Constitutional Review

[Spaghetti 264]

2 hours ago, Ugottobekidding said:

Your data is given to sponsors 

…with our CONSENT! How is this difficult to understand?

[DeeSpencer 25,710]

2 hours ago, Ugottobekidding said:

So it's about her trying to grab a bit longer in power.

No, both sides are proposing term limits be instituted, 3 terms for directors. The reporting was a little off, Deemocracy are saying 1 extra term for the President, the board are saying a maximum of 2 extra terms.

They actually aren’t very far apart on this issue, but the boards proposal is more practical in my opinion. I’d hate to boot out a president who has come in to the job late and is doing a good job after 3-4 years when they could stay for 7. Again, it’s only a limit, doesn’t guarantee they stay the full period.

[Cyclops 511]

8 hours ago, Its Time for Another said:

Whatever you think the semantics are the Club was legally obliged not to guess but to spend tens of thousands defending it. Clearly as soon as emails go out a precedent has been created and that is what Mr Lawrence is creating by his action.  

As you know it's not true that candidates can't contact members. All candidates statements are sent out to members as part of the election process. I don't have a problem with the President promoting candidates they know have passed through a rigorous vetting process and offer skills that the Board assesses it needs rather than candidates that won't provide that. 

Not sure what your point is about Mr Lawrence's 22%, if that's what it was. He put his case and got flogged in the election. From memory I looked at his credentials and didn't think he offered anything that would have made me vote for him over the other candidates. He can still put his case at the meeting and try to stop the amendments going through but I hope and pray most of his amendments don't get up for the reasons previously stated. 

As always yourr opinion is appreciated. I must correct myself though. Mr Lawrence achieved 47% and 30% of votes respectively in the last two elections.

Your opinion seems to stem greatly from the method that Mr Lawrence is using. It is the method used by the club that I consider needs scrutiny. The club was asked to send emails 3 weeks ago thus avoiding lists of members, snail mail and emails. The club refused. This was mentioned at the hearing 

[ManDee 7,148]

All this grief about sharing data! Surely the club could facilitate sending emails on behalf of people like Lawrence. No need to share the data. Have an independent body check the correspondence for legality first (At the cost of the sender). Then the club sends it out clearly stating the situation.

Edited October 20, 2022 by ManDee
Typo

[Dr. Gonzo 24,219]

14 hours ago, Roger Mellie said:

With the changes to the constitution, amongst other things, such as strong corporate governance and evolution with the times, I'm looking for an all encompassing sense of fairness. I'm just not seeing this in all the proposed changes.

I think it's thoroughly reasonable for members to scrutinise the club's proposal. I wouldn't mind comparing other club's constitutions to see where we sit in the scheme of things too.

Knock yourself out

http://www.footyindustry.com/?page_id=4530

[Graeme Yeats' Mullet 6,775]

3 hours ago, DeeSpencer said:

No, both sides are proposing term limits be instituted, 3 terms for directors. The reporting was a little off, Deemocracy are saying 1 extra term for the President, the board are saying a maximum of 2 extra terms.

They actually aren’t very far apart on this issue, but the boards proposal is more practical in my opinion. I’d hate to boot out a president who has come in to the job late and is doing a good job after 3-4 years when they could stay for 7. Again, it’s only a limit, doesn’t guarantee they stay the full period.

The extra time for President seems reasonable

Clearly this is a large part of the impetus for changing the constitution now rather than waiting, in that Roffey is doing a pretty good job and there's a desire for her to stay. Can't see that alone would cause much issue for anyone

Makes me question further why there would be a desire to roll in contentious nominations proposed changes and cloud this pretty reasonable and time sensitive proposed change 

[chookrat 4,250]

I received the Deemocracy letter in the mail today and I'm trying to work out why Peter Lawrence has sent a letter to every member highlighting that our President and 3 directors are being sued by a former President.  This attempt to discredit our board should be seen for what it is, a move against our board, and the trivial constitution changes make alot more sense when viewed from this perspective.

I don't like what Peter Lawrence is doing and I also said at the time when our former President sent out a letter urging members to vote for the boards nomination instead of Peter Lawrence, I felt our President was overstepping the mark.

[Spaghetti 264]

44 minutes ago, chookrat said:

I received the Deemocracy letter in the mail today and I'm trying to work out why Peter Lawrence has sent a letter to every member highlighting that our President and 3 directors are being sued by a former President.  This attempt to discredit our board should be seen for what it is, a move against our board, and the trivial constitution changes make alot more sense when viewed from this perspective.

Does his letter actually say this? I suspect my letter went to a PO Box which I rarely check.

If so, that’s disgraceful. People like him should be kept as far away from the MFC board as possible. We have had decades of ego driven men causing dissent and division on our board. We are as stable and successful as we’ve been for a very long time. People like him should [censored] off.

[chookrat 4,250]

8 minutes ago, Spaghetti said:

Does his letter actually say this? I suspect my letter went to a PO Box which I rarely check.

If so, that’s disgraceful. People like him should be kept as far away from the MFC board as possible. We have had decades of ego driven men causing dissent and division on our board. We are as stable and successful as we’ve been for a very long time. People like him should [censored] off.

Spaghetti here is a photo of the what was in the letter.

[roy11 3,853]

1 hour ago, Spaghetti said:

Does his letter actually say this? I suspect my letter went to a PO Box which I rarely check.

If so, that’s disgraceful. People like him should be kept as far away from the MFC board as possible. We have had decades of ego driven men causing dissent and division on our board. We are as stable and successful as we’ve been for a very long time. People like him should [censored] off.

This is the content of the envelope

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/62da2250b8d7b06130458f65/t/63488769ba6e0415786b3f49/1665697642126/Deemocracy+Proxy+Guide_web[100].pdf

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/62da2250b8d7b06130458f65/t/6336b5919933f95cb755d1a8/1664529820329/Constitution+Camparison+table.pdf

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/62da2250b8d7b06130458f65/t/634887aaa3a8326f0c0d6fd0/1665697706874/Deemocracy+Mailer_Conversation_web.pdf

[BDA 22,755]

Is there any connection between Peter Lawrence and Glen Bartlett?

[Demon Disciple 12,127]

23 minutes ago, BDA said:

Is there any connection between Peter Lawrence and Glen Bartlett?

has anyone ever seen them in the same room together? 

[BDA 22,755]

6 minutes ago, Demon Disciple said:

has anyone ever seen them in the same room together? 

I was thinking more in terms of Bartlett in the background advising Lawrence.

Another poster commented that the legal matter was referred to in the deemocracy letter to members. That matter doesn’t have anything to do with the constitution so why raise it?

[Demon17 5,188]

On 10/19/2022 at 10:11 PM, Dr. Gonzo said:

Yet I get spam calls every other day from people telling me theyre from the ATO, Commonwealth Bank, Amazon, Telstra etc

He's already entitled to postal addresses, I don't see what the big deal is with releasing email lists.

I do agree with you. Email is the modern form of comms and a key plank of the reveiw is to do away with a $200,000 mail out election.

I got two copies of the Deemocracy papers yesterday and was underwhelmed by some selective statements which dissappointed me. 

e.g. Things wrong with the Club????- no home base and Bartlett's legal action.

Is that it?

Proxy's gone to the Yes team.

[roy11 3,853]

Seems he now has access to 40,000 emails, will be interesting to read that judgement

[Clintosaurus 7,848]

President has my proxy.

[chookrat 4,250]

2 hours ago, BDA said:

I was thinking more in terms of Bartlett in the background advising Lawrence.

Another poster commented that the legal matter was referred to in the deemocracy letter to members. That matter doesn’t have anything to do with the constitution so why raise it?

Bartlett sent a pointed letter to members asking members to support the boards director nominations and included some pointed language towards not voting for Peter Lawrence. I doubt they would be working together.

Re second point, I agree that the defamation lawsuit has nothing to do with the Constitution Review. Alot of effort has gone into Peter's campaign and he wouldn't have included this by accident. It's pretty obvious the Constitution Review is less about getting the Constitution right than it is about advancing his board ambitions. I don't have a problem with his aspirations, but what I do take issue with is that he's trying to destabilize the board to advance his own position.

[Its Time for Another 4,218]

10 hours ago, Cyclops said:

As always yourr opinion is appreciated. I must correct myself though. Mr Lawrence achieved 47% and 30% of votes respectively in the last two elections.

Your opinion seems to stem greatly from the method that Mr Lawrence is using. It is the method used by the club that I consider needs scrutiny. The club was asked to send emails 3 weeks ago thus avoiding lists of members, snail mail and emails. The club refused. This was mentioned at the hearing 

I appreciate that we can debate this in a civilised way. 

A lot has been posted since your post and a lot of it is what I would have responded with so I won't repeat it. I will just say in summary the issue is are we going to support a duly elected Board or not. I think this Board and the one's before it have done an excellent job of getting us a Premiership and setting up the future of the Club. I believe the process they set up for the Constitutional amendments is fair and reasonable. I made a submission and it was ignored. I accept the process and am not going to waste tens of thousands of dollars of members contributions rejecting the process because I didn't get what I wanted. For what it's worth I strongly reject most of his amendments and am thankful they were rejected. 

The AFL is littered with people like Mr Lawrence who put their own ambitions and egos ahead of the best interests of the Club. I wouldn't want him anywhere near the Board. Frankly I'm furious someone like him has been able to get my name and address and possibly my email address so he can pursue his personal destabilising agenda. I'm also furious that he might succeed in setting a precedent so that any member that doesn't agree with the Board can ring the Club and threaten litigation in order to send spam every other week. I didn't sign up for that. I'm also very concerned about what steps he has taken to protect my personal information he has already got, given the current hacks that are going on. He's generated a lot of publicity around getting our private information which makes him a target.  If he gets hacked because he didn't take adequate steps to protect my information I hope he's going to compensate all of us. 

Edited October 21, 2022 by Its Time for Another

[Fritta and Turner 4,415]

MFC has been ordered to hand over email addresses.

[Straight Sets Simon 23,113]

How to ensure no one votes the way you want.

Step 1: Access every members postal and email addresses

Step 2: Send all members unsolicited mail

Good job to whoever thought that was a smart idea.

[titan_uranus 25,020]

18 minutes ago, Clint Bizkit said:

How to ensure no one votes the way you want.

Step 1: Access every members postal and email addresses

Step 2: Send all members unsolicited mail

Good job to whoever thought that was a smart idea.

I would be interested to know whether Lawrence’s attempt to communicate with members is going to have the opposite effect to what he wants. 

The Club has emailed members this afternoon, post-judgment. The email says more than 350 people have complained to the Club about the disclosure of their details to Lawrence. No idea if that’s statistically significant given we have 65,000 members but I wonder how many members either know about all this and dislike it, or will receive the email and dislike it upon receipt, and whether that group will outweigh the group who vote against the amendments because of the emails. 

[Seraph 1,824]

21 minutes ago, Clint Bizkit said:

How to ensure no one votes the way you want.

Step 1: Access every members postal and email addresses

Step 2: Send all members unsolicited mail

Good job to whoever thought that was a smart idea.

Especially considering the dialogue surrounding the recent Optus and Medibank hacks.

Read the room you [censored].

[titan_uranus 25,020]

There seems to be a little inconsistency between the Club’s version of events and Lawrence’s. 

Lawrence is quoted in The Age as saying: 

“We were very conscious of data privacy. I don’t want members’ details, either email or postal addresses...so we said ‘if you don’t want to give us the register let us at least send our message out’ and they said ‘no’,”

The Club’s email says:

“At the Supreme Court hearing the Club offered that should the Court find in the member’s favour regarding the provision of member email addresses, that the Club could facilitate the circulation of this email on their behalf. This offer was rejected by the member.”

I’m not sure these can both be accurate.

[Straight Sets Simon 23,113]

9 minutes ago, titan_uranus said:

I would be interested to know whether Lawrence’s attempt to communicate with members is going to have the opposite effect to what he wants. 

The Club has emailed members this afternoon, post-judgment. The email says more than 350 people have complained to the Club about the disclosure of their details to Lawrence. No idea if that’s statistically significant given we have 65,000 members but I wonder how many members either know about all this and dislike it, or will receive the email and dislike it upon receipt, and whether that group will outweigh the group who vote against the amendments because of the emails. 

I didn’t even know about it until the email today and I’m annoyed!

[Dr. Gonzo 24,219]

I mean, if anyone was that concerned about their email address being handed over they've had a few days to login to their membership account and change their email to a spoof address or a secondary email they don't use regularly. Then just login and change it back after the meeting next week.

I don't understand how some people think it is such a big deal, you are a member of an organisation and as part of that other members may request access to your contact details for communication purposes specifically around elections or EGM's.

It's an email address, it's not your passport.

And I say this without even being a supporter of Lawrence.