mauriesy

Interesting article today by the Age sports reporter Peter Ryan titled "Democracy is spreading like wildfire through AFL clubs, and some can't handle it". He suggests "part of the shift is due to built-up tension emerging after a decade where a tap on the shoulder from an influential figure saw a person with the requisite skills and standing (from a club’s perspective, at least) invited on to the board via a nominations committee ..." He mentions Melbourne's attempts to limit the Deemocracy group and their victory in court to gain access to email addresses. Are club boards doing the right thing to keep control of processes, or swimming against the democratic tide?

In 2024 two-thirds of the comp is going to be in the premiership window. Really?

Probably reached good luck status by now.

Agree. The lot of backline players unfortunately. Realistically you'd need to put all 18 in the best yesterday.

Four goals in the last quarter, I thought they were! The weakest quarter was the 2nd. Meanwhile, their possible opponent next week, in somewhat better conditions, has kicked 0.2.2 to half time against St Kilda.

Gee, windy day with some slippery conditions and people are blaming Daisy for her last-minute choice and missing a pin-point pass. Winning by 80 or so was always a huge task and they only just missed it. C'est la vie.

Well, it was also governments, not just companies, that made rules about data and data retention. To buy a mobile phone until recently you needed the standard two items of ID. You still need a driver's licence. This is government mandated, so your data is everywhere. Organisations like health insurers then need to keep data for 7 years. I get emails from Medibank about their data breach, but haven't been a customer for four years. If I'm not a customer, why do they still need my data? Again, it's government mandated. On the flip side, I bought a new phone the other day, and of course it's a "new device". You can't easily remove your old device from some databases like MyGovID. It's hard to do online and easier to ring them (but get a callback to save waiting hours in a queue). So be careful what you wish for when you complain about "security".

These are all good. But that still doesn't mean we give the board carte blanche to do anything. It all depends on the road they are going to travel from here.

You still need good governance in any organisation. It's not open slather any longer just to win games of football.

Some might say that the board control is a bigger issue that voting systems. Yes, of course we need electronic voting, but if the board is trying to slip through controls that make the club less democratic we may need to question the process. Seems to me there's a lot of aspersions being cast here about Lawrence and Deemocracy's motives. For all I know their motives might be perfectly reasonable. I fear somewhat for a club with a McGuire or Kennett-style dominance where they can never be voted out or removed because they control board membership so tightly the members are basically disenfranchised. I guess we'll see if more than 25% of the members think board control is more important than voting methods.

Giving Ross Lyon the job would get him away from yelling on TV.

I am like a lot of relatively passive members when it comes to the politics of the board. The last thing I want for Melbourne FC is an "open slather democracy" that runs the risk of degenerating into unnecessary dissension, infighting and ugly coups (much like Essendon at the moment, admittedly due to poor board performance). The second last thing I want is a closed board that runs the risk of degenerating into an arrogant autocracy (much like Eddie McGuire's reign at Collingwood). That said, and just looking at it from the outside, I think the Deemocracy proposal is sensible and avoids both. From my experience on the board of a golf club, in regard to member contact it's a requirement of the Corporations Act (and the Incorporated Associations Act) and often the constitution of the club itself, that the member's roll is available for viewing by any member on application. It's hardly ever asked for, and privacy considerations prevent the organisation from divulging addresses for general use. For elections etc. a sensible organisation would offer to send e-mail communication on behalf of the member, provided they can show that their purpose is genuine, constitutional and not vexatious.

Gary Ablett Snr would be proud of a highlights reel like that.

Cringe TikTok account is a tautology.

Don't think Grundy has had a bun for about 2 years, has he?

Where's the women?

I'm guessing there are some native SA players who can't wait to get back there and some who can't wait to leave. 😁

Not really. It's just an interchange and going back to a 19th and 20th man.

You've answered your own question.

Have three interchanges and two subs. Allow the subs to come on at any time for any reason, but once they're on the player they replace can't play for the rest of the match.

Not aggravated. I just think a moderator should clean up this whole thread of OT rubbish.

Go ahead, knock yourself out and "tear me" all you like. I'm just expressing an opinion that this thread and others shouldn't be clogged up with OT rubbish.

So you're offended by the idea that the AFLW thread should be about AFLW, and not pictures of sheds at Romsey? Wow.

The current women's thread becomes an in-joke among a few members. They should realise that not everyone thinks their contribution is witty or clever. I have posted before on the infiltration of any threads with such rubbish. Obviously you didn't think very hard. I thought as a female you'd want an AFLW thread to be relevant and stick to the point. Just because other threads get infiltrated doesn't mean this one has to. "He or she did it too!" is not a reasonable response. I'm sure Demonland loves having their server space filled with maids and manors from Romsey over the years. Think also of what viewers from outside Demonland see in the thread.

Came on here to read about our AFLW Demons and what I get is two pages about dubious neighbourhoods and manors in Romsey. Doing a disservice to our wonderful women's team filling a thread with this rubbish.