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.