Pert and Roffey - The Review Thread

[Hawk the Demon 822]

5 minutes ago, He de mon said:

This is a good unbiased analysis of the judgement.

https://associations.net.au/news/sector-news/2024/fair-or-oppressive-federal-court-rules-on-melbourne-football-club-board-conduct-and-bylaws.html

Nice segue, so I take it that you now accept the truth about the prohibition on donations and player sponsorships.

From your helpful link, is the key takeaway:

Boards should take this judgement as a reminder to listen to dissenting members and address any concerns that arise with the membership as a whole.

Could not have expressed it better myself.

[FreedFromDesire 731]

Now that there has been a judgment (of sorts, at least), it would be fantastic if all of us, Mr Lawrence and his supporters, and more importantly the club; could all move on. Surely all the above parties would now know it's in their own best interests, and especially at such a delicate time for the club even more so.

Would be great if this thread could potentially now focus on the reviews, their outcomes, and any changes that may stem from them, as opposed to reversing over all the Mr Lawrence v MFC matters. He has definitely done some good, but it is clear now it's time for all to move on.

[He de mon 900]

11 minutes ago, Hawk the Demon said:

Nice segue, so I take it that you now accept the truth about the prohibition on donations and player sponsorships.

I didn’t say that at all.

15 minutes ago, Hawk the Demon said:

From your helpful link, is the key takeaway

This was my takeaway

The judge found that the MFC’s election rules were reasonable and made in good faith. The Court agreed that the Board’s actions were aimed at ensuring fairness in the elections, preventing any one candidate from having an unfair advantage, and protecting the Club’s reputation

[mauriesy 7,189]

So despite agreeing, as I understand it, to the first three points of Mr Lawrence's case, namely:

• The practice of fulfilling casual vacancies before shortly before an election where those appointed then nominate for the upcoming election,
• Failing to properly notify all members when nominations for board elections were open,
• Board endorsement of the existing directors running for election

The board has now gone back to the previous practice of fulfilling casual vacancies before an election and endorsing existing directors.

Along with the Oliver trade mess of 2023-24, the Petracca mess in 2024, the JS affair, the Oliver trade talk again now, board resignations, the diminished performance this year, the lack of independence in the review, the other court cases, and the continual delay to a training base (it's still just a concept), tell me why the board is doing such a great job?

Just interested as a "neutral supporter" observer in all this.

, 

 

Edited October 1 by mauriesy

[Diamond_Jim 12,390]

Will Pert get a please explain following the Age article suggesting that he's been shopping Oliver around to other clubs.

Even if authorised its amateur hour.... (use an untraceable source)

Three other club and industry sources with knowledge of trade discussions said that Gary Pert, the Melbourne CEO who has been running two reviews into the club, recently made contact with a number of teams about whether they had an interest in trading for Oliver.

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/the-inside-story-how-word-spread-that-oliver-was-on-the-market-again-20241001-p5kevi.html

Edited October 1 by Diamond_Jim

[Ollie fan 3,161]

1 hour ago, Supreme_Demon said:

Not very democratic if this is true.

Unfortunately Peter Lawrence doesn't seem to have enough rank-and-file member support regardless.

However, as I previously mentioned in my other post, I hope that Brad Green and Peter Lawrence can sit down and have a meeting and sort out a lot of these problems. Disunity and ongoing drama doesn't help at all with the stability of the Melbourne Football Club.

Lawrence will not sort anything out until he is on the board - and if that ever happens, goodbye to stability and sound administration.

[Adam The God 29,662]

8 minutes ago, Ollie fan said:

Lawrence will not sort anything out until he is on the board - and if that ever happens, goodbye to stability and sound administration.

You call what we have 'sound administration' and 'stability'?

F M D.

Edited October 1 by Adam The God

[Ollie fan 3,161]

18 minutes ago, Adam The God said:

You call what we have 'sound administration' and 'stability'?

F M D.

I know a few things: we have been a top team from 2020 until about July 2024, when injuries piled up and we couldn't cope. I also know that our membership got to 75,000 which was previously unheard-of. I know that a lot of star players renewed contracts long term. I know that at last there is a realistic prospect of a home base in a relatively central location. I know that I don't care a fig for"dee-mocracy"; i just want something to barrack for when I go to the games - which I regularly do.

That is enough for me.

[Older demon 2,678]

54 minutes ago, Diamond_Jim said:

Will Pert get a please explain following the Age article suggesting that he's been shopping Oliver around to other clubs.

Even if authorised its amateur hour.... (use an untraceable source)

Three other club and industry sources with knowledge of trade discussions said that Gary Pert, the Melbourne CEO who has been running two reviews into the club, recently made contact with a number of teams about whether they had an interest in trading for Oliver.

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/the-inside-story-how-word-spread-that-oliver-was-on-the-market-again-20241001-p5kevi.html

I read this as well, and now the club regrets doing so, as Clarry has been happy to exercise his rights to look elsewhere. If Pert did do this, I would like to know on whose authority. Any wonder MaClure stated that Clarry was feeling like he wasn't wanted anymore.

It will be an interesting B&F Friday night. Pert wasn't there last year. I wonder if he will attend. If he shopped Clarry around he should be sacked on the spot.

[beelzebub 23,245]

A Boyz club or ....   I dunno....

This club seems to miss so many marks....

Are there basket weavers in the background??

[rpfc 28,079]

12 hours ago, Adam The God said:

No, I've never agreed with you on your strange want and need for the board to be an unaccountable, autocratic being.

When David Rennick, the Vice President was cross examined in May, he repeatedly said the members didn't like having casual vacancies filled just prior to an election. He even said it wouldn't be a practise they would continue, and yet they clearly still are.

It's unacceptable. It erodes trust. 

Again, excellent strawman you are creating for yourself and your obviously biased hawk friend. Autocracies huh? I am talking about the unnecessary descent into a purer ‘democracy’ for football boards leads to an anarchy that is not going to lead to success, not going to lead to a united club, not going to lead to the best outcome for the us as fans, but I think it will lead to what this ‘hawk’ wants…

[Skuit 10,002]

On 29/09/2024 at 07:04, Dr. Gonzo said:

Is it so hard to believe that the people running the club have not been that great at what they do? Easier to believe in a media driven conspiracy?

Is it not possible to believe both? I'm a Goodwin fan, but have never backed in any particular member of our board or administration because I simply don't know if they are any good at their jobs outside of some basic metrics, which as an outsider can't be assessed as to causation or correlation. It seems most on here, me included, don't even know what their jobs are, but why not let's sack everyone?

Edit: I wanted Schwab gone, because I believed he had overstepped his remit. 

It's perfectly valid that you are annoyed at the club. It's also reasonable of me to point out that certain parties unrelated to our club are taking advantage of that and stirring the pot, both on here and in the media, for their own gain. You may well desire sweeping changes at management level - and we can argue the benefits of that separately Gonzo - but do you really want to support them just because they share your message? 

There are forces at work, paid and unrelated to the MFC, who are deliberately trying to tear our club apart. Some casual reading below if you want. The 'conspiracy' side of it from my end, is that these other clubs also endured some serious media heat at the time of their board challenges, which may well have been true, but could have also been manufactured by getting in ears or paying $$$. I see Phil Egan is now looking at a pretty lengthy prison stint for fraud. 

I sent this quote to another Demonland member, because it really stood out: "Gowers' support team of communications experts and political operatives would employ methods unusual in football circles: tactics developed in the more progressive reaches of American politics."

If you were being paid millions of dollars to destabilise a club and had no morals in the Crosby Textor era, what would you do? I would probably get on the phone to Petracca and Pickett's grandmas as just a start. Oliver also seems an easy target perhaps? We can pay for your court cases, when the club said mean stuff about you. 

The bigger conspiracy then, is trying to work out why certain people are waging multi-million dollar campaigns with dirty political tactics to secure an unpaid board seat on an AFL football club? I made the jump that it could be about construction contracts. Just a hunch, so no idea if true. If someone wants to pay me for a few days work, I'm pretty sure I could dig up some links between those incoming board members and future commercial contracts. 

I respect the likes of you and @Adam The God. I'm asking you both to look past your issues with the club to just assess for one second what may be going on here. Just to reiterate, I have never supported any particular member of our board. I posted apprehension about Pert's appointment at the time. I live on the other side of the world. I very evidently have no chips in this game, as compared to some others on here.

https://hawksforchange.org/ (if you ran this through a plagiarism checker against the Deemocracy site there would be some serious flags). 

https://www.richmondfc.com.au/news/324165/peggy-oneal-statement (Former Hawthorn Football Club director Richard Amos officially on the record as driving the 'Focus On Footy' campaign. 

https://www.royce.com.au/pages/our-people (interesting for a sniff around about who else works/has worked at the company, who owns it, and their involvement in state politics). 

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/proud-passionate-and-paid-up--how-hawthorn-fans-saved-their-club-20160804-gqkthw.html (cutting his teeth? I was too busy adventuring at the time, others may remember more and some stuff about the media framing since . . .)

https://thestory.au/articles/hawthorn-football-club-afl-jeff-kennett-president-andy-gowers/ (for the above-mentioned quote. I can dig up some more media reading if anyone wants?). 

The bloke you're agreeing with even has a pun in is username. I will answer every question asked as to who I am. He continually refuses to do so. You really want to back in this stranger to our forum because you want some people sacked at our club? Or will you take heed from someone who has a ten-year posting history on here, has never been involved in the politics of our club, and can get real-life good-guy vouching from other members? 

 

 

 

 

 

[Roost it far 7,670]

Oops

Edited Tuesday at 11:59 by Roost it far

[Skuit 10,002]

6 minutes ago, Roost it far said:

I’m watching what’s playing out in real time and the one phrase that keeps coming to mind is “the fish rots from the head”.

It's fitting maybe that the phrase that keeps coming to mind has no factual basis in biological terms? Is that what you're trying to say? 

[Roost it far 7,670]

Just now, Skuit said:

It's fitting maybe that the phrase that keeps coming to mind has no factual basis in biological terms? Is that what you're trying to say? 

Maybe. I’m stepping out of this discussion as I don’t have enough knowledge of what’s going on. I just don’t like that it is going on. We look like a bunch of amateurs. 

[Skuit 10,002]

1 minute ago, Roost it far said:

Maybe. I’m stepping out of this discussion as I don’t have enough knowledge of what’s going on. I just don’t like that it is going on. We look like a bunch of amateurs. 

I just entered like a million-word post, which I wasn't paid for. I don't know what is going on either. But there are some links there so you can do your own research. I agree that we look like/or are being made to look like a bunch of amateurs. 

[Adam The God 29,662]

2 hours ago, Skuit said:

Is it not possible to believe both? I'm a Goodwin fan, but have never backed in any particular member of our board or administration because I simply don't know if they are any good at their jobs outside of some basic metrics, which as an outsider can't be assessed as to causation or correlation. It seems most on here, me included, don't even know what their jobs are, but why not let's sack everyone?

Edit: I wanted Schwab gone, because I believed he had overstepped his remit. 

It's perfectly valid that you are annoyed at the club. It's also reasonable of me to point out that certain parties unrelated to our club are taking advantage of that and stirring the pot, both on here and in the media, for their own gain. You may well desire sweeping changes at management level - and we can argue the benefits of that separately Gonzo - but do you really want to support them just because they share your message? 

There are forces at work, paid and unrelated to the MFC, who are deliberately trying to tear our club apart. Some casual reading below if you want. The 'conspiracy' side of it from my end, is that these other clubs also endured some serious media heat at the time of their board challenges, which may well have been true, but could have also been manufactured by getting in ears or paying $$$. I see Phil Egan is now looking at a pretty lengthy prison stint for fraud. 

I sent this quote to another Demonland member, because it really stood out: "Gowers' support team of communications experts and political operatives would employ methods unusual in football circles: tactics developed in the more progressive reaches of American politics."

If you were being paid millions of dollars to destabilise a club and had no morals in the Crosby Textor era, what would you do? I would probably get on the phone to Petracca and Pickett's grandmas as just a start. Oliver also seems an easy target perhaps? We can pay for your court cases, when the club said mean stuff about you. 

The bigger conspiracy then, is trying to work out why certain people are waging multi-million dollar campaigns with dirty political tactics to secure an unpaid board seat on an AFL football club? I made the jump that it could be about construction contracts. Just a hunch, so no idea if true. If someone wants to pay me for a few days work, I'm pretty sure I could dig up some links between those incoming board members and future commercial contracts. 

I respect the likes of you and @Adam The God. I'm asking you both to look past your issues with the club to just assess for one second what may be going on here. Just to reiterate, I have never supported any particular member of our board. I posted apprehension about Pert's appointment at the time. I live on the other side of the world. I very evidently have no chips in this game, as compared to some others on here.

https://hawksforchange.org/ (if you ran this through a plagiarism checker against the Deemocracy site there would be some serious flags). 

https://www.richmondfc.com.au/news/324165/peggy-oneal-statement (Former Hawthorn Football Club director Richard Amos officially on the record as driving the 'Focus On Footy' campaign. 

https://www.royce.com.au/pages/our-people (interesting for a sniff around about who else works/has worked at the company, who owns it, and their involvement in state politics). 

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/proud-passionate-and-paid-up--how-hawthorn-fans-saved-their-club-20160804-gqkthw.html (cutting his teeth? I was too busy adventuring at the time, others may remember more and some stuff about the media framing since . . .)

https://thestory.au/articles/hawthorn-football-club-afl-jeff-kennett-president-andy-gowers/ (for the above-mentioned quote. I can dig up some more media reading if anyone wants?). 

The bloke you're agreeing with even has a pun in is username. I will answer every question asked as to who I am. He continually refuses to do so. You really want to back in this stranger to our forum because you want some people sacked at our club? Or will you take heed from someone who has a ten-year posting history on here, has never been involved in the politics of our club, and can get real-life good-guy vouching from other members? 

The board lost me when the last two presidents emailed members telling them who to vote for, having installed candidates in casual vacancy positions just prior elections.

As cultural issues have snowballed at the club, we've had persistently terrible comms (something Binman and others have been on about for years) through clear cuts to the comms department over several years; the board failed to deliver a promised 2024 strategy; we had a President who didn't even bother to turn up to the Presidents function earlier in the year (or send a replacement) effectively rendering us voiceless; the CEO couldn't manage to land a shorts sponsor despite having three top 4 seasons in a row; the CEO went on radio and essentially put a target on our back with ridiculous hyperbole about the best culture in 40 years; the board via Rennick as the mouthpiece said in Federal Court in May that members did not want them installing candidates into casual vacancies; and the wishy-washy PR update on the Caulfield home base etc etc.

Look at who they installed as our latest President. A bloke that goes out and has a coffee with Guitnik and it ends up on the front page within days. We also continue to leak like a sieve under Green and Pert's leadership.

I'm not exactly sure what there is to assess if you basically agree with you were never a fan of Pert's.

As for this idea that you have to out yourself on an internet message board, it's bizarre. You don't have to agree with the information that Hawk is passing on, but to demand Hawk out who they are is really quite strange and IMO unreasonable. 

Finally, vis a vis all those links, I have no idea what you're trying to suggest...

And btw, I've always loved you as a poster. You can have your view and I'll have mine.

Edited Tuesday at 13:54 by Adam The God

[Skuit 10,002]

3 minutes ago, Adam The God said:

The board lost me when the last two presidents emailed members telling them who to vote for, having installed candidates in casual vacancy positions just prior to the election.

As cultural issues have snowballed at the club, we've had persistently terrible comms (something Binman and others have been on about for years) through clear cuts to the comms department over several years; the board failed to deliver a promised 2024 strategy; we had a President who didn't even bother to turn up to the Presidents function earlier in the year (or sending a replacement) effectively rendering us voiceless; the CEO couldn't manage to land a shorts sponsor despite having three top 4 seasons in a row; the CEO went on radio and essentially put a target on our back with ridiculous hyperbole about the best culture in 40 years; the board via Rennick as the mouthpiece said in Federal Court in May that members did not want them installing candidates into casual vacancies etc etc.

Look at who they installed as our latest President. A bloke that goes out and has a coffee with Guitnik and it ends up on the front page within days. We also continue to leak like a sieve under Green and Pert's leadership.

I'm not exactly sure what there is to assess if you basically agree with you were never a fan of Pert's.

As for this idea that you have to out yourself on an internet message board, it's bizarre. You don't have to agree with the information that Hawk is passing on, but to demand Hawk out who they are is really quite strange and IMO unreasonable. 

Finally, vis a vis all those links, I have no idea what you're trying to suggest...

And btw, I've always loved you as a poster. You can have your view and I'll have mine.

Dude. What if i agree with 98 percent of what you have just posted?

I would rather hear it from you than someone who is being paid to post on here and has no link to our club.

You can back change. Just be careful who you get in bed with to achieve that change. 

You're a sensible guy Adam. 

You don't think posters should be transparent about their political affiliations? If being paid to post? 

 

 

 

 

[Demon Disciple 11,809]

The implosion of our club, going from the most stable and successful it’s been in 50+ years, to its current state is unbelievably breathtaking.

[Skuit 10,002]

5 minutes ago, Demon Disciple said:

The implosion of our club, going from the most stable and successful it’s been in 50+ years, to its current state is unbelievably breathtaking.

And yet you want to continue entertaining the idea that it's unique to our footy club - the MFC shemozzle syndrome? - and not potentially due to bigger, outside forces? Why do you genuinely think Roffey jumped ship so quickly? 

[Dr. Gonzo 23,889]

6 hours ago, Diamond_Jim said:

Will Pert get a please explain following the Age article suggesting that he's been shopping Oliver around to other clubs.

Even if authorised its amateur hour.... (use an untraceable source)

Three other club and industry sources with knowledge of trade discussions said that Gary Pert, the Melbourne CEO who has been running two reviews into the club, recently made contact with a number of teams about whether they had an interest in trading for Oliver.

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/the-inside-story-how-word-spread-that-oliver-was-on-the-market-again-20241001-p5kevi.html

The club is a basketcase with these clowns in charge. Pert needs to go now, he was a huge cause of the issues at Collingwood and it seems he hasn't learnt from last mistakes.

[censored] him off so we can get a proper review done without his fingerprints all over it.

[Dr. Gonzo 23,889]

1 hour ago, rpfc said:

Again, excellent strawman you are creating for yourself and your obviously biased hawk friend. Autocracies huh? I am talking about the unnecessary descent into a purer ‘democracy’ for football boards leads to an anarchy that is not going to lead to success, not going to lead to a united club, not going to lead to the best outcome for the us as fans, but I think it will lead to what this ‘hawk’ wants…

What we have now is not leading to any of those things. The people running the club are incompetent. I agree that leaving it up to the members to vote isn't a recipe for success but the mob in there at the moment have burnt any goodwill they may have had. 2021 is in the past, the only premiership I care about is the next one and the current administration are proving they are not fit to lead us there.

[Supreme_Demon 3,462]

30 minutes ago, Demon Disciple said:

The implosion of our club, going from the most stable and successful it’s been in 50+ years, to its current state is unbelievably breathtaking.

Breathtaking?!

It's horrific!

 

There's going to be alot of media vultures camping out the front of the Melbourne Demons Best & Fairest event on Friday evening.

[Dr. Gonzo 23,889]

1 hour ago, Skuit said:

Is it not possible to believe both? I'm a Goodwin fan, but have never backed in any particular member of our board or administration because I simply don't know if they are any good at their jobs outside of some basic metrics, which as an outsider can't be assessed as to causation or correlation. It seems most on here, me included, don't even know what their jobs are, but why not let's sack everyone?

Edit: I wanted Schwab gone, because I believed he had overstepped his remit. 

It's perfectly valid that you are annoyed at the club. It's also reasonable of me to point out that certain parties unrelated to our club are taking advantage of that and stirring the pot, both on here and in the media, for their own gain. You may well desire sweeping changes at management level - and we can argue the benefits of that separately Gonzo - but do you really want to support them just because they share your message? 

There are forces at work, paid and unrelated to the MFC, who are deliberately trying to tear our club apart. Some casual reading below if you want. The 'conspiracy' side of it from my end, is that these other clubs also endured some serious media heat at the time of their board challenges, which may well have been true, but could have also been manufactured by getting in ears or paying $$$. I see Phil Egan is now looking at a pretty lengthy prison stint for fraud. 

I sent this quote to another Demonland member, because it really stood out: "Gowers' support team of communications experts and political operatives would employ methods unusual in football circles: tactics developed in the more progressive reaches of American politics."

If you were being paid millions of dollars to destabilise a club and had no morals in the Crosby Textor era, what would you do? I would probably get on the phone to Petracca and Pickett's grandmas as just a start. Oliver also seems an easy target perhaps? We can pay for your court cases, when the club said mean stuff about you. 

The bigger conspiracy then, is trying to work out why certain people are waging multi-million dollar campaigns with dirty political tactics to secure an unpaid board seat on an AFL football club? I made the jump that it could be about construction contracts. Just a hunch, so no idea if true. If someone wants to pay me for a few days work, I'm pretty sure I could dig up some links between those incoming board members and future commercial contracts. 

I respect the likes of you and @Adam The God. I'm asking you both to look past your issues with the club to just assess for one second what may be going on here. Just to reiterate, I have never supported any particular member of our board. I posted apprehension about Pert's appointment at the time. I live on the other side of the world. I very evidently have no chips in this game, as compared to some others on here.

https://hawksforchange.org/ (if you ran this through a plagiarism checker against the Deemocracy site there would be some serious flags). 

https://www.richmondfc.com.au/news/324165/peggy-oneal-statement (Former Hawthorn Football Club director Richard Amos officially on the record as driving the 'Focus On Footy' campaign. 

https://www.royce.com.au/pages/our-people (interesting for a sniff around about who else works/has worked at the company, who owns it, and their involvement in state politics). 

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/proud-passionate-and-paid-up--how-hawthorn-fans-saved-their-club-20160804-gqkthw.html (cutting his teeth? I was too busy adventuring at the time, others may remember more and some stuff about the media framing since . . .)

https://thestory.au/articles/hawthorn-football-club-afl-jeff-kennett-president-andy-gowers/ (for the above-mentioned quote. I can dig up some more media reading if anyone wants?). 

The bloke you're agreeing with even has a pun in is username. I will answer every question asked as to who I am. He continually refuses to do so. You really want to back in this stranger to our forum because you want some people sacked at our club? Or will you take heed from someone who has a ten-year posting history on here, has never been involved in the politics of our club, and can get real-life good-guy vouching from other members? 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the links and the time to respond to me. Just to reiterate, I don't believe this is a media driven conspiracy, the media care about eyes on their product and car crashes sell better than good news stories. If it bleeds it leads, right?

I don't agree with Hawk the Demon about everything, I do believe the current administration have run their course and it is time for an overhaul. That doesn't necessarily mean the board but it does mean the Pres/CEO and head of footy should go.

I am not a Peter Lawrence supporter, I don't know him from a bar of soap. I do think his actions have been blown way out of proportion by the club and certain posters on here and that's why I may seem to be defending him - even if I don't back him I do back his right to have his say on the club. People complaining about receiving emails from him just come across as sooks or stooges for the current admin who btw spent plenty of money on ridiculous court cases that could have been settled.

So your position is that certain individuals involved with construction companies have sought to overthrow the admins of several clubs to get a foot in the door on the construction of their new home base and Peter Lawrence is their proxy for Melbourne? Seems a bit far fetched to me considering there is no guarantee at all that we will ever see construction of a home base let alone have the board convinced to go with a company linked to a board member they have had legal troubles with. If Lawrence has been a large donor and player sponsor it seems his allegiance to MFC runs pretty deep, deeper than Pert, Roffey, our ex-Pres (HWSNBN) etc....

[Skuit 10,002]

19 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Thanks for the links and the time to respond to me. Just to reiterate, I don't believe this is a media driven conspiracy, the media care about eyes on their product and car crashes sell better than good news stories. If it bleeds it leads, right?

I don't agree with Hawk the Demon about everything, I do believe the current administration have run their course and it is time for an overhaul. That doesn't necessarily mean the board but it does mean the Pres/CEO and head of footy should go.

I am not a Peter Lawrence supporter, I don't know him from a bar of soap. I do think his actions have been blown way out of proportion by the club and certain posters on here and that's why I may seem to be defending him - even if I don't back him I do back his right to have his say on the club. People complaining about receiving emails from him just come across as sooks or stooges for the current admin who btw spent plenty of money on ridiculous court cases that could have been settled.

So your position is that certain individuals involved with construction companies have sought to overthrow the admins of several clubs to get a foot in the door on the construction of their new home base and Peter Lawrence is their proxy for Melbourne? Seems a bit far fetched to me considering there is no guarantee at all that we will ever see construction of a home base let alone have the board convinced to go with a company linked to a board member they have had legal troubles with. If Lawrence has been a large donor and player sponsor it seems his allegiance to MFC runs pretty deep, deeper than Pert, Roffey, our ex-Pres (HWSNBN) etc....

Thanks for your balanced response Gonzo.

Let's agree on some things to build some rapport: I also don't know Peter from a bar of soap, but he sounds pretty charming from most reports and his love of our club isn't remotely in question. 

The way the board has conducted itself is pretty shameful in a lot of respects in my mind. Self-serving and undemocratic. I salute 'Peter' in overturning some clauses, others we can argue about the club defending from a difference of political opinions. 

We also both agree the email list thing is pretty small-fry in the contemporary world. My position is the club had to at least make a show of challenging it, judging by some of the responses on here. Let's argue about that later or via DM. 

I personally don't have a position on anything as to our management etc., other than my concern that people are being paid a lot of money to disrupt our club, and our own supporters are jumping on board out of on-field frustration and not realising the greater damage that is being caused and not for the sake of our club.

My bigger issue is people being paid to post on here, and some of our supporters and the Dland admins somehow not caring about that. The construction stuff was just speculation, as was made clear, but is the most immediate link that jumps out between us and Hawthorn and timelines. Like I said, give me a few days, and I could provide some links. 

My main question is why one individual would spend multiple-millions of dollars to gain an unpaid board position? Just ego? We probably have similar feelings about Diamond Joe. So yes, I think some people are being paid a lot of money to actively disrupt our club, and they are doing that through the media and direct [censored]-stirring with our players. 

I don't know if Peter is paying them, or they are bankrolling Peter. Either way, it's not cool anymore. I want it to [censored] end, but mostly I just don't want that [censored] on our own fan forum. I come here for an escape. I left Australia due to divisive politics and tactics, and now the exact same [censored] is happening at the heart of our club.