Sorry Bluevegas but we are missing the point completely if we only focus on communication.
The "message" is the problem, not the effort to communicate.

We portray ourselves as victims and powerless downtrodden people.
The AFL is against us, the media are against us, our list is shit because the AFL reamed us over draft picks.
We dont need anyone to kick us. Our coach and others do it for us.

Until we focus on the positives and have a "clear, concise and consistent direction" tm we will stay where we are.

The corporate sales team at Carlton are amongst the hardest working and most dedicated people in the AFL.
They set up corporate packages and sponsorship agreements based on being part of an innovative and exciting club.
They sell the club as an organisation on the way up. They focus on the young guns and the value of upcoming draft picks.
The message is all about a vision of excitement and future prosperity.

That is what potential sponsors are after. The opportunity to get involved on the ground floor of a developing brand. To affiliate themselves with an upcoming club which reflects progression, youth and excitement.
They are not fools. If the message is consistent and viable, they will come along for the ride.

The commercial operations and corporate sales team at Carlton generally offer as much for potential sponsors as you could require.
They offer reviews prior, during and post season on performance, strategy, commercial operation developments, sponsor audience delivery, partnership results etc.

Why does it fall down?
The message being sold to the sponsors cant be delivered by the board or match committee.
The message from the board is inconsistent and lacks innovation. What is our vision? What is the plan?
We talk about survival and just trying to exist.
Why are'nt we pumping up our ground development at every opportunity?
Where are we in our journey? What is our destination and how long do we expect it to take?

All we hear is "we're working as hard as we can". "We've been to hell and back". "Nobody knows how much the draft penalties have impacted on us".

Sponsors will be patient. They will put money in knowing full well that the benefits wont be felt until further down the track.
But they want consistency. They want a comprehensive plan that doesnt change every week.
They dont want a President coming out saying we are bordering on insolvency or threatening to go for the CBF every second week.
Every time we portray ourselves as victims, we are chipping away at our appeal.

Our commercial sales people are selling a vision to our sponsors that our board and coach dont have the competency to deliver.
We have the tools. We have the components. The plan is there to be assembled.
Unfortunately we lack the people to do it.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

Want a spot on the board BV...?

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“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace turns into a circus.”
Turkish Proverb

Not if you want unity.
I'm not very good at tolerating fools.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

Send a video package of Murphy highlights from this year. Watched every game this year and that kid gives you all the hope you need. Add to that a copy of every interview he has given - both written and verbal - you'd probably get an increase in membership sales. This kid has to become the face of the club, along with Fev, sooner rather than later. Even though we finished last, he makes you proud, passionate and hopeful about the Carlton Football Club!

It's not normal practise for a CEO, or a President to say negative statements; refer to the following from Blue Vain



There must be a message of vision at the very least.

I do believe however that there must be good reason for this sort of comment from the President of the Club. I can think of a couple:

Membership has eroded.
Sponsorship dollars have failed to achieve target
We are really broke, and can't see where the money is going to come from to meet our commitments
To help achieve a $1.5M interest free loan
Hoped that it would have helped us with our request for PP at Pick 3
Create a sense of urgency for members to come back.
They can't find the money for the ground development
Our position is far worse than we know.

Naturally the result of such pleas and cries for help have the flow on effect:



Now that the board has secured the 1.5M, and has settled for Pagan as coach, it may be waiting for the draft picks to start the era with vision, and perhaps we will see an end to:



Bottom line is that we can't continue to be negative all the time, we need a clear message on youth, the ground development, the next premiership, whats in it for the sponsors. If that is not forthcoming after the draft, then I can't see this board not being around for 2007.

I have a feeling that off field things are worse than what we saw last week, or this board really is piss week, in terms of vision, salesmanship and have no friends or believers in high places. I don't like to believe that a president's vision and communication of a vision can be so weak. I hope that it's just that he is piss weak.

I can't wait to hear something from the board (this one or the next) to get me excited. At the moment the only thing that gets me excited is our history and our kids.

In the meantime Molly's ideas are worthy of support regardless of who makes up the board, as there is still a problem with communication and connection with the average supporter.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

AFAIK a month or two ago there were multiple resignations from the commercial operations department. This stretched resources that were already stretched.

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|♥♥♥♥♥♥| http://www.blueseum.org |♥♥♥♥♥♥|

So you're just hanging around in here for practice...?

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“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace turns into a circus.”
Turkish Proverb

And there is the stupidity of the whole exercise.
Lack of resources in the one department that actually brings sponsorship and corporate dollars in to the club.

Sometimes board members and administrators get so consumed by the facts and figures of the situation that they can no longer look outside the square.
Money needs to be spent to make money. Resources need to be funded and allocated to increase income.
The commercial operations team at Carlton mostly performed a difficult job with negligible back up and scant assistance from the board.
Several quality people remained when no doubt, far better opportunities were available to them.

It would be disappointing if they'd simply had enough and walked away.
What an indictment on those in power it would be.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

Again I wanted to avoid this thread turning into a board bashing one.

So putting aside the board, it appears, based on the posts so far, that to increase the level of membership and sponorship a consistent, positive vision needs to be projected (communicated ) from the club to both supporters and sponsors.

I think only Molsey has so far provided an idea of what he feels that vision should be. So what do others think that vison should be?

Having said that, for any vision to become a reality measurable milestones need to be put in place to monitor the progress to this vision. What do you suggest these milestones should be and the timing of these?

Just so you know BV, I agree with a lot of what you've had to say.

Looking over some of the board members and their commercial experience, you'd think that the task would be within them. Sadly that isn't the case. Pagan is a seperate issue and he's not a hardened business man who is supposed to be able to deal with the media, he's just a man with a big passion for footy and lends a lot of experience to those that surround him.

They're two seperate issues, but because you're in favour of neither you use one as a reasoning for dismissing the other. Anyway, enough drifting off from the point, I wholeheartedly agree with the points that have been raised in this thread regarding the board and the future strategies for the club in terms of membership and sponsorship.

Now for my turn.

1. If you were a supporter of a club and not a member, what specfic incentives would make you become a member
I suppose I would be looking for:

- value for money
- knowing that the money spent is an investment in the future of the club and the growth of the club
- further to the above point, being able to see this growth in action (ie. player development, climb up the ladder, or results clearly stated and indicated when another siginificant event occurs)

2. If you had funds with which to sponsor a footy club, what would you look for before committing those funds.

- a growing or established brand
- marketable players/coaches
- again value for money
- facilities for socialising and networking with fellow sponsors
- further to point 1, a clear direction taken by the club and brand that stimulates consumer interest, thus increasing the exposure to my brand as a sponsor of the club.

*waves back at Bee-Vee*

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29 different attributes,
And only 7 that you like;
20 ways to see the world,
Or 20 ways to start a fight.

Brisvegas the milestones (public) are set in stone if you follow my vision - a 3yr target and a 5 yr target. I would expect our leadership to have internal milestones to achieve this similar to Greg Millers' how many players off a premiership team we may be. I dont think the public need the minute details but the guidance of the aim. Importantly we need to set the target to tell the footy world that we want to get back on top rather than talking about our problems. We dont need sympathy we want fight & pride.

That is on-field.

(Regular updates as to our contracting of key players would also be useful and ward off other clubs. Regular updates from the Coach that say how we're going against his own plan would be a godsend)

off-field we need to offer some details on the 3 year plan that the Club had last year. What was that based on? What was going to impact on it? Listed companies offer this info but in our reporting we've just talked broadly about it (which suggests to me they dont want to issue the details) but importantly, we dont seem to have offered any plan or budget or financial target. Follow up on big financial news like the move from OO, the PP redevelopment, the AFL rights...there is better news to come so why aren't we tracking it for our members? Further the scant details in our reports seem to blame the members for not signing up - its not chicken / egg; you provide the vision, access to the players and the future, and members will follow. If not today then in the future. One of the reports in last year's AR annoyed me considerably in this regard.

Milestones for both as part of a plan called 'Carlton 2011' or 'Premiership 2012' or whatever, which is published, reported against by the President 3 monthly and a cornerstone of our reporting and club ethos would at least set the scene.

Agree with Molsey here, we need to sell a future vision to the sponsors and the people who are thinking twice about a membership etc. We need to put a positive spin on where we are heading. The constant rubbish about being a basket case and a club to be pitied doesn't endear us to anyone, not even our own supporters. Most supporters don't have the time to analyse why we're crap.

We need a President with charisma, who can sell the club, sell it to the ordinary members - with Smorgon at the helm we're just reinforcing our past reputation as a club for the silvertails.

The club seems to be out of touch with its ordinary members, the ones who pay their $500/year to watch the Blues play. You look at them and see why they think Pagan should stay - it's because they've read the crap dished up by Denis and Collo about how we have a bad list blah blah. Of course people believe the media and what the club says because it's "official". People who aren't as fanatical about it as we are just don't think too hard about the problems this club is having - and how our game plan is a concoction that a dog who's just defecated would be proud of, how the players have been turned into automatons and have no idea about kick ins, they don't turn up to training, they don't read TalkingCarlton or the other supporter sites. No wonder the vast majority of the members think Denis is still the saviour.

It disgusts me. It disgusts me because the Club thinks that the Members will blindly follow what they dictate. Unfortunately it's true. It's time we did something about it and if that means putting an independent with some idea about how the ordinary member thinks, then I'm all for it. Pity I live in Sydney, otherwise I'd nominate myself.

The Board's management of this football club is so afraid to do anything because they're afraid of spending too much money so that we go into more debt that they've lost sight of the fact that our Club staff are under-resourced, overworked and lack genuine support. And it makes it hard to sell a product that is continually denigrated by the very people who are paying you.

Right now, keep this in mind Sticks. The Carlton Football Club is its own worst enemy at the moment. You can blame journos and the AFL all you like but until you realise that the Board is more to blame for this than anyone else, we're going nowhere. It would be alright if the Board copped the blame, admitted that they were unprofessional and tried to do something about it but the fact is that they haven't. They've lumped the blame on the media and on some of the hardest-to-dislodge Board members at Carlton like Gleeson and Kernahan because they are playing heroes rather than copping the blame on the chin like MEN (cue Lorraine Diggins) and admitting they stuffed up.

My club has turned into a rabble no better than the St Kilda of the 80's. Dare I say it, from what I've read, I reckon we're probably at the lowest ebb a club has ever been in the history of Australian Rules football politically - barring Fitzroy. Never has a club seemed so divided, never has a club seemed so content with mediocrity, never has a club seemed so defeated. It's almost like the Board think the Club is simply resigned to its fate. Any ounce of positivism has disappeared and will disappear until we clear the club of its naysayers on the Board and in the coaching box.

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"A good composer does not initiate. He steals."

- Igor Stravinsky

Agree with all that. We have to draw a line in the sand and stop looking to the past, but start to build our future. However we got here, it's all irrelevant now, we need to let our supports know how and when we are going to improve and demonstrate that we are in fact getting there.

Captain Clem wrote



Well that's your opinion CC.

Not trying to be offensive, but don't worry about what you read in times like this. Everyone is having a pot shot, whilst they can. In fact it's the only time in my life that the opposition have had a chance. OK StKilda in the 80's, what happened to them...they've turned it around. Whu do you feel we wont? High unlikely that we wont given the strength of our young list. We ca't buy players like the old days so we have to play by socialist rules, and make good decisions.

Allright we didn't recruit well, we lost draft picks, we had a plethora of legends retire, we had Hamill leave too...in short, we were left with FA on field, and didn't realise it till last year's draft. We starting from way back and that's reality. Yeah yeah we got ourselves in huge debt, but we have survived it, and we live to fight another day, year and decade and century.

What do we do? Call ourselves shit or work towards our 17th flag? We are building a team around a great bunch of kids, as this is our only choice for revival, and that's it. We'll have 30 of them that will grow together over the next decade. Patience is what's needed now, along with a clear message of our positives (the kids) and our journey for the flag (2010 or something) from the board. I bet that'll change the way you feel. It's only a moment in time.



That'll prbably happen, and whether its Smorgon or Fraser, members and supporters need strong to hear clear positive messages. Thta's what is lacking atm.

PS: I liked Smorgon's speech (only heard it today), and yes he could have said more, but what he said I liked. IMO his speech was not as it has been described on TC.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue