I've just spent two hours trying to write a letter to Smorgon, but it is just to depressing researching all the quotes and comments over the past year. Where do you start?

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Mjonc signing off at 8888

Thats a very good point SA Blue and should be dismissed to lightly.

when has another club out layed a letter like this to their members - i cant recall.

It may be simplistic but quite often simplistic works . The masses buy the simplistic drivel most dont like to much detail

Pauline Hanson got over 1 million people to vote for her using simplistic drivel and motherhood statements .

Political leaders do it all the time we have a state government up here telling what a great job they have done we the railways and yet it now takes longer to get from parramatta to the city than it did in 1927.

People buy this crap and Smorgan knows it . He is cleverer than you give him credit for . 200-300 diehards on TC are not going to stop him from getting re-elected he has just hit 25k-30k with this letter and most will swallow it up and sign on and others might even be swayed to through in some extra cash

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If you allow the Government to change the Laws in an emergency
They will create an Emergency to change the Laws

100 diehards have the ability to spill a board. Also remember only approx 450 votes were submitted at the last AGM election. Its the diehards who will vote, not the normal supporter.

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Mjonc signing off at 8888

My recollection of the last AGM a motion was raised from the floor and was swamped by all the proxies and dismissed by Collo - If you raise the 100 vote to called for the EGM and board spill dont you think Smorgan will be working feverishly behind the scennes to sure up his position .

And on top of that who is going to stand in their place - Not bloody lorraine I can assure you

This is different from Elliott he is not as arrogant and offensive to people as he was

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If you allow the Government to change the Laws in an emergency
They will create an Emergency to change the Laws

I do tend to agree with you. I don't think it should be necessary and in normal circumstances I wouldn't see a need, nor would I feel a right to see it. Two things make we want to see more information.-

a. The dire state of the financials.
b. With the impending (any Friday now) rise of a rival ticket, I would like to be able to compare the two.

Although I feel no alliance to the current board, I am not into throwing them out without seeing what the alternative is. I have no probelm with offering long term goals, such as provided, but I would like to have seen dot point iniative and perhaps milestone points to track acheivement. Again, this probably shouldn't be necessary, but it needs analysis to ensure we get our rise right.

We need an official thread on this that only Josh Kaplan and Italian Blue can post to! They seem to be right on the money.

Apologies to Synbad

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"I had to eat"

Went to the Club today as I do most Wednesdays to catch up with some of the die hards. As expected Coutts and Smorgan categorically denied anything about a vote last night.

Both were dissapointed and wanted to focus on the future and in particular the draft this week. I must say if there is a rival ticket they should just show their cards on the table and get it over and done with, God knows we have waited long enough.

Until then I will continue to support the people in power. After all there is always someone better out there but if we don't know who they are who are we suppose to support?

Exactly. If it's true that Smorgan & Co. were asked to step aside for a new dynamic, cashed up Carlton and they refused to even contemplate it. The members of the new ticket need to make this public so the rank and file can absorb it and make the changes needed via an EGM.

If you want an idea on whether we have improved under Smorgon, refer to the AGM 2006 thread below. Same shit, different channel.

http://www.talkingcarlton.com/phpBB2/vi ... &start=150

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Mjonc signing off at 8888

I don't expect the board to tell us what the plan is, but if a plan existed it would be evident. For example, if concrete plans for increasing membership existed, they would set targets that we would have been able to measure the board against, such as profitability or membership numbers.

As it is, we were originally told that we would be breaking even after 3 years. This year is year 5, and we are bugeting for a loss next year.

What really tells me that the board is devoid of ideas are the following two statements:

1) competing for the finals in 2009
2) having 32,000 members in 2007.

We had 32,000 members in 2005, it's not exactly a stretch target and only "competing for a finals spot" in 3 years is probably at least a year too late. "Competing for a spot" could be season 2004 again, 10 wins only. Considering that we were fully back in the draft in 2005, and should have a maturing (Walker, Murphy, Kennedy, etc and the crop of this year), talented list, we should be aiming higher than that.

What his message to the members is on a sub-conscious level is "we don't have confidence to grow the membership base and we won't play finals until 2010".

NOT GOOD ENOUGH SMORGON. THOSE GOALS ARE ACHIEVABLE WITH A DYSFUNCTIONAL BOARD THROUGH NO FURTHER STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT. IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE YOU CAN BETTER THOSE STATED GOALS THEN DO US ALL A FAVOUR AND FALL ON YOUR SWORD.

Are you serious?? This is the best news out of everything. Tank it again and pick up picks 1+2 in 2007, build in 2008, finals in 2009! No cutting corners, the competition will hate us come 2010 with how we compiled our list.

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"Davies could eventually become a player of Judd's ability" - Paganite03 Click here to see for yourself!

I trust you are kidding surely.

1. If you really think we "tanked" anything in the last 2-years, you must have been living in a cave in Greenland. We were simply shiite.

2. Given the complete lack of direction and financial performance, we will all be looking for another club to support by 2010 unless something positive happens in the next 18-months.

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^^^

Don't worry Essendon* ....... We still hate your guts

^^^

As Steve says if there was a plan in place it would be obvious. We would be aware of it in every statement made by every employee of the club and crap like this letter wouldn't be even considered.

Smorgon knows one of the criticisms of his leadership is his inability to formulate and communicate a coherent plan and instead of acting on that he's outlined a few basic "goals" in order to prop up support for his presidency.

If Smorgon wanted to inform the supporters who wanted to know the drivel he's given us he could have simply put a link to the CFC site in the club's weekly email. There's no reason it couldn't have been placed on the web for those who wanted to read it. Sending it out as a letter is purely electioneering and that should not be paid for by the club's finances.

Unfortunately Smorgon's stonewalling means this is all going to take time to play itself out and is going to be the longest off-season I can remember.

Roll on March.

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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

I think you've all missed the point of the Smorgon plan, something proven to be lucrative to the Blues and most probably the way forward:

http://carltonfc.com.au/default.asp?pg= ... eid=307142

"Smorgon outlines Bright Blue Future"

translates to more M&M GAMES!!!

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Formerly: Ackland the Wonderkid / Army the Wonderkid / quivering mess / molsey / Tony Lynn Fan Club

*bump*

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"You are being watched. The government has a secret system. A machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I know because I built it." - Finch

Back to business, too much positive stuff getting in the way of the real issue

I hope we hear more sooner than later on this.

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Mjonc signing off at 8888

...

I asked 10 Carlton fans of different passion levels what they thought of the letter and the pitch by Smorgon. All were satisfied, leaving me as the only one still scratching my head about what wasn't said, what was assumed etc.

Perhaps we're all rabid fanatics.

Nah, we're just better informed.

It's articles like this that remind me that while our playing list is improving, SO ARE MOST OTHERS.
We as a club need EVERYTHING going well to make up ground on the other clubs. By refusing to step aside and not letting others with much healthier resources get us back into a much more favourable position, Smorgon has consigned us to a Fitzroy-esque position of scrambling to survive and barely keeping in contact with our competitors when we COULD be back on level terms with most within months.
A good Carlton person will put the club before him/her self.

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There's so much I could say...

IMO if Abramovich came in and said here is 10mil to get Carlski back on track, Smorgon would leave, but because it is local Business people who do not get along well with the Smorgon family he stands his ground.

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Mjonc signing off at 8888