Richmond Board Nomination

[the_boy_jake]

FWIW I think that the democratic operation of football clubs is healthy for the competition. If Philip isn't wanted by the members then so be it. IMO the AFL should be paying for the costs of any AGM, not individual clubs.

[mightytiges]

About two months ago I had a coffee with Gary March. In that discussion I wanted Gary to know that I was intending on running for the board. I would much rather Gary knew what my intentions were than to do this around him without his opportunity to discuss things with me. We had a frank discussion. In that meeting I made Gary aware of the fact that I felt that considering that Richmond had performed so poorly over the past 9 years and still were performing poorly (15th this year) that there was not enough movement of board members. This to me is a major issue. We need a fresh look at things. We need fresh ideas. We need fresh enthusiasm. We must have significant leadership and we must show that by ensuring that we don’t have board members occupy seats without providing significant results.

Lets break this down further. We have 9 board members and they are elected for a 3 year term. We currently have 6 of the 9 board members that are still in place from when Terry Wallace was appointed coach of the Richmond Football Club back in 2004. Now lets break down our performance of those years:

2005                 12th

2006                 9th

2007                 16th

2008                 9th

2009                 15th

2010                 15th

To me, to have 6 of the 9 directors still in place whilst looking at these results, I would sit up and say that there has been enough time to make a difference. There are 3 board members standing for re-election now and I feel that there has not been any progress made where we need progress to be made in the 6 years that I have stated above. To this end, I believe it is time for change and that is one of the main reasons why I have nominated myself for the board this year.

I might add, that I am not isolating any one director or any one individual here because they all act collectively. Some board members provide far greater input than others as well. But what I am saying is that to keep the status quo simply on the basis that we feel that we are going in the right direction is not reason enough to re-elect a current board member.

Each one of the current board members that are up for re-election have been in place for many years – it is time to say to them that it is now time for change.

While I'm not against the idea of us needing a new fresh face or two on the Board for the reasons you've outlined Phillip, you appear to be arguing for change at board level based mainly on lack of results from the footy dept. over the past 6 seasons. Tony Free who is on the football sub-committee and replaced Greg Miller at board level in 2008 isn't facing an election this year (March as Prez is ex-officio on all sub-committees). The other non-Boardroom positions that have impact on the footy dept have also all changed within the past 2 years - Brendon Gale CEO replacing Steve Wright, Craig Cameron Head of footy dept replacing Greg Miller, and Hardwick (plus new coaching staff) replacing Wallace and co. Are you dissatisfied with the performance of anyone with head positions within the current footy dept? Add to that the modern infrastructure additions with the new facilites at Punt Rd and Craigieburn within the past 2-3 years.

Given you are challenging, and with all due respect most members wouldn't know you at all, you need to at least illustrate one or two ideas/plans you will bring to the table that benefits the Club and that any or all of the current 3 directors up for nomination lack. As everyone has said, simply saying "we need a new face on the Board and that face should be me" is something we all could say. Sorry we need more details.

It appears you are suggesting Gary March has escaped criticism as Prez and leader of the Club for the past 5 years unlike those who were underneath him who have been given the sack and he should step aside so someone new can lead the Club forward from this point of time.


Just one last question Phillip for my own benefit to get a understanding on your philosophy towards (re)building a successful side onfield ........

If you did end up on the Board in 2011 and we once again faced a situation where we had hardly won a game in the first half of the season and we're no chance of playing finals - Would you expect that the side to still try and win as many games as possible for the remainder of the season to install  a "winning mentality" OR would you advocate to the footy dept. we strive for a priority pick instead to give us a stronger draft position?

[Smokey]

where is that Clayton fellow

David is actually back posting to other Richmond forums again after a self-imposed 'exile'.  Laugh if you need to Jack but he had the club's best interests at heart and he has put in many many many hours of unpaid volunteer work over the years.  A lot of other self-important judgmental people can't say the same.

It would be great to see him on the board and have some knob get up at the agm and ask him a million and one boring questions 

David Clayton still hasn't touched his old website since the day he bailed because the Club drafted Cuz.

http://members.iinet.net.au/~dcstar/

Yeah, he took the whole Cousins thing very hard - didn't agree with it in any shape or form and it appeared to be a kind of 'last straw' thing for him.  He was still attending games but withdrew his input to the club and that (for some strange personal reason) included some forums - he bounced around some general football forums but not Richmond ones.  I'm not supporting or condoning what he did but I won't devalue his effort and input to our club over a very long period at his own expense.  And yes, he might have been seen as a boring pest at AGM's with his questioning but the upside is that the questions were getting asked and that helps "keep the bastards honest" as Don Chipp would say.  Much worse scenario for our club is to have an AGM with no questions or scrutiny.  Each to his own but I will defend David's passion and effort all day.

[Penelope]

Hi, I have been reading this forum for a while and this thread has made me join up so I can have a say!

I agree with Phillip, that as a one eyed tiger supporter, that I am sick of hearing about us being on the right track!!

If we had been on the right track for the last 10 years as they have been saying, surely we would have seen some results on the field, as really they are the only results that matter.

Financially we may not be in the best position but put some wins on the board and that would change very quickly, how can you continue to market a product that is just promises and never delivers results.

Making change for change sake, why don't you want change!   Everybody was happy to make Terry Wallace accountable, why not the board?  Are you happy with 15th in 2011 9th in 2012 15th in 2013 and then watch Damien Hardwick get sacked and start all over again.  Lets not forget that Damien Hardwick is accountable to the same board that Terry Wallace was accountable to and they obviously ok'd everything that Terry Wallace was doing.  Do we just wait until it fails again and listen to the speel over and over.

Why isn't the board accountable for losses, until we start winning some games I will keep voting for change.

I would like to know from Phillip exactly what he thinks he can do to help Richmond put wins on the board, in what way does he feel the board is not performing?  What are they not doing that he thinks he can do better?

We all want the same thing in the end, a premeirship, and expecting anything less from our board is letting our team down.

Thanks for letting me rant

You raise an interesting point here, tigersrus, about the board being accountable, particularly in regards to coach and football department staff appointments.

I think board does need to be accountable for the decisions they make. Look at Essendon. They appointed knights, then gave him a new contract and shortly after  sacked him. To me in these situations the board has to take as much responsibility as the person they appoint, if not more.

For a long time at Richmond this was also the case, coach after coach falling on the sword while the board continued to make the wrong decisions, never seemingly being accountable or learning from their mistakes.

The appointment of Hardwick, or more specifically the process that led to his appointment, was the most thorough and professional seen in the AFL. Not a job for one of the boys or an appointment made on the pre conceptions of board members as to who it should be but a process designed to determine the best man for the task ahead. (as Essendon seem to have done)

This shows me that not only is the club headed in the right direction, but that the decision makers had indeed learned for their mistakes of the past. In life you (should) learn more from mistakes than getting it right - and everyone will make mistakes. The real worry is when the same mistakes are repeated, such as we have seen for the last 30 odd years.

You are right in that we shouldn't be afraid of change, something that does seem to be human nature. By the same token, change for the sake of change should not be embraced.

For the first time in ages the club seems to have off field stability, unity and real direction. If someone else thinks they can bring something to the table and improve on the current board then all well and good. The onus now, though, is on them to convince the members what exactly it is is they offer, rather than concentrating on past failures of the board to get themselves elected.

This can only be a good thing and is what Philip or anyone else who wants a position at the table needs to do.

I think to vote for a board change based on the clubs win/loss ratio is .... a bit myopic (?), particlaly when you look at the bigger picture and the change that could be seen on field, even if that is yet to transform into results. Considering where we are coming from, we still have to be patient in this regard. Impatient decisions are often bad decisions.
 

[Carvels Ring]

personally i think when choice is available the only winner is our football club...i want to see the best people represent richmond and that can only be done when we encourage our faithfull to speak up and make a stand.

i agree completely. And this is exactly why this Phil bloke is so disappointing.  he has nothing to say, he wont answer questions, he posts the same on here and other sites and he is all hyperbole and fluff.

Listen you old bastard

You know I love you dearly but...

FFS give it a rest.

 

 

yeah gigantor, pipe down!

[PhilipAnderson]

I have added more information to my Blog and Twitter over the past few days.

Topics covered are as follows:

Sponsorship
Lack of Success is Not OK
Richmond First Mentality

Please refer to my blog at:

http://philipandersontigers.wordpress.com/

I will however cut and paste these into separate posts to make it easier to read for those that do not wish to refer to my blog

[PhilipAnderson]

Richmond First Mentality


When we look to our playing list the thing that we admire most is when a player takes his turn to put his body on the line for his footy club no matter the pressure that is within telling him not to. This is the making of a good footballer. For our footy club this means Richmond First. What we require from our board is an uncompromising attitude of Richmond First.  This mentality must be shown to our players our staff and our supporters from the board down. We must have a Richmond First mentality, we must show strength and when we show an uncompromising attitude off the field to be the best then we can start to fill our whole club with this belief. With this belief comes success. If I am elected to the Richmond board you will get a Richmond First mentality.

[PhilipAnderson]

Lack of Success is Not OK


Over the past week, since announcing my nomination for the Richmond Football Club Board, I am seeing some enthusiasm for how we finished off the last half of last season.

Fair enough, we started playing some good footy at times and we won 6 games out of the last 13.

I have even had some people say to me that by finishing 15th last year we are in much better shape than finishing 12th in 2005.

Remembering back to 2005 there were the Fab 5 that we had recruited and they had just completed their first season of AFL. Was there optimism about our footy club back then? Of course there was! There is nothing wrong with optimism, but it must be realistic optimism.

The Fab 5 that we recruited were:

Pick 1      Brett Deledio

Pick 4      Richard Tambling

Pick 12    Danny Meyer        (Brad Ottens Trade)

Pick 16    Adam Pattison     (Brad Ottens Trade)

Pick 20   Dean Polo

We were very optimistic that we were going forward with a strong future. We had just won 10 games and losing 12 games from our 2005 season and we were sure that we were going to play finals in 2006. I don’t need to remind you that now only Brett Deledio remains of the Fab 5.

Let me bring some currency into the blog. After round 9 this year the media were comparing us with Fitzroy. Fitzroy! Don’t forget this was only 6 months ago. There was talk of priority draft selections to be given to us just because we were so bad.

Richmond finished 15th this year with 6 wins and 16 losses.

Let me be very clear about my position – 15th is not OK and I don’t believe that it should be OK to the loyal Richmond supporters.

My concern is that due to the extended period that we have had a lack of success, that we as Richmond faithful are being made immune to the feelings of success itself.

Hence we as supporters are starting to grapple at straws and hence why I am hearing that 15th this year is better than 12th in 2005.

My comment is that 12th in 2005 was not OK and neither is 15th in 2010!

If we are thinking about anything other than 1st then we are on the wrong train.

Until we take stock and compare our football teams performance with every other club in the AFL and realise that we are the worst performing team in the last 10, 20 and 30 years then, and only then, can we make real gains.

You must go into the “room full of mirrors” to take a good long hard look at yourself when it comes time to make real gains in performance or to make real changes. You must understand where you are commencing the journey from to understand what you need to do to arrive at your destination.

The Richmond board must go into the “room full of mirrors” and understand that our lack of success is not ok.

We now require strength and realism to to be a key part of the Richmond board.

This will provide us ultimate success.

[PhilipAnderson]

Sponsorship


At the time of writing, our two major sponsors of 2010 in Dick Smith and Luxbet have decided to reduce their sponsorship level with the Richmond Football Club going forward.

Sponsorship becomes a key issue today and tomorrow at Richmond and a critical area that must be addressed at board level.

If I was elected to the board of the Richmond Football Club one of my key areas of focus would be to ensure that we reviewed the value proposition that we present to each of our sponsors individually to ensure that this is seen as valuable by both parties ongoing. I would also assist to develop strategies to ensure that these sponsorships are re-signed.

A sponsor must see value for money such that they automatically renew or even preferable, upgrade their sponsorship level with us at the end of the contractual arrangement.

Additional to the above, the sponsors that we have on board must be offered first right of refusal to renew their sponsorship agreement such that an ongoing relationship is maintained with each sponsor.

We are in a very competitive environment and with two new teams entering the AFL competition it makes competing for sponsors an even greater issue, therefore retaining the sponsors that we currently have signed becomes a significant priority whilst at the same time developing new relationships for the future.

[WilliamPowell]

Sorry Philip, I read the blogs and re-read what you've posted here

And still NO vote from me.

The "lack of Success" post is fear mongering at best IMHO

Re: Sponsorship - "A sponsor must see value for money such that they automatically renew or even preferable, upgrade their sponsorship level with us at the end of the contractual arrangement." Put simply this is easier said than done and this I know from first hand experience

Also, you're comments about a "Richmond First Mentality" funny but I thought the Benny Gale strategic plan signed off by the current board actually covers off everything you've said....

[Penelope]

Lack of Success is Not OK


Over the past week, since announcing my nomination for the Richmond Football Club Board, I am seeing some enthusiasm for how we finished off the last half of last season.

Fair enough, we started playing some good footy at times and we won 6 games out of the last 13.

I have even had some people say to me that by finishing 15th last year we are in much better shape than finishing 12th in 2005.

Remembering back to 2005 there were the Fab 5 that we had recruited and they had just completed their first season of AFL. Was there optimism about our footy club back then? Of course there was! There is nothing wrong with optimism, but it must be realistic optimism.

The Fab 5 that we recruited were:

Pick 1      Brett Deledio

Pick 4      Richard Tambling

Pick 12    Danny Meyer        (Brad Ottens Trade)

Pick 16    Adam Pattison     (Brad Ottens Trade)

Pick 20   Dean Polo

We were very optimistic that we were going forward with a strong future. We had just won 10 games and losing 12 games from our 2005 season and we were sure that we were going to play finals in 2006. I don’t need to remind you that now only Brett Deledio remains of the Fab 5.

Let me bring some currency into the blog. After round 9 this year the media were comparing us with Fitzroy. Fitzroy! Don’t forget this was only 6 months ago. There was talk of priority draft selections to be given to us just because we were so bad.

Richmond finished 15th this year with 6 wins and 16 losses.

Let me be very clear about my position – 15th is not OK and I don’t believe that it should be OK to the loyal Richmond supporters.

My concern is that due to the extended period that we have had a lack of success, that we as Richmond faithful are being made immune to the feelings of success itself.

Hence we as supporters are starting to grapple at straws and hence why I am hearing that 15th this year is better than 12th in 2005.

My comment is that 12th in 2005 was not OK and neither is 15th in 2010!

If we are thinking about anything other than 1st then we are on the wrong train.

Until we take stock and compare our football teams performance with every other club in the AFL and realise that we are the worst performing team in the last 10, 20 and 30 years then, and only then, can we make real gains.

You must go into the “room full of mirrors” to take a good long hard look at yourself when it comes time to make real gains in performance or to make real changes. You must understand where you are commencing the journey from to understand what you need to do to arrive at your destination.

The Richmond board must go into the “room full of mirrors” and understand that our lack of success is not ok.

We now require strength and realism to to be a key part of the Richmond board.

This will provide us ultimate success.

Phil, this really concerns me.

Lack of sucess is not accepted by me. I'm loathe to have the pretense i can speak for others, but I would be very surprised if there are many that feel different.

What concerns me most about this post is that it indicates impatientce and a lack of understanding about what it takes to get from where we were at the end of of 2009 to where we all the club to be.

You seem to be indicating that our performance this year was not good enough and as such something needs to change.
Could you please enlighten us as to what path the club should take to claw our way out of the mire quicker?

Sure we all would love to have won the premiership this year, but the vast majority were realistic enough to know that was not gunna happen, nor will it it 2011 and if it did in 2012 it would be a huge surprise.

Does this make me happy? no. Do i accept this? Yes, not because i accept failure, but because I understand where we are coming from and where we want to get to will not happen quickly.

A new coaching regime, a cleanout of old has beens and never weres,  a swag of kid recruited and given game time, establishment of team rules that set an attitude that has been missing for god knows how long and you want to gripe about the ladder result for the year in an attempt to gain a spot on the board.

Serously mate, WTF are you on?

If you cant see the improvement on the field this year from last then you should not be anywhere near a football club.

I read this crap and i now will have nightmares tonight about the club straying from the path it is on and going back to short sighted decisions in an attempt to win more games to keep people like yourself happy.

Your whole campaign reeks of a political campaign - strategically released "policies" over time rather than answering questions and a splattering of ill conceived fear mongering ( as WP pointed out).

Right about now your chances of getting a vote from me is about the same as if some of the idiots that post on these forums would have if they ran for the board.

[Infamy]

Right about now your chances of getting a vote from me is about the same as if some of the idiots that post on these forums would have if they ran for the board.

So much for that idea then 

[Mr Magic]

Sorry Phil, I ain't buying.

[Loui Tufga]

Lack of Success is Not OK


Over the past week, since announcing my nomination for the Richmond Football Club Board, I am seeing some enthusiasm for how we finished off the last half of last season.

Fair enough, we started playing some good footy at times and we won 6 games out of the last 13.

I have even had some people say to me that by finishing 15th last year we are in much better shape than finishing 12th in 2005.

Remembering back to 2005 there were the Fab 5 that we had recruited and they had just completed their first season of AFL. Was there optimism about our footy club back then? Of course there was! There is nothing wrong with optimism, but it must be realistic optimism.

The Fab 5 that we recruited were:

Pick 1      Brett Deledio

Pick 4      Richard Tambling

Pick 12    Danny Meyer        (Brad Ottens Trade)

Pick 16    Adam Pattison     (Brad Ottens Trade)

Pick 20   Dean Polo

We were very optimistic that we were going forward with a strong future. We had just won 10 games and losing 12 games from our 2005 season and we were sure that we were going to play finals in 2006. I don’t need to remind you that now only Brett Deledio remains of the Fab 5.

Let me bring some currency into the blog. After round 9 this year the media were comparing us with Fitzroy. Fitzroy! Don’t forget this was only 6 months ago. There was talk of priority draft selections to be given to us just because we were so bad.

Richmond finished 15th this year with 6 wins and 16 losses.

Let me be very clear about my position – 15th is not OK and I don’t believe that it should be OK to the loyal Richmond supporters.

My concern is that due to the extended period that we have had a lack of success, that we as Richmond faithful are being made immune to the feelings of success itself.

Hence we as supporters are starting to grapple at straws and hence why I am hearing that 15th this year is better than 12th in 2005.

My comment is that 12th in 2005 was not OK and neither is 15th in 2010!

If we are thinking about anything other than 1st then we are on the wrong train.

Until we take stock and compare our football teams performance with every other club in the AFL and realise that we are the worst performing team in the last 10, 20 and 30 years then, and only then, can we make real gains.

You must go into the “room full of mirrors” to take a good long hard look at yourself when it comes time to make real gains in performance or to make real changes. You must understand where you are commencing the journey from to understand what you need to do to arrive at your destination.

The Richmond board must go into the “room full of mirrors” and understand that our lack of success is not ok.

We now require strength and realism to to be a key part of the Richmond board.

This will provide us ultimate success.

Dude, what are you on??
How are you going to improve our on field performance overnight? I believe that the lack of success is not O.K but I also believe that short term fixes have been the root of the problem for the last 20 years.

How do you propose to get us to the top of the ladder next year?
 
Should we cut all our players now and just buy a whole new team?

Surely even you can see the club is rebuilding from the ground up, let it run it's course with the kids and we will keep improving, start drafting has been wanna be hacks again and the club will go to hell again.

I can see us finishing anywhere between 15th and 9th next season, I would be happy with that as long as there was some improvement, if we manage to finish in the eight I would be elated!
but surely this is not realistic prospect considering the average age and lack of experience of our current list.

I personally am happy where the club is at the moment, as long as we have learnt from past mistakes and stick with the plan I can see us playing finals again sooner rather than later, if we have to wait another 2 or 3 years then so be it!

[Loui Tufga]

Ha, it took me that long to write the reply I should have just wrote "What Al said"