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MFC supporter's group to host event at male-only club

Mickey
Mickey
in Melbourne Demons

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It was all organised by a Social media Supporter Group. Not by the MFC. ABC just needed to fill their quota. 

Probably a cashed up group of supporters whom of which invited Gary Pert, Adam Yse, Gary Lyon. 

I'm outraged, where was my invite?!

Meh.

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    I’ll listen to the views of our female members (and happy to be corrected) but I doubt if many of them are losing too much sleep because they can’t join a musty old boys club. Trust me ladies, you're not missing anything. Like plenty of similar clubs their membership is aging and dwindling. Let nature take its course.

    I think there are more pressing problems to deal with such as building our home base and getting our team to win footy matches.

    Edited by Better days ahead

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    9 hours ago, The heart beats true said:

    I’m guessing you’re not a woman and therefore unable to attend this event to hear senior officials from the club speak?

    Its not hyperbole. It’s an outdated, inappropriate venue. Are you really trying to defend the decision to hold this event at a club like this? 

    i'm not defending an essentially social club having a no women policy and i wouldn't become a member if my wife couldn't be a member.

    but, it doesn't worry me one iota if it exists. people have a choice to congregate with whoever they like. the coterie club are presumably just booking it because it best fits its purpose as a venue and its membership is inconsequential except for those who are always jumping at shadows and desperate to virtue signal

    get a life, people

    p.s. congratulations, you guessed correctly 

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    25 minutes ago, Better days ahead said:

    I’ll listen to the views of our female members (and happy to be corrected) but I doubt if many of them are losing too much sleep because they can’t join a musty old boys club. Trust me ladies, you're not missing anything. Like plenty of similar clubs their membership is aging and dwindling. Let nature take its course.

    I think there are more pressing problems to deal with such as building our home base and getting our team to win footy matches.

    I don't think it's about the club itself, or that it exists. Some people might be upset about the membership thing there, but that doesn't seem to be the issue.

    I believe the issue is the MFC's official involvement in a function at a place with such rules. This is the club that initially championed the AFLW, a club that a week or so ago was patting itself on the back over its title change to president under the apparent guise of being more inclusive; and a club with some of the finest female football ambassadors in the land; who would not be able to attend this function unless they were given permission to do so by a man.

    The Australian Club can do whatever they want whether we agree or not, but the MFC aligning itself with a venue with the rules it has is a massive hypocrisy when looking at how its tried to position itself from a brand/values perspective in recent times.

    For mine, just another example at how much we've lacked proper direction since Bartlett has put himself front and centre.

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    27 minutes ago, daisycutter said:

    ...its membership is inconsequential except for those who are always jumping at shadows and desperate to virtue signal

    Ok, gotcha. Me thinking it’s outdated and offensive is virtue signalling - but not the organisation that has spent its 150 year history, and its considerable financial means, LITERALLY signally to society that is doesn’t value women.

    I think they might have me covered on that one.

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    The Demons season launch is not the same thing "2020 Coterie Season Launch Dinner." Yes, 2020. The 2021 brochure is not on the Demons website.

    Previous Demon season launches have been at Crown, so it would be difficult to fit a Crown crowd into an Australian Club room, even in these Covid-straightened times.

    The Australian Club has hosted several Demons functions that I am aware of (and, for the record, have been invited to), and it is totally within their rights to host Coterie events which invite Demon personnel to speak.

    But it is nigh-on impossible to believe the Demons would have their own season launch at a restricted club.

    Is it possible that Zalika Rizmal, the ABC reporter, has confused the Melbourne Football Club season launch with the 2020 Coterie season launch dinner?

    And as for "The event, promoted on the group's social media page, is being held on March 9, the day after International Women's Day" - that is just journalistic garnish.

    Edited by Tony Tea
    Sorted out first paragraph.

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    The timing of this is shocking and probably most of the reason it has become headline news, rather than an overlooked footnote in the AFL clubland social callendar.  That doesn't change the fact that it's dumb and poor/weak leadership for club officials to accept the invite in the first place. 

    That the likes of Pert and Bartlett didn't know of the venue organization's exclusive male only policy beggars belief.  Smart and strong leaders would have politely refused the invite unless an alternate venue was offered on the grounds that it went against the clubs values.  Forget the public perception issue, this kind of double standard is corrosive to club culture.

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    3 minutes ago, Tony Tea said:

    The ABC report says that the event is "its season launch" which is ambiguous enough to imply that it is the Demons' Season Launch, when in fact the Coterie brochure refers to the "Coterie Season Launch Dinner".

    Previous Demon season launches have been at Crown, so it would be difficult to fit a Crown crowd into an Australian Club room, even in these Covid-straightened times.

    The Australian Club has hosted several Demons functions that I am aware of (and, for the record, have been invited to), and it is totally within their rights to host Coterie events which invite Demon personnel to speak.

    But it is nigh-on impossible to believe the Demons would have their own season launch at a restricted club.

    Is it possible that Zalika Rizmal, the ABC reporter, has confused the Melbourne Football Club season launch with the Coterie season launch dinner?

    And as for "The event, promoted on the group's social media page, is being held on March 9, the day after International Women's Day" - that is just journalistic garnish.

    No, that's not what it says. Not sure if you misread or you're trying to deliberately mislead here.

    Literally the first line of the article:

    "A group closely affiliated with Melbourne Football Club is planning its season launch event at one of the country's oldest male-only members clubs, the Australian Club in Melbourne."

    Not ambiguous at all.

     

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    The Australian club is a male member only but allows women guests am I right??

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    1 minute ago, Lord Nev said:

    Not ambiguous at all.

    Actually, that's a fair call. I just had a re-read.

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    As an asides, I don't know why exclusive clubs like this are allowed to own such generic broad titles like "The Australian Club" in the first place and proport to represent a broader  base of people than their rules allow.  A bit like the Australian Family Association which proports to be a secular non partisan organisation, but is really a front for conservative Christian values to be represented as more mainstream societal best practice.

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    2 hours ago, Deeman said:

    I’m outraged and not just on behalf of women who are excluded from this particular venue, but what about the other 55 genders?

    Enough is enough!

    Last time I googled it there were 63 genders. Wait until restaurants and football stadiums have to provide toilet facilities for each offical gender. Perhaps the next outrage will be a demand for club committees/boards to have equal representation. ?

    Edited by CBDees

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    33 minutes ago, Rodney (Balls) Grinter said:

    As an asides, I don't know why exclusive clubs like this are allowed to own such generic broad titles like "The Australian Club" in the first place and proport to represent a broader  base of people than their rules allow.  A bit like the Australian Family Association which proports to be a secular non partisan organisation, but is really a front for conservative Christian values to be represented as more mainstream societal best practice.

    I don’t know why the Melbourne Football Club is able to own its title when there are another nine clubs in the Greater Metropolitan area? ?

    p.s. the MFC has members/supporters of both genders and across the social spectrum in every State and Territory, even overseas).

    Edited by CBDees

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    30 minutes ago, Lord Nev said:

    No, that's not what it says. Not sure if you misread or you're trying to deliberately mislead here.

    ILiterally the first line of the article:

    "A group closely affiliated with Melbourne Football Club is planning its season launch event at one of the country's oldest male-only members clubs, the Australian Club in Melbourne."

    Not ambiguous at all.

     

    What is it about the words ‘closely affiliated with’ that you fail to grasp? ?

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    3 minutes ago, CBDees said:

    What is it about the words ‘closely affiliated with’ that you fail to grasp? ?

    Errrrr nothing.

    Tony Tea originally said the article was insinuating it was the club, I pointed out the first line of the article made it clear it wasn't.

    Not sure the grasping failure is anywhere but in your own mind mate.

    Edited by Lord Nev

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    2 minutes ago, Lord Nev said:

    Errrrr nothing.

    Tony Tea originally said the article was insinuating it was the club, I pointed out the first line of the article made it clear it wasn't.

    Not sure the grasping failure is anywhere but in your own mind mate.

    Sorry LN. I suspect that we are on the same page. Coterie and supporter groups are not the MFC. (I attended a private luncheon (hosted at a male-only club) where the guest speaker was Noel McMahon, last Premiership captain, an inspiring speaker and the venue was superior to a noisy pub).

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    48 minutes ago, Rodney (Balls) Grinter said:

    Smart and strong leaders would have politely refused the invite unless an alternate venue was offered on the grounds that it went against the clubs values.  Forget the public perception issue, this kind of double standard is corrosive to club culture.

    You're right with this.

    I'm guilty in my previous posts about of implying reputational risk is the key issue.

    But as you say the key issues are club culture and club valued.

    The culture of any organisation is set by the leaders. And here we have the two most senior people in tbe org endorsing the choice of venue.

    Forget the message to fans, what message send to staff and the all players?

    Does anyone seriously think Peggy O'Neil and Brendan gale would accept such an invite?

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    2 minutes ago, CBDees said:

    Sorry LN. I suspect that we are on the same page. Coterie and supporter groups are not the MFC. (I attended a private luncheon (hosted at a male-only club) where the guest speaker was Noel McMahon, last Premiership captain, an inspiring speaker and the venue was superior to a noisy pub).

    Yes I am aware of that. It's the MFC official involvement that is my concern, not the function itself.

     

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    19 minutes ago, CBDees said:

    I don’t know why the Melbourne Football Club is able to own its title when there are another nine clubs in the Greater Metropolitan area? ?

    Yeah, I did think of that as I was writing ;-) .

    ...but thanks for pointing it out.

    Along with the right to free speach is the right to be a hypocrite.

    There are alway shades of grey.  I would suggest that the Melbourne Football Club doesn't use it's name in quite the same influence peddling way as the others I mentioned.  The main grip I have with the Australian Family Association is the way they are always get their name dropped into news bulletins without qualification by news readers that are either lazy or have an agenda.

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    2 minutes ago, binman said:

    You're right with this.

    I'm guilty in my previous posts about of implying reputational risk is the key issue.

    But as you say the key issues are club culture and club valued.

    The culture of any organisation is set by the leaders. And here we have the two most senior people in tbe org endorsing the choice of venue.

    Forget the message to fans, what message send to staff and the all players?

    Does anyone seriously think Peggy O'Neil and Brendan gale would accept such an invite?

    I am sure that Peggy O’Neill would be more than happy to speak with any group of loyal supporters.

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    1 minute ago, CBDees said:

    I am sure that Peggy O’Neill would be more than happy to speak with any group of loyal supporters.

    At the Australia club? [censored]

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    29 minutes ago, CBDees said:

    I don’t know why the Melbourne Football Club is able to own its title when there are another nine clubs in the Greater Metropolitan area? ?

    p.s. the MFC has members/supporters of both genders and across the social spectrum in every State and Territory, even overseas).

    and i suppose there would be quite a few australians grossly offended by the cultural appropriation of "A" in AFL

    lol.....first world problems

    think i'll cheer myself by going out and burning all my dr seuss books......no wait a moment that would be climatically irresponsible releasing all that carbon. looks like i'll have to dig a deep hole to sequester all that poison.

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    Some of you dweebs must seriously struggle to get out of bed every morning with all of this oppression to deal with.

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    8 minutes ago, faultydet said:

    Some of you dweebs must seriously struggle to get out of bed every morning with all of this oppression to deal with.

    You are right with that, don't know how they manage to function at all.

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