PORT ADELAIDE CEO Keith Thomas says the club’s unique Member Convention is a sign of respect in its most important stakeholders.
Ahead of the event at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre on Saturday, Thomas described Port Adelaide’s membership base as having a deep relationship with the club.
He said giving them a “look under the bonnet” led by key club leaders was designed at maintaining an ongoing conversation with members about the club’s inner workings.
“What we try to do with our members is to have an ongoing conversation about all aspects of the footy club so this is quite unique because it gives us an opportunity for every leader in the club to get under the bonnet with them and give them an inner sanctum, privileged and confidential information about the key issues in the club,” he said during a press conference as hundreds filtered into the event.
“I don’t think it’s something many clubs – or any clubs – do and the message to the coaches is don’t hold back, give people an insight into the things that we’re doing so it’s a show of respect for the relationship we have with our people.”
The event includes insights from all coaches, list management and recruiting staff, high performance and welfare staff and some players.
Among the presentations are a talk from General Manager – Football, Chris Davies about the changing landscape of the AFL and another from senior assistant coach Michael Voss about how the club will deal with the latest AFL rule changes.
Because of the classified information, members were told that no recording devices, notepads or telephones were allowed in the venue.
“We thought we could get away with a few phones but I’ve seen the content and there’s no way we could so we’ve pulled them off the (members),” Mr Thomas said.
“I think that’s part of the magic of it.
“This is about hard core footy and 90 per-cent of the day will be about what are we going to be doing in defence, how are we going to be using our rucks, what do the new rule changes mean to the game, what did we learn when our list managers went over and saw Real Madrid – that sort of stuff is unique, it’s footy, and I think our members will be far more interested in this than they were in the AGM.”
Port Adelaide became the first club to hold the unique member only event last year when around 750 people attended at Alberton Oval and tickets sold out within a couple of days.
This year it was moved to the bigger venue to allow for more people to attend.
Mr Thomas said the club would continue to be open with its people, as it has always been.
“Port Adelaide supporters have a very deep relationship with this club, they’re really knowledgeable and often their support is generational – it’s come from their family generations back – and they want to know,” he said.
“I think that as uneasy as we get about performance and all the things that are going on – if we keep talking to each other, keep each other informed, there’s a sense that we’re going through this together.”
