Tigers of Old said:
Interesting that Rhett Bartlett tweeted that Rob Dalton remembers when there was 2,000 members at 2004 AGM & in his words "a lot of people wanted to kill us'.
That there was only a couple of hundred at this AGM shows that success certainly breeds apathy. Here's hoping the good times last..
I think that's a bit misleading.
At last years AGM there were only about 120 people and that was with a fair bit of angst at our ladder position, two outside challenger groups, four candidates for election and 6 resolutions to fundamentally change our constitution.
This years AGM had about 140 people by my count and this is shown by the votes. 314 - 194 proxy = 120 present voting.
In 2004 the club was insolvent, the board was spilled and as said there was a LOT of feeling.
There were people lining up to take a shot at the board.
That AGM was held in one of Garry Cameron's (ex treasurer) hotel conference rooms and it was overflowing.
By contrast the Maurice Rioli room would only hold about 400 all up.
Judging on 2016 and 2017 at least there is not enough interest to expect more than 200 maximum to attend.
Don't think it's really about the relative on-field success of the club rather that the club's finances have got to a pretty good stable level.
As an aside I was talking to Stephen Mayne who was there to push an anti-pokies agenda and he said (paraphrasing) that as head of the Shareholder group he no longer puts any time into member resolutions but rather tries to change things by getting onto boards. Got the impression that member resolutions can be so delayed or diluted as to be pointless.
It was interesting to note that both Dalton and O'Shannassy have indicated they will not stand for re-election next year.
Will the board do their usual thing and rig early resignations and give their choices the advantage of incumbency?
I personally hope that the two excellent candidates (IMO) from last year stand next year.