Dear ABNS, I hope you and your family are well and are enjoying what has been an exciting AFL season to date. As we head into the back end of the AFL season and with three games remaining, I’m sure you’ll agree the work that our leaders have done, particularly Senior Coach Michael Voss, has resulted in an exciting brand of football that our members and fans have connected with all year. We’ve seen a number of on-field highlights this season, however one that continues to impress year-on-year is the commitment and dedication of our members. We know we have one of the biggest and most passionate fanbases in the country, evidenced by the 85,000 membership target we recently reached. Our members have also shown up in force at our games this year, with record attendances set in season 2022, and we can’t wait to see you all back at the ‘G in Round 23 for our final home game of the year. To be playing in big games at the back end of the home-and-away season is the exact position we want to be in as a football club. The connection has been growing, resilience building. Clearly, we’re not the finished product yet but most importantly, the group acknowledges that the hard work must continue. That is the mentality of our AFL side at the moment – we’ve put ourselves in the position we set out to be in at the start of the year. We’ve given ourselves a shot, so let’s embrace this opportunity over the coming weeks which starts in Brisbane on Sunday. The main reason I wanted to write to you today is to share some really exciting news. From 9am Monday 15 August, we are ready to welcome you home to IKON Park. Stage 2 of the redevelopment of IKON Park is almost complete, inclusive of our state-of-the-art recovery and high-performance area, gymnasium, indoor training field, expanded Carlton Shop, function rooms and the opening of the Carlton Football Club’s brand-new café 1864. Stage 3 of the redevelopment is currently ongoing and set for completion in mid-September. This part of the redevelopment will include a match-day pavilion housing visitor and VFL/VFLW changerooms, along with a function centre with completed landscaping and connection to Princes Park. From Monday 15 August, Stage 2 of the project including the IKON Park café and The Carlton Shop will be open to the public, with the latter set to open its doors Monday to Friday 9am–5pm. Our spiritual home, for the first time ever, will now host its own interactive and immersive museum that pays homage to 159 years of proud Carlton history. We would like to take this opportunity to express our sincere appreciation to both the Victorian and Federal governments for their significant financial contributions to the IKON Park redevelopment, with this investment now cementing IKON Park as Melbourne’s home of AFLW. When the Club set about undertaking this historic work, it was based upon achieving facilities for women’s sport that would be the equal of their male counterparts. It is with great thanks to the Victorian and Federal governments that this objective has now become a reality. I’d also like to acknowledge our Club donors, whom without their support, our vision for the IKON Park redevelopment would not have been brought to life and whose significant contribution and support of our great Club cannot go unmentioned. As a result, our AFLW side now has access to facilities that are the envy of our competitors, and it has arrived in perfect time, with less than three weeks from our season opener against Collingwood, which will take place right here on a Thursday night under the brand-new lights of IKON Park. The build-up to the AFLW season will take a massive step next week, when – for the first time in our history – we will have both our AFLW and AFL teams playing at the same ground, against the same opposition, on the very same day. The MCG next Saturday will see our AFLW side face Melbourne at 4:40pm before the AFL side do the same soon after at 7:20pm, and we hope to see you there for an historic double-header. Before I conclude, I wanted to let you know in advance that we will be launching our new Strategic Plan for the Carlton Football Club this month. A significant amount of work has gone into this, including the development of six key values, which have been created in consultation with stakeholders throughout our football club – our players, football staff, admin staff, and you, our members. This business plan will drive the direction and decision-making of our football club for the next five years and as members, we look forward to sharing it with you in the coming weeks. Thank you so much for what has been truly remarkable support in 2022 so far. We’ve come a long way together in less than a year. We still have a long way to go, but together, I couldn’t be more confident we are building something very special here at the Carlton Football Club. Kind regards,
Brian Cook CEO Member ID: 4914291
_________________ It's never as good as it looks and it's never as bad as it seems.
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