovation manager, with the match to be centred on the country market of football fans.
I don’t know about sacked but imo this decision more than most highlights how Essendon has lost its edge and become complicit, accepting and introverted. It sucks and it irks me!
More shisha behind the bench at home games please.
â– â– â– â– â– â– â– useless this lot.
First time I recall hearing of her. After googling I see she joined th board in 2017. As a “media expert” she seems to have hid her light under a bushel.
She has been active on facebook for quite awhile.
No doubt, especially because she has been a senior executive with them. But that obviously butters no parsnips for people smart enough to avoid Facebook.
There was also the EFC site of the Board page, where individual Board members posted their activities.
Melissa drew this to our attention in a post on Blitz. Peregaps she could post a link on this thread, as well as a cut and paste of relevant references on Facebook .
why the fark would any sane person come and post on this cesspit of negativity called blitz
