Anyway as for what was said at the AGM:
* Gary March and Peggy Haines were absent from the meeting. Gary is OS during December/January for business and family reasons.
* 7th straight year of making a profit. Operating profit was $1.85m once you take away the grant money.
* The club plans to reduce our debt by at least a million in 2012. They mentioned $2.5m at one point and at another said they plan to reduce it further and hope to get it below $2m by the end of the 2012 season which will be the first time that has happened in a long while. This is in fitting with the plan to have zero debt by 2014.
* Gary March on the pre-prepared video said we're currently on track to reach 50k members.
* The FTF raised $2m by the middle of 2011 so we were able to invest in footy dept. straight away. As we all know about $3m has been raised so far. The Punt Rd oval re-surfacing will being in 2012 with the job completed in time for the 2012-13 preseason.
* Sponsorship revenue in the past 12 months has risen by 22% than to the new sponsors Jeep, Bingle, Harvey Norman and ME Bank.
* The only question from the audience came from Charles Macek who asked if the Club had taken into account the one-offs in revenue which won't exist in 2012 - the loss of the Darwin game ($500k), FTF funds (will supporters be as generous next year), Wantirna club onerous payment, etc... The answer was basically yes. The Club plans revenues on a 5-year average rather than the previous year so we're conservative with our expectations.
* After all the financial stuff, potty mouth Dimma
got up to introduce and bring on stage the top from the B&F plus all the new recruits. When Piva Wright walked on stage Hardwick was too busy talking that he forgot to put his hand out to shake Piva's so Piva moved his hand up and down to minic a handshake
. Absent was Verrier who was in Perth having some operation on his nose. Once they were all on stage, Hardwick said FJ has a done a great job since he's been at the Club and brought in kids who not only had good skills but who also had good character. The club had a "no d---heads" policy
. He almost swore again about something else but corrected himself in time lol. Dimma then reiterated that the time of transition 2010-11 had ended and whereas in the past two years we were trying to get games into the kids (600+ all up), from now on only the best 22 will be getting a guernsey. So WAT there's no excuses
.
* Next up was the handing out of life memberships to Don Lord, John Stanley and Lids. Lids mentioned right at the end of his speech that it would be great to play finals.
* The final item was the constitution amendment. As mentioned it was overwhelmingly endorced
. 69-2 in proxies followed by all but 3 in the audience. While the proxy vote pretty much made it a done deal, I must admit I was quite surprised by the support for it in the room. Clearly only us on OER had concerns about it.
Anyway it was good to catch up with a few OERites at the AGM
while RollsRoyce and I did our own private tour of the new facilites while searching for the exit
. It really is an impressive building and the view from the 3rd floor balcony overlooking the oval and Punt Rd is worth the visit alone.
