Dear Members and Supporters

It’s been a funny old year. A real mixed bag as they say in the classics!

With our attention well and truly tuned into 2016, I believe we are well placed to continue building on the progress made over the past few seasons. Financial strength will enable us to continue to invest in our future. We took a small but important step by achieving a profit in 2015, but only sustained financial success will ensure that our Club can fulfil all of its ambitions.

Our members and supporters remain the foundation of our financial revival. 50,000 memberships signed before Christmas is a remarkable sign of support for the Club and we are confident of surpassing the record set this year (over 60,000 members) in 2016.

In 2015 we welcomed four big new partners to the Club in OAK Milk, Four‘n Twenty, RAA and UBET, to support Renault and EnergyAustralia and our legion of loyal corporate partners. More announcements are due in the new year.

Our Community team literally travelled all over the world to deliver their outstanding programs. We were particularly proud of the progress made in delivering high quality educational services throughout remote communities in the APY Lands, which will continue next year. Our exceptional youth programs, underpinned by Russell Ebert’s renowned Community Youth Program, Empowering Youth and the soon to be released Respectful Relationships program continue to provide guidance to thousands of school children each year.

Great progress is also being made in China, where our humble aim is to bring the people of China and Australia together through the inspiration of Australian football! It’s a mighty task, but when I see Chinese University students here in Adelaide joining in the March from the Mall, and Chinese locals cheering on our Academy boys as they performed their traditional dance on the Great Wall of China in Beijing…I feel encouraged to ask ‘Why Not?’

2016 will be our third year of building relationships with the Chinese community, and I sense it will surpass all of the considerable progress made to date.

And finally, the pillar upon which all of our hopes and dreams reside…our teams.

I asked just two things of Ken and his men in the post season period.

That they learn the lessons from 2015… and improve.

The energy the whole group has brought to the pre- Christmas phase of training has been exceptional.

We are well placed to attack the new season.

So now we wait.

We’ll enjoy Christmas, endure January, and then look forward to commencing a whole new campaign on February 20!

And what a campaign it promises to be!

Thank you again for your incredible support. We are all energised by it.

Take care over the break, and have a great Christmas and New year.

We look forward to doing it all again in 2016.

Cheers,
KT