http://www.melbournefc.com.au/tabid/7415/default.aspx?newsid=90401

Given its only a few weeks away, and we are about 6000 off, does anyone think we'll get close?? ticker only seems to be increasing by about 100 a day. tho rnd 1 is usually a good selling place as well as the family day?

Wonder if the club will be ringing ppl up during this time, dont see how they will get there otherwise, also what ever happened to us getting ahold of the MCC database, isnt there 30,000 odd demons there who we could be trying to sign?

http://www.melbournefc.com.au/tabid/7415/default.aspx?newsid=90401

Given its only a few weeks away, and we are about 6000 off, does anyone think we'll get close?? ticker only seems to be increasing by about 100 a day. tho rnd 1 is usually a good selling place as well as the family day?

Wonder if the club will be ringing ppl up during this time, dont see how they will get there otherwise, also what ever happened to us getting ahold of the MCC database, isnt there 30,000 odd demons there who we could be trying to sign?

would love to see us go beyond 28,000 and reach 32,000+ by closing

http://www.melbournefc.com.au/tabid/7415/default.aspx?newsid=90401

Given its only a few weeks away, and we are about 6000 off, does anyone think we'll get close?? ticker only seems to be increasing by about 100 a day. tho rnd 1 is usually a good selling place as well as the family day?

Wonder if the club will be ringing ppl up during this time, dont see how they will get there otherwise, also what ever happened to us getting ahold of the MCC database, isnt there 30,000 odd demons there who we could be trying to sign?

I am the poster that stated openly that the match v's Fremantle was critical to our membership.We then needed to get 500 per week and in the last 3 weeks we have only got roughly 800 in total.Although many other posters claimed that NAB Cup matches were only practice matches and they didn't count.I disagree strongly. Our membership was growing very strongly before our demise match against Fremantle and we badly lost momentum. On top of this we have lost Morton,LJ & Bell to long term injury leaving a lot of people feeling we are basically no hopers this year. I disagree strongly with this thought however this weeks match against West Coast could be very telling to see if we can regain focus and drive to match our 31509 of last year and our budgeted amount of 31000. Our 30000 by our first match is a pipe dream. We may get to 27500 by 1st match if we are very lucky and win Saturday.

I am the poster that stated openly that the match v's Fremantle was critical to our membership.We then needed to get 500 per week and in the last 3 weeks we have only got roughly 800 in total.Although many other posters claimed that NAB Cup matches were only practice matches and they didn't count.I disagree strongly. Our membership was growing very strongly before our demise match against Fremantle and we badly lost momentum. On top of this we have lost Morton,LJ & Bell to long term injury leaving a lot of people feeling we are basically no hopers this year. I disagree strongly with this thought however this weeks match against West Coast could be very telling to see if we can regain focus and drive to match our 31509 of last year and our budgeted amount of 31000. Our 30000 by our first match is a pipe dream. We may get to 27500 by 1st match if we are very lucky and win Saturday.

We are one Big Win away from a whole heap of people becoming members. i'm not too worried by it

A win against the Wet Coke tomorrow will help, but a nice sunny Round one day will get a crowd to the 'G.

A lot of people will be there to see Scully & Trengove for the first time if they play.

If you are a struggling Club & you play carp football in the pre season it will clearly keep fence sitting members away from signing up.

We were well ahead of Footscray in memberships but they have gone way past us because they have shown good form in the NAB Cup.

If you are a struggling Club & you play carp football in the pre season it will clearly keep fence sitting members away from signing up.

We were well ahead of Footscray in memberships but they have gone way past us because they have shown good form in the NAB Cup.

You think it might have something to do with them obviously being finals bound this year and we clearly aren't..?

Footscray supporters were always going to sign up like this as the season got closer.

Our fans have been even more committed, signing up in better numbers than a top4 team early in the piece before any form was shown.

Once we are clearly finals bound our supporters will do the same, but in even better numbers.

I can't believe how often you can smack something in some people's faces, yet they still don't even notice...

I am the poster that stated openly that the match v's Fremantle was critical to our membership.We then needed to get 500 per week and in the last 3 weeks we have only got roughly 800 in total.Although many other posters claimed that NAB Cup matches were only practice matches and they didn't count.I disagree strongly. Our membership was growing very strongly before our demise match against Fremantle and we badly lost momentum. On top of this we have lost Morton,LJ & Bell to long term injury leaving a lot of people feeling we are basically no hopers this year. I disagree strongly with this thought however this weeks match against West Coast could be very telling to see if we can regain focus and drive to match our 31509 of last year and our budgeted amount of 31000. Our 30000 by our first match is a pipe dream. We may get to 27500 by 1st match if we are very lucky and win Saturday.

I think a lot of people are in my position. Although I have been an MCC member for some 40 odd years I usuually take out full Red Legs memberships for each of my wife and three grown up children. I see it as sort of a donation as well as participation in the club. i haven't had any interaction with the club so far this year, but will certainly be there against the Hawks where I plan to purchase my memberships. I think a lot of people are in the same boat. We will get to the 31000 target by about 3rd round, or even possibly at the Collingwood game particularly if we do well or beat the Hawks in round 1. The AFL have in a sense done us a favour by scheduling our first Collingwood match this early. It inevitably creates a lot of publicity and those members who remember the traditional clashes are highly motivated by the potential for victory over the traditional enemy.

Having said the above, and although I have posted here recently that I think the MFC seems to becoming a very well run organisation, I do think it show considerable lack of imagination and ambition in building a membership base. Having had a long corporate career in senior marketing and executive management roles, I believe with the right brand positioning and a clear understanding of our strategic strengths I see no reason why we should no be shooting initially for 50,000 members, and then within 5 years 100,000. It requires is some innovative thinking and a much stronger and creative focus on our strengths. We have a long way to go in this rea, but we have many unique strengths which we are not currently taking advantage of.

I dont know if anyone has seen the latest membership numbers, but Hawthorn are a good example of what can be done. 20 years ago the Hawks had one of the lowest membership bases in the AFL. Now they expect regularly to be above 50000, and vie for the largest victorian based club membership with Collingwood. That didn't happen by accident, and we have many more natural advantages than them. It can be done, and we can do it.

There are also other areas of income we fail to exploit. The only club that does not accept the AFL standard formula website is Essendon. They have their own highly sophisticated web presence, and happen to make between $700k and $800k per annum out of it. We would be lucky to make half that.

Edited March 12, 201015 yr by 2014-Flag

2014 - I agree, I still haven't bought any of the 5 memberships I purchased last year...given the club a [censored] load more money but its not in the membership numbers... saying this I will and so will heaps of others...

I would of bought them at the Essendon game maybe even tomorrow but if I'm rocking up late as usual then I would rather watch the game as the membership is a donation since I sit in the MCC... and it will be included in the final tally anyway.

Although I agree we have the potential to increase our membership greatly, the club has a lot of hurdles mainly becoming professional in the football department/world... At the DA function DB chatted about last preseason where the players watched the vision of the opposition team... They were at Victoria Park in an old change room with a projector on a rubbish bin playing against a white wall... The players sat on the floor and thats how the meeting was conducting not much chop for a professional sporting organisation in the no 1 sport in OZ.... DB stated CC takes lots of photos saying people are going to need to see the [censored] we came from.... That is slowly changing with Casey and the bubble dome and once that is fixed the club can turn its attention to increase membership to crazy levels

I think a lot of people are in my position. Although I have been an MCC member for some 40 odd years I usuually take out full Red Legs memberships for each of my wife and three grown up children. I see it as sort of a donation as well as participation in the club. i haven't had any interaction with the club so far this year, but will certainly be there against the Hawks where I plan to purchase my memberships. I think a lot of people are in the same boat. We will get to the 31000 target by about 3rd round, or even possibly at the Collingwood game particularly if we do well or beat the Hawks in round 1. The AFL have in a sense done us a favour by scheduling our first Collingwood match this early. It inevitably creates a lot of publicity and those members who remember the traditional clashes are highly motivated by the potential for victory over the traditional enemy.

Having said the above, and although I have posted here recently that I think the MFC seems to becoming a very well run organisation, I do think it show considerable lack of imagination and ambition in building a membership base. Having had a long corporate career in senior marketing and executive management roles, I believe with the right brand positioning and a clear understanding of our strategic strengths I see no reason why we should no be shooting initially for 50,000 members, and then within 5 years 100,000. It requires is some innovative thinking and a much stronger and creative focus on our strengths. We have a long way to go in this rea, but we have many unique strengths which we are not currently taking advantage of.

I dont know if anyone has seen the latest membership numbers, but Hawthorn are a good example of what can be done. 20 years ago the Hawks had one of the lowest membership bases in the AFL. Now they expect regularly to be above 50000, and vie for the largest victorian based club membership with Collingwood. That didn't happen by accident, and we have many more natural advantages than them. It can be done, and we can do it.

There are also other areas of income we fail to exploit. The only club that does not accept the AFL standard formula website is Essendon. They have their own highly sophisticated web presence, and happen to make between $700k and $800k per annum out of it. We would be lucky to make half that.

MFC doesn't have 3 game memberships!!!!! Hopefully we can exploit Darwin like the Hawks have done with Tasmania.

so predictions? howmany do u think we will get by round 1, they say 30k i rekon 26.5k, then maybe 2-k on match day at rnd 1, so 28.5k after rnd 1, a win will see 30k in rnd 2 hopefully

MFC doesn't have 3 game memberships!!!!! Hopefully we can exploit Darwin like the Hawks have done with Tasmania.

Good point - at least 7,000 of those memberships are Tassie - although I have seen estimates as high as 12,000 since the Launceston games are sell outs and if anyone, not just Hawk fans, wants to get in they have to sign up to be sure of seeing the game.

The estimate of 30,000 Dees among MCC members is a tad high - it's more like 20-25,000 these days. The big membership expansion to finance the new stand diluted our proportion but where I think our early strong growth came from this year was in the mailouts to MCC members. It's very easy to sign up MCC members these days if they tick the right boxes and that's what I think happened.

We'll get a growth spurt next three weeks.

I think a lot of people are in my position. Although I have been an MCC member for some 40 odd years I usuually take out full Red Legs memberships for each of my wife and three grown up children. I see it as sort of a donation as well as participation in the club. i haven't had any interaction with the club so far this year, but will certainly be there against the Hawks where I plan to purchase my memberships. I think a lot of people are in the same boat. We will get to the 31000 target by about 3rd round, or even possibly at the Collingwood game particularly if we do well or beat the Hawks in round 1. The AFL have in a sense done us a favour by scheduling our first Collingwood match this early. It inevitably creates a lot of publicity and those members who remember the traditional clashes are highly motivated by the potential for victory over the traditional enemy.

Having said the above, and although I have posted here recently that I think the MFC seems to becoming a very well run organisation, I do think it show considerable lack of imagination and ambition in building a membership base. Having had a long corporate career in senior marketing and executive management roles, I believe with the right brand positioning and a clear understanding of our strategic strengths I see no reason why we should no be shooting initially for 50,000 members, and then within 5 years 100,000. It requires is some innovative thinking and a much stronger and creative focus on our strengths. We have a long way to go in this rea, but we have many unique strengths which we are not currently taking advantage of.

I dont know if anyone has seen the latest membership numbers, but Hawthorn are a good example of what can be done. 20 years ago the Hawks had one of the lowest membership bases in the AFL. Now they expect regularly to be above 50000, and vie for the largest victorian based club membership with Collingwood. That didn't happen by accident, and we have many more natural advantages than them. It can be done, and we can do it.

There are also other areas of income we fail to exploit. The only club that does not accept the AFL standard formula website is Essendon. They have their own highly sophisticated web presence, and happen to make between $700k and $800k per annum out of it. We would be lucky to make half that.

Great optimistic post-good on ya. Gee I would love to think you were right and I was wrong.And I do support a few things you say such like you and I- we both buy at similar times..therefore many will buy later.We also probably have the AFL support group ticket holders to come in yet..but I still think 30k by Rd 1 is ridiculously over the top. I do also think 31500 is a final tall order.However if Roost it is right and we win 3 out of the first six then 35000 may become a reality. Performance will be a key , no doubt. Your point on the website re other revenue is very interesting.My understanding is we only obtain 250k from revenue re our website.Excellent reading 2014-Flag,and I hope your right with that.

Edited March 12, 201015 yr by jayceebee31

Just under 6000 still to sell.

At least there are 24,000 loyal demon supporters.

The number should jump up a little in the next couple of days. Usually takes a couple of days to process all the sign-ups from the 'live events' like Family Day & Rnd 1.

30K was always going to be a bit of a reach for Rnd 1, but I can assure you that isn't a budgeted goal, it's a reach target. 30K is a milestone number that works well with a promotion, whilst it's obviously more realistic, there's not much pizzazz in pumping up "Let's get 27 452 members by Rnd 1"

30K was always going to be a bit of a reach for Rnd 1, but I can assure you that isn't a budgeted goal, it's a reach target. 30K is a milestone number that works well with a promotion

^ This.

Plenty of people won't bother signing up until they go to a game, and I'm sure many aren't even thinking about it yet, given there are still a couple of weeks to go until the start of the season.

Only 250+ signed up over the weekend.

That's probably a little below expectations.

Just a reminder the club passed the 30,000 mark on 29th April 2009 last year.

Currently this years tally at 15th March, is 24,254.

As already mentioned the figure would be more a reach target (30K by Round 1).

Are we still up on this time last year?

March 18th last year we were on 24,000 ish.

We hit 25,000 on March 23rd.

We didn't reach 30,000 until April 29 - Round 6

Just a reminder the club passed the 30,000 mark on 29th April 2009 last year.

Currently this years tally at 15th March, is 24,254.

As already mentioned the figure would be more a reach target (30K by Round 1).

can u stop saying "reach" - it's "stretch"

I reckon a preseason win would have helped. Now we have no chance of reaching that number by Rnd 1. Lets just hope our overall tally is an improvement on last year.

Most sensible MFC supportrs will have heard and realise the need for PATIENCE with such a young group of talented footballers. Membership numbers have steadily grown as the members have seen the Committee undertaken a number of on and off field initiatives to get MFC back on the right track.

As a number of posters have said numbers will swell when we have the main H&A numbers coming through. A couple of wins will be nice but given the where the list is at with injuries, this may be more of a stretch than getting 30K members by rd 1.

And if we dont have 30k members by rd 1? The end of the world is nigh. Growing membership is important but we are getting steamed up over an ambitious metric.

Where is that storm in a teacup picture when you need it?

Just a reminder the club passed the 30,000 mark on 29th April 2009 last year.

Currently this years tally at 15th March, is 24,254.

As already mentioned the figure would be more a reach target (30K by Round 1).

HT- Whilst your info is correct- the target set by Jimma & the MFC is 30000 by round 1- that is FACT.Not withstanding we may reach the figure sometime after that,maybe not all or even record the greatest membership being over 31509 by memory by 30th June 2010. I strongly doubt we will reach any of these however I have been wrong before- I hope again with this one

HT- Whilst your info is correct- the target set by Jimma & the MFC is 30000 by round 1- that is FACT.Not withstanding we may reach the figure sometime after that,maybe not all or even record the greatest membership being over 31509 by memory by 30th June 2010. I strongly doubt we will reach any of these however I have been wrong before- I hope again with this one

Of course it was fact. There is nothing wrong with setting goals or targets. It's nothing to hold them to account I believe, if 30,000 is not reached by Round 1. It could be Round 3 or 4 ?

Last year it took until Round 6. (late april)

Where is that storm in a teacup picture when you need it?

Right here: