Hello fellow Demonlanders,

I received this email from my brother. It contains some interesting points that I thought I'd share.

Last night on invitation I attended and signed up to a Melbourne Future Fund group (which sponsors Jack Watts, Jack Grimes, Colin Garland & Aussie Wonaeamirri).

The function was their season launch event – with Grimes, Garland and Wonaeamirri there as guest speakers, along with Chris Connolly, David Neitz, Peter Spargo and Don McLardy also floating through the function and speaking.

Some interesting notes that came up during the function:

• Don McLardy said that they had spoken to both Tom Scully directly and his manager, with both saying they had not even spoken to GWS. Their approach has been to accept them on their word and to support him all the way through the year. He said that everything going on about the issue was "absolute crap" and that Scully didn't deserve it;

• Chris Connolly took responsibility for the way in which James McDonald was moved on last year. He said whilst they had spoken to him at the end of 2009 about the possibility that 2010 might be his last year, they had intended to meet with him in the middle of the year and plan it out, however with the hamstring injury that he sustained, they ended up holding off to let him focus on getting right/etc and it ended up being a surprise to McDonald and it played out really poorly. Chris was nearly emotional in his regret for the way it played out and spoke about their determination to eventually get him back to the club in some role (in management or coaching). They’re still in regular contact with him;

• Chris and Aussie said Kelvin Lawrence was so unbelievably homesick when he arrived that they can’t believe he’s still there. They credit that to an indigenous camp that they held with all the indigenous guys at Melbourne which helped him realise that he had a 'family' over here – they are a really tight group (Davey/Jurrah/Aussie/Bennell/Jetta/Evans/Lawrence);

• Peter Spargo said they had written down the budget by $500k after the draw – saying it was an excellent draw from the football department’s perspective, but a disaster from a commercial perspective (corporate marketing);

• Expect both Sam Blease and Luke Tapscott to play senior footy towards the middle of the year (as both have had a horrendous run with injury) – Grimes also said that Tapscott is almost the best kick at the club and his body was made for senior footy.

Cheers.

Thanks for the update. Always eager to hear news.

I went along too, we had a raffle for a meat tray, and just as Connolly was about to draw the raffle he changed the meat tray prize to acting as an assistant coach on Thursday night (he needed to get approval from the AFL first), I cursed as I got 2nd prize - signed Garland jumper (no offense to Garland, I just would have loved the first prize).

Spoke to Spargo about the draw being good for football but not so much financially, I asked if making the finals would clear the $500,000, he smiled and said it certainly would. He also mentioned the only reason St Kilda made a profit last year was due to making the 2 grand finals.

This is my 3rd year involved with the future fund, you get quite a good insight to the club, each year kicks off with a function like this. Last years end of season function was a tour of AAMI park

I've found the functions are getting better and better as time goes on.

I threw 5 or so posts on this in the Tom Scully thread.

If anyone is interested you'll have to search a little bit for them.

Roughly page 21 or something.

What's a quick summary of the details cost etc?

  On 21/02/2011 at 07:39, Daz said:

What's a quick summary of the details cost etc?

$160.00

http://www.matesofmelbourne.com.au/component/groupsearch/?group_id=1

They have a season launch and other functions throughout the year. You get access to some unlisted youtube videos before the game going through some tactics etc. All the people I joined the group with have been to breakfast with Schwabby at the CEO breakfasts, heaps of other prize draws, meat raffles, bar tabs, food - good value imo.

Good group of people all passionate about the dees.

Great chance to chat with Grimesy, Col, Wattsy and Wonna our sponsoered players.

We had a good chat to Aussie at the function last week and he looks fitter than I've ever seen him to be honest. If he can stay on the park he's in for a belter of a year. When we first met Wonna at our first function a few years ago he was very nervous and hardly spoke but now it's hard to shut him up. Really great to see.

Really recommend joining if you're youngish (<40).

Great thanks think i looked at it a few years back! Yeah I'm 31 don't have alot of Melbourne supporting mates so would be good to chat with other passionate supporters! If I can find someone to join up with me (as I'm a few hours from the city) I'm in

It's good fun and a lot of really good people involved.

I just couldn't really justify the cost for a couple of functions a year, maybe when I save up a bit.

Mallee Bull- thanks for the insight and report of the night.

Ok, it was page 30 of the Scully to GWS thread.

Anyway, these are the posts:

  Quote

No Future Fund event tonight, for you 45?

Chris Connolly, Peter Spargo & Don McLardy addressed the Scully situation, among other things.

The club has spoken to both Scully and his management.

Tom is very very happy at the club and just wants to concentrate on his footy.

Negotiations have been put off until the conclusion of the season, at the request of his management so the new tv deal can be factored in.

Neither Tom or his management have had any discussions with GWS at this stage.

They stressed that it's not just about Tom, but all of our talented you kids.

We have a very good group and the club is confident they will all want to stay with their mates for a long period of success.

  Quote

Could probably do with it's own thread, but I can't be bothered (and this one needs new legs).

We're a few thousand members ahead of where we were last year (but this forum seems to be onto that already).

The board budgeted for 35k members this year, but felt we needed to aim higher after reaching that last year and due to our likely further lift in performance.

The draw is competitively very very good, but commercially very very tough.

We need to keep getting people through the gates & all MCC/MFC members should be entering with their MFC membership, then leaving and going back in through the MCC entry.

Sammy Blease looking good and his body is right, but it has probably taken longer for him to be mentally over the injury.

Should have a good year.

Aussie has a different program sorted out for him by Joel Hocking and the coaches, to get him up to speed after missing training due to his father's funeral, etc.

He should be up to speed in 2-3 weeks, maybe 4 at most.

Jordie McKenzie and Col Garland came up with the nickname Goodtimes Grimes, because they reckon he is so serious.

Grimes and Garland had a good laugh about it and you can see there is plenty of healthy banter between the boys.

Jurrah's haircut has been a big talking point, with Daniel Motlop & Jamie Bennell both texting Aussie telling him to check out his hair when be sees him.

Aussie got roped into collecting Jurrah & Bennell from the airport after they came back from being with the indigenous all-stars.

Jurrah was wearing a hat and Aussie had to whip it off to get a good look.

I think he said Jurrah got the original haircut from his cousin a couple of years ago, but the current cut is from a hairdresser in Sydney.

Aussie is great to listen to as he tells stories.

And Aussie also told of Kelvin Lawrence after a few weeks being incredibly homesick & thinking about chucking it in to go back to WA.

He was getting really down & told Ian Flack and Aussie, so Aussie & the other brothers took him out for dinner and made a concerted effort to get around him.

Told him that the year goes pretty quick once the footy starts and suddenly the season is over & you get to go back home for a while.

Apparently since then Kel is really happy with his decision to stay.

That's all I can remember.

Obviously a lot of that is paraphrased.

  Quote

Tom MacDonald and Troy Davis are about the same size & same hair colour so a few of the guys reckon they are like twins.

Davo has missed a bit of time with illness but should be back up to speed soon.

Michael Evans was a steal.

  Quote

Lucas Cook moves and plays a lot like Jack Watts.

Has shown a lot so far.

Jeremy Howe has a bit more size to him, being a bit older than the other draftees and should be sitting on people's heads in no time.

  Quote

Junior - CC personally took a lot of credit for the poor handling of that situation.

In trying to do it the "right" way, by giving him a send-off match and planning it ahead, they probably did it the "wrong" way.

At the time it hadn't properly sunk into McDonald that it was probably his last season, and they hadn't done enough to prepare him for that eventuality.

They said something about his hamstring, but I didn't catch it.

He was offered a role at the club and they were pretty keen to keep him there, but he wanted to get away from football for a while.

He's involved in a meat company (?) that he wants to spend some time working on as well as time with family.

The mentor role with GWS is minor.

They're very confident Junior will be back at the club in some sort of capacity in the next few years.

Also: leading on from Lucas Cook having great disposal.

CC was saying that kicking a clean disposal is something we have concentrated on in terms of recruiting.

As he put it "we have tried to build a critical mass of good kicks, and when you have a critical mass, that is what you become."

Well put Chris.

Anyway, he went on to say that our assistant coaches coming in from other clubs, especially Brian Royal from St Kilda and Viney from Hawthorn and Adelaide, have said that they are very impressed with our kicking program and it is the best they have seen in the AFL.