Toast Presidency and The Board

[jathanas]

Thank you 76woodenspooners

One of BigFooty’s all-time-favourite posters, Reykjavik , was all across the board level stuff. He once posted a list of the responsibilities of a Not-For-Profit board like that of Collingwood …

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NFP board responsibilities
Specific responsibilities of a not-for-profit (NFP) board include:

• Driving the strategic direction of the organisation
• Working with the CEO to enable the organisation to obtain the resources, funds and personnel necessary to implement the organisation's strategic objectives
• Implementing, maintaining and (as necessary) refining a system of good governance that is appropriate for the organisation
• Reviewing reports and monitoring the performance of the organisation
• Regularly reviewing the board's structure and composition, so that these are appropriate for the organisation
• Appointing – and managing the performance of – a suitable CEO
• Succession planning for the CEO

While the above points are also applicable to for-profit boards, NFP boards also face a unique range of issues, such as:

• Difficulties in defining and measuring organisational effectiveness
• Transgression of role boundaries
• The negative impact of the structural compositions of some NFP boards, including those arising from representative models
• Funding dependencies and constraints

In practice, the role of the board is to supervise an organisation's business in two broad areas:

1. Overall business performance - ensuring the organisation develops and implements strategies and supporting policies to enable it to fulfill the objectives set out in the organisation's constitution. The board delegates the day to day management of the organisation but remains accountable to the shareholders for the organisation's performance. The board monitors and supports management in an on-going way.
2. Overall compliance performance - ensuring the organisation develops and implements systems to enable it to comply with its legal and policy obligations (complying with statutes such as the Corporations Act 2001, adhering to accounting standards) and ensure the organisation's assets are protected through appropriate risk management.

http://www.companydirectors.com.au/...ctor/NFP-governance/The-role-of-the-NFP-board

Link to original post …

Side by Side with Reykjavik - RIP (re-read Rey's message to us all #108, pg 5)

Reyk, I'm ridiculously happy to see you posting! :)

www.bigfooty.com

 

[76woodenspooners]

Cheers for the questions and banter, all. Disappointed not to get up, but still fired up to make the club a better place.

And in answer to the question: Do digital channels etc make for more fans watching other sports? Absolutely YES. There is vast evidence across a range of industries and categories that “physical availability” drives reach and builds businesses.

It’s a key part of my day to day job. I see the evidence in all of my clients. Further there’s huge amounts of academic evidence that quantifies it.

It’s like saying: “Is there any evidence that having a new shop near my house will make me buy from there more compared to my old shop?” Yes. More channels, more games, more websites, more access points links very clearly to more buyers/fans/reach.

And if you think it’s binary, it’s not. We all have a range of sports we watch. And if some of those sports make it easier to watch or access versus other sports, we won’t shift away totally, but we might shift slightly. Eg: Formula One Drive to Survive doesn’t make me less of a Pies fan, but it does increase the share of my time spent looking at F1 sponsor logos, therefore makes F1 even more valuable vs AFL as a sponsorship property. And I’ve sat in rooms with massive corporate sponsors who literally weigh up those different properties.

So yeah, absolutely 100% yes - without a better digital strategy, our club will suffer.

People are people. They always have been, they always will be. Fan engagement by the mighty Collingwood Football club today isn’t much different to the “bread and circuses” of Roman times. The channels have evolved somewhat, and will continue to do so, but the people at the end of it all - us - are still the same.

 

[76woodenspooners]

It’s amazing 12 months ago we were considered unstable and unattractive.

At the same time Carlton have been a mess, St Kilda a mess, Essendon a mess….and nobody batted an eye lid by comparison.

And here we are…12 months on and in much better shape than all these attractive and stable destinations apparently….

It’s way way too early to tell one way or the other.

Success (and sometimes failure) typically takes years to achieve.

After a year Browne’s board is about to make their first big decision, and that is who to appoint as CEO.

 

[Pacman Carney]

It’s way way too early to tell one way or the other.

Success (and sometimes failure) typically takes years to achieve.

After a year Browne’s board is about to make their first big decision, and that is who to appoint as CEO.

We all know who that’s going to be.

 

[barrackers]

Why isn’t the Collingwood vote count published?

 

[jmac70]

Thanks yes I don't think he understood the question maybe I could have worded it better. Most of the issues are tied to the archaic rules from the constitution and applying them in an old school manner (eg not understanding how the internet works).

Member forums are great but my point was unfortunately most members placed a vote based on a 200 word bio. That is hardly enough information to make a decision and secondly without engaging candidates and members it is hard to engage the next generation to be passionate about the club.

Attendance tonight in person was woeful. Did all nominees attend? I only saw Chris McDonald & Paul Tuddenham.

I welcome constitution changes and term limits, I'll be pushing for wider consultation during election to help more qualified candidates see the value they can bring to the process.

Anyway, I'll be always ready to help the club. More work to do.

Shattered you didn’t win Sean.
Guess we will have to endure long wait times and crap beer for another year in the Legends Bar.

Keep up the fight!

 

[JB1975]

Cheers for the questions and banter, all. Disappointed not to get up, but still fired up to make the club a better place.

And in answer to the question: Do digital channels etc make for more fans watching other sports? Absolutely YES. There is vast evidence across a range of industries and categories that “physical availability” drives reach and builds businesses.

It’s a key part of my day to day job. I see the evidence in all of my clients. Further there’s huge amounts of academic evidence that quantifies it.

It’s like saying: “Is there any evidence that having a new shop near my house will make me buy from there more compared to my old shop?” Yes. More channels, more games, more websites, more access points links very clearly to more buyers/fans/reach.

And if you think it’s binary, it’s not. We all have a range of sports we watch. And if some of those sports make it easier to watch or access versus other sports, we won’t shift away totally, but we might shift slightly. Eg: Formula One Drive to Survive doesn’t make me less of a Pies fan, but it does increase the share of my time spent looking at F1 sponsor logos, therefore makes F1 even more valuable vs AFL as a sponsorship property. And I’ve sat in rooms with massive corporate sponsors who literally weigh up those different properties.

So yeah, absolutely 100% yes - without a better digital strategy, our club will suffer.

I suppose I'm a sceptic, not about the importance of digital engagement, but more relating to the emphasis some people put on it.

Nevertheless, well done to you for putting up your hand and trying to make a difference, and for your Q&A in these parts.

All the best.

 

[SeanC]

Why isn’t the Collingwood vote count published?

I've yet to receive a satisfactory response from the club or board on why this does not happen.

I spoke with Jeff last night; he didn't have a problem with it if the nominees did not. (I don't know why the nominee's opinion matters in this case)

To my question to Jeff last night, the number of members voting is a valid metric for the board on how engaged the members are with the club.

Yes, fewer people may vote after a successful season, and only one spot is available but the lack of engagement by the club in the process is my concern.

All nominees should agree to vote results being released as part of the nomination process.

If the club is disappointed with the voter turnout (or apathy) they should engage more in the process.

BTW this isn't sour grapes I'd just like to see the club truly embrace the process and help the members feel heard as a result.

I'll be pushing for the constitution and election reform to happen next year prior to the AGM so the election process can be more open and transparent.

 

[FIGJAM]

I've yet to receive a satisfactory response from the club or board on why this does not happen.

I spoke with Jeff last night; he didn't have a problem with it if the nominees did not. (I don't know why the nominee's opinion matters in this case)

To my question to Jeff last night, the number of members voting is a valid metric for the board on how engaged the members are with the club.

Yes, fewer people may vote after a successful season, and only one spot is available but the lack of engagement by the club in the process is my concern.

All nominees should agree to vote results being released as part of the nomination process.

If the club is disappointed with the voter turnout (or apathy) they should engage more in the process.

BTW this isn't sour grapes I'd just like to see the club truly embrace the process and help the members feel heard as a result.

I'll be pushing for the constitution and election reform to happen next year prior to the AGM so the election process can be more open and transparent.

I'd be keen to know if the sponsors are provided with a notional number of memberships and if those memberships can be used by the incumbent Board as proxies to vote for whomever they want.

I do get the anonymity to some degree, as it might save embarrassment for some who campaign hard and get like 10 votes, but do worry about a lack of transparency if there's a bit of fudgery in the background.

 

[76woodenspooners]

I'd be keen to know if the sponsors are provided with a notional number of memberships and if those memberships can be used by the incumbent Board as proxies to vote for whomever they want.

Fair point. I‘d imagine article 10(c) would preclude that …

‘Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in Article 10(b), an application for admission as an Ordinary Membership must not be accepted if it appears from the application that, or if in the opinion of the Board, the applicant is a nominee of another person or is acting as a trustee for any other person in relation to the application.”

I do get the anonymity to some degree, as it might save embarrassment for some who campaign hard and get like 10 votes, but do worry about a lack of transparency if there's a bit of fudgery in the background.

They engage votecorp to run it, and I could well imagine that it’d be nowhere near worth their professional integrity to engage in the fudging of the CFC board elections.

 

[FIGJAM]

Fair point. I‘d imagine article 10(c) would preclude that …

‘Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in Article 10(b), an application for admission as an Ordinary Membership must not be accepted if it appears from the application that, or if in the opinion of the Board, the applicant is a nominee of another person or is acting as a trustee for any other person in relation to the application.”

They engage votecorp to run it, and I could well imagine that it’d be nowhere near worth their professional integrity to engage in the fudging of the CFC board elections.

I'm not suggesting 'fudging' at a Zimbabwean election level, just a query on if memberships are issued by the club to an organisation and then if the organisations memberships can then be used at the incumbent board's discretion

Not sure your clause is relevant to proxy voting, but rather the admission of voting members. Kinda in place to stop branch stacking would be my take on it. And it's the Board making a call on that.

I've got no issue with proxy votes FWIW. Happens at most sporting clubs. Just interested in the potential for sponsorship branch stacking. And the reason for my query on it is that I know someone who was involved in the ill-timed and completely unnecessary Knights of Abbotsford era noise that happened in the 2009/10 off season. A then Board member told someone who thought about having a crack at a Board position "We'd have you covered in proxies alone!". Now that may not be sponsor related, but maybe just due to the strength of the McGuire era network in getting peeps to hand over their membership numbers to protect power.

But have also had a query if this also involved sponsor memberships. If you think of all of the sponsor tables of ten at a President's lunch, if issued memberships and 100% of them vote for your preferred member, when only 13% of eligible members vote generally (normal IMHO) then you've got a fair headstart!

 

[Markfs]

Let's hope we get some unity from the board in the coming years.... or at least have any disunity behind closed doors and before decisions are announced.

 

[SeanC]

Fair point. I‘d imagine article 10(c) would preclude that …

‘Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in Article 10(b), an application for admission as an Ordinary Membership must not be accepted if it appears from the application that, or if in the opinion of the Board, the applicant is a nominee of another person or is acting as a trustee for any other person in relation to the application.”



They engage votecorp to run it, and I could well imagine that it’d be nowhere near worth their professional integrity to engage in the fudging of the CFC board elections.

I want more transparency on the number of members who can actually vote and if Collingwood has the data to ensure they can vote.

Over the past two years, I've helped many members get access to vote, as the club did not have email records for every membership. There were cases where one person was getting multiple votes due to multiple memberships on their account and others where people did not get an email from Corpvote despite being eligible.

This year the club sent out emails about the vote, and people found out they didn't qualify as an Ordinary member.

My concerns lie in this poor data and poor engagement during the election.

This should be an opportunity to 1) engage the membership 2) sell membership (as voting can be sold as a valuable benefit) and 3) clean the database.

Unfortunately, Corpvote and the board do not appear to be technically savvy enough to understand this issue.

I've heard 20,000 people were eligible to vote. That seems low to me with an expanded definition of an Ordinary Member.

 

[76woodenspooners]

I want more transparency on the number of members who can actually vote and if Collingwood has the data to ensure they can vote.

Over the past two years, I've helped many members get access to vote, as the club did not have email records for every membership. There were cases where one person was getting multiple votes due to multiple memberships on their account and others where people did not get an email from Corpvote despite being eligible.

This year the club sent out emails about the vote, and people found out they didn't qualify as an Ordinary member.

My concerns lie in this poor data and poor engagement during the election.

This should be an opportunity to 1) engage the membership 2) sell membership (as voting can be sold as a valuable benefit) and 3) clean the database.

Unfortunately, Corpvote and the board do not appear to be technically savvy enough to understand this issue.

I've heard 20,000 people were eligible to vote. That seems low to me with an expanded definition of an Ordinary Member.

Yeah, I know the problem very well - decision makers not understanding the value of data quality.

You have a key decision maker who sees it as their job to generate as much revenue as possible. For them, it’s easier to attract sponsors with a 90K mailing list than with an 80K mailing list. WTF would they spend $$$ removing 10k dead people?!?

It often takes a tech savvy or progressive thinker to see the value in things like data quality. But hey, welcome to Australia, our business folks are typically super conservative.

Or maybe we need to make ‘data quality’ the next fad, after AI/ML, drones, 3D printing, blockchain, NFT’s … somebody needs to figure out how to make data quality sexy

 

[Markfs]

Yeah, I know the problem very well - decision makers not understanding the value of data quality.

You have a key decision maker who sees it as their job to generate as much revenue as possible. For them, it’s easier to attract sponsors with a 90K mailing list than with an 80K mailing list. WTF would they spend $$$ removing 10k dead people?!?

It often takes a tech savvy or progressive thinker to see the value in things like data quality. But hey, welcome to Australia, our business folks are typically super conservative.

Or maybe we need to make ‘data quality’ the next fad, after AI/ML, drones, 3D printing, blockchain, NFT’s … somebody needs to figure out how to make data quality sexy

To me, there are advantages to having a quality database that effectively gives the member the perception that someone at the club "knows" them. I'm no expert but I believe this is done by logging every phone call, sale, complaint etc into something integrated - which is something like what google does when I do searches on the internet. Google stores and analyses all the searches and anticipate my searches as if it knows me.......and therein lies the scary outcome. If we construct our perfect databases to give the fans the perfect experience, then the database does become very very valuable to people who want to sell stuff....which is after all, what the purpose of life is. I'm always wary of tech people who focus on data perfection

 

[76woodenspooners]

To me, there are advantages to having a quality database that effectively gives the member the perception that someone at the club "knows" them. I'm no expert but I believe this is done by logging every phone call, sale, complaint etc into something integrated - which is something like what google does when I do searches on the internet. Google stores and analyses all the searches and anticipate my searches as if it knows me.......and therein lies the scary outcome. If we construct our perfect databases to give the fans the perfect experience, then the database does become very very valuable to people who want to sell stuff....which is after all, what the purpose of life is. I'm always wary of tech people who focus on data perfection

Would you be wary of a company doing pathology tests if they were focusing on data quality? You’d expect it, surely?

Striving for good data quality doesn’t necessarily mean that data is being used for spam, creepy, or nefarious means.

 

[Markfs]

Would you be wary of a company doing pathology tests if they were focusing on data quality? You’d expect it, surely?

Striving for good data quality doesn’t necessarily mean that data is being used for spam, creepy, or nefarious means.

If that company could sell my pathology tests to outside people, I might be a little worried. I think most magpie members just want efficient seat allocation and similar, they dont necessarily want to have an electronic file of themselves constructed. Having said that, the horse has bolted with google and facebook and all the other companies forming composites of us. I do agree that the modern sports fan doesnt really care that much about these things as long as they get a mega experience, so I'm a relic in that regard. I also wonder about the long term effectiveness of razamatazz...the big bash is full of hype and people are getting sick of that. The important thing is the emotional connection and the bells and whistles only keep the interest for so long until some people move on to the next greatest thing. Of course, that wont happen to genuine pie fans but targeted sales of new memberships using a "membership experience" might result in those new members only lasting a year or so. But I agree that the membership system should be accurate and not include dead people and ancient addresses.

 

[swoop42]

As someone with a membership level that until recently wasn't able to vote I can say I had no problem accessing the information about the board candidates and lodging my vote. This messaging was all conveyed to me multiple times via email prior to the cut off date.

 

[soreplums]

Let’s build a 40,000 seat multi purpose stadium in Sydney or Brisbane and play 2 home games and 2 away games there. let it count for 4 interstate matches, build the brand and drop the home games against Marvel.

 

[Markfs]

As someone with a membership level that until recently wasn't able to vote I can say I had no problem accessing the information about the board candidates and lodging my vote. This messaging was all conveyed to me multiple times via email prior to the cut off date.

I think the low turn out was due to apathy. Other reasons would be relatively minor.

I think we'd need a tv program designed around the election with prizes for home viewers....and maybe candidates singing versions of the latest hits

 

[76woodenspooners]

If that company could sell my pathology tests to outside people, I might be a little worried. I think most magpie members just want efficient seat allocation and similar, they dont necessarily want to have an electronic file of themselves constructed. Having said that, the horse has bolted with google and facebook and all the other companies forming composites of us. I do agree that the modern sports fan doesnt really care that much about these things as long as they get a mega experience, so I'm a relic in that regard. I also wonder about the long term effectiveness of razamatazz...the big bash is full of hype and people are getting sick of that. The important thing is the emotional connection and the bells and whistles only keep the interest for so long until some people move on to the next greatest thing. Of course, that wont happen to genuine pie fans but targeted sales of new memberships using a "membership experience" might result in those new members only lasting a year or so. But I agree that the membership system should be accurate and not include dead people and ancient addresses.

(1) The only thing that Collingwood seems to sell to outside people is that from time-to-time the club contacts us with a special promotional deal from a sponsor. If somebody like Kogan are going to pay my footy club millions of dollars a year so they can forward a discount on cheap electronics rubbish, I’m not going to get my knickers in a twist (and suspect most supporters wouldn’t)

(2) Razzamatazz. Different supporter demographics are interested in different things. I remember a time when I was Starstruck by footy players and would have their pics on my bedroom wall. These days I couldn’t think of much worse than hanging out with footy players.

(3) ‘Genuine supporters’. I always thought that term was BS. We’re supposed to be an egalitarian club. You’re either a supporter or you’re not.

 

[76woodenspooners]

Let’s build a 40,000 seat multi purpose stadium in Sydney or Brisbane and play 2 home games and 2 away games there. let it count for 4 interstate matches, build the brand and drop the home games against Marvel.

(As an example) Hobart stadium is billed to cost around $750 million and seat 30K.

Collingwood generated around $7m profit this year.

How will that get paid for?

Plus, just can’t imagine playing interstate home games would be popular at all amongst the membership. We’d have another EGM situation on our hands if the club proposed that.

 

[barrackers]

Let’s build a 40,000 seat multi purpose stadium in Sydney or Brisbane and play 2 home games and 2 away games there. let it count for 4 interstate matches, build the brand and drop the home games against Marvel.

Don’t mind the logic, but in terms of execution selling the games to an existing venue/s would be a better bet.

 

[Markfs]

(1) The only thing that Collingwood seems to sell to outside people is that from time-to-time the club contacts us with a special promotional deal from a sponsor. If somebody like Kogan are going to pay my footy club millions of dollars a year so they can forward a discount on cheap electronics rubbish, I’m not going to get my knickers in a twist (and suspect most supporters wouldn’t)

(2) Razzamatazz. Different supporter demographics are interested in different things. I remember a time when I was Starstruck by footy players and would have their pics on my bedroom wall. These days I couldn’t think of much worse than hanging out with footy players.

(3) ‘Genuine supporters’. I always thought that term was BS. We’re supposed to be ab egalitarian club. You’re either supporter or you’re not.

Ok. I think you're right. I will rethink my position..

 

[Mkcaptain]

Anyone watching the AGM? I like that they're outlining their strategic plan for us. Don't think they've done that before.

 

[Doc1763]

Anyone watching the AGM? I like that they're outlining their strategic plan for us. Don't think they've done that before.

did we have one under the previous regimes??