Yes, okay Gary, running “on the basis that I think I can add something to improve Board decisions” is all very well and good, but I think you can see by now that we’ll be wanting a bit more than that before we’ll give you the chance. A Sandi-sized bit more.

It all comes down to this “best interests of the shareholder” palaver. Leaving aside the extremely dubious application of elements of company law to the quite different situation where directors are voted for by one group of people (the “members”) but responsible not for their best interests but another’s (the WAFC), I think it’s fair to say that we want to forcefully put to you the proposition that these “best interests” are in fact served by having a committed, engaged and supportive membership base whose collective wisdom is properly sought, respected and by-and-large acted on, even at the cost of short-term commercial disadvantage. Just ask Brisbane, Sydney, Norths, Footscray, Melbourne and Port Adelaide. Ask West Coast in a year or two.

The footy club has one phenomenal asset that has allowed it to become one of the very strongest and financially secure outfits in the AFL, right up there with the giants of the league. It’s not our record of on-field success. We’ve been told in no uncertain terms that it’s not our name, logo, symbols or song. It’s us. Us that stuck through the horror years or (nothing wrong with this) jumped on as soon as there was something there worth supporting.

And this is why what’s gone on over the past month has been so inimical to the best interests of the club’s shareholder. Because there is only one commercially sensible reason why our original club symbols should be changed. And that’s if WE want them to be changed. And there’s only one reason why new symbols should be adopted; if WE want them to be adopted. Forget the merchandise revenues. Forget branding to the theatre-goers or the broader football community. It’s all dust in the wind. Ask the Kangaroos. The best interests of the shareholder and the best interests of the membership are ALWAYS aligned.

Gary, if you’re our man you’ve got to commit to speak truth to power. You’ve got to represent our culture, however wacky it might be, however much it gets derided from outside, not the brand. You’ve got to represent the people who vote for you, because they give you the only mandate you’ve got. The good news is, by doing so, you’ll also be acting in the best interest of the shareholder, even if it doesn’t know it, and no court in the land would argue otherwise for a millisecond.

One (at least) of the candidates in this election is going to get it – really get it – some time in the next couple of weeks, and they’ll win this thing in a canter. So if you want to get on there, eat the bikkies and add something to improve board decisions, it needs to be you.

All 13 nominees are welcome to dive in at any time. Please do.

All we want is honest & proper representation.

What can you do for us, the members?

honest & proper representation is what ye shall get.

I'm ready to be the voice.

Just as an aside, I can't find a list of Directors on the FFC website, which I thought would have been easily accessible information, so I don't even know the make-up of the current board, except for Kate and Ben, plus Steve Harris and I know Richard Goyder is there. So the Board is stacked with corporate appointments by the WAFC aready I suspect, just to ensure that it is run 'corporately'. The member elected Director should ideally offer a different perspective, so another corporate-type person may not be the best choice.

In regard to my previous statement about being required to act in the interests of the shareholder, it would have to be a fairly blatant and repeated transgression to fall foul of the law, or be booted off the Board by the shareholder, so I won't hold back, of course I'll be in there doing my best for the members.

"I think I can add something to improve Board decisions” - yes I know that those words are highly couched and they don't wash with you guys, but equally I won't go around promising more than I believe can be delivered. I'm not campaigning on the basis that I will do this or that - I'll do my best for you and that's all I'm promising. I know from my days as a Councillor in the highly charged atmosphere of Council debates that I was able to fight doggedly on behalf of hard-done-by ratepayers or community groups, and succeed against the odds through sound debating skill and effective communication with others. I think I'm up for the challenge in the FFC boardroom.

Gary Angel

Mr Angel, perhaps I can help you out with the directors. I got a little tragic and ordered a company search of Fremantle Football Club Limited. So here is a copy and paste of directors and shareholders taken from the ASIC search (Shane this is direct from an ASIC search so all info is quite firmly in the public domain - as is required of all directors of public companies so no privacy is being breached):

BENJAMIN THOMAS , ALLAN
Address: ***********
NORTH FREMANTLE
WA 6159
Born: 15 Oct 1968 - SUBIACO , WA
Appointed Date: 30 Nov 2005


BRIAN FRANCIS , O'DONNELL
Address: ***********
DALKEITH
WA 6009
Born: 14 Dec 1963 - EAST FREMANTLE , WA
Appointed Date: 22 Feb 2006


RICHARD JAMES BARR , GOYDER
Address: WESFARMERS HOUSE
LEVEL 11
40 THE ESPLANADE
PERTH
WA 6000
Born: 18 Jan 1960 - TAMBELLUP , WA
Appointed Date: 20 Dec 2006


STEVEN GEORGE , HARRIS
Address: ***********
APPLECROSS
WA 6153
Born: 19 Apr 1966 - SUBIACO , WA
Appointed Date: 29 Oct 2008


GRANT RICHARD , DONALDSON
Address: ***********
PEPPERMINT GROVE
WA 6011
Born: 05 May 1962 - PERTH , WA
Appointed Date: 29 Oct 2008


KATE , GRIEVE
Address: ***********
EAST FREMANTLE
WA 6158
Born: 05 Dec 1973 - ARMADALE , WA
Appointed Date: 01 Dec 2008


STEPHEN ANTHONY , O'REILLY
Address: ***********
EAST FREMANTLE
WA 6158
Born: 09 Nov 1972 - ESPERANCE , WA
Appointed Date: 01 Dec 2009


JENNIFER LYN , MORRIS
Address: ***********
BEDFORD
WA 6052
Born: 20 Sep 1972 - MARYBOROUGH , QLD
Appointed Date: 01 Dec 2009


Secretary
GARY JOHN BAINBRIDGE , WALTON
Address: ***********
SUBIACO
WA 6008
Born: 29 Dec 1960 - PERTH , WA
Appointed Date: 24 Apr 2002

Ultimate Holding Company
WEST AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL COMMISSION INC

If anyone would like a full copy of the ASIC search I'd be happy to give a copy to shane for posting.

Good to know if you are born in Tambellup you aren't necessarily going to be treated badly by the club.

Member elected Directors have a responsibility to their constituents over and above their "perceived" duty or responsibility to the share holder. No Court would deny that their constituent is their higher authority. Therefore Member elected Directors are honor bound and required to be upfront and direct with their constituents. For a Member Elected Director to refuse to disclose information of board deliberations is counter to their mandate! The Board must know that a MED cannot site confidentiality to a financial member. If the Board reguires confidentiality they must achieve it by other means. The MED can postpone full disclosure to their constituents, not deny them full disclosure indefinetely.

To elaborate, if the Board CEO et al, said to a MED, this is confidential you cannot repeat this, the MED is entitled to state, "I'm elected by the membership, not appointed by the WAFC or any other entity! My tenure is to represent the interests of the members who elected me! I am answerable to them. I will inform them of those issues that I require their imput!" !!!
THAT CANDIDATE IS THE ONE WE WANT!!

Werd, section 203D of the Corporations act states that a director of a public company can be removed by resolution of the shareholders. Given that FFC (I will never refer to it as FDFC) has only one shareholder, removing a MED would be the easiest thing in the world.

So even if you are correct about the obligation to members, if the MED was doing something the WAFC didn't like (e.g. talking about board decsions on Dockerland), they would just remove them and replace them with a more compliant MED.

There is a very good reason why the Crawford report recommended 4 MEDs - because with only 2 they are easily outvoted by the rest of the board and they are therefore window dressing only.

The whole logo fiasco shows us that the board merely follows the CEO and there's squat that the 2 MEDs can do about it!

Armadale! Are we pleasantly surprised?!!!!

David Kilkullin's continuing thesis on counterinsurgency in The Accidental Guerilla and elsewhere posits that a classical objective of the insurgent is to provoke a disproportionate response from the occupier.

The effect of the response is to:

i. Bring in to sharp focus the issues and power structures behind the conflict
ii Confuse, disturb and potentially alienate supporters of the occupier
iii Convince the local population that their interests and those of the insurgent coincide (or at least that they share a common enemy/oppressor)

So, svs1, what we need is an MED who will either force the Steves/WAFC to open up their processes and listen (properly) to the membership, or provoke them to take drastic action by removing him/her and setting in train a course of events that history shows will have the same effect.

So we have thirteen people who've wandered into Tienanmen Square. Which of you has the guts to stand in front of the tanks?

Not at all Blocker - I find nothing pleasant about Ms Grieve's representation and I am not surprised she's from Armadale.

The fear of being turned into the Western Dockers - iDock 2.0 - is heightened when one sees an over representation of Western Suburbs living directors (Peppy Grove, Dalkeith, Applecross, Subiaco) - these guys are about as far removed from Freo's working history as you can get. No wonder the board doesn't understand the fans issues with what they've done, I seriously doubt they could relate to the majority of fans.

Individuals look very small and insignificant when viewed from way up an ivory tower. This is why we need to march, to become a mob that can't be ignored. The steves of this world only understand marketing and the worst thing from a marketing perspective is negative publicity - we need to make it so the Worst, the Australian, the Heral Sun etc can't help but notice us and write articles about the shabby way the members have been treated. It then becomes a marketing imperative to reverse the changes thereby avoiding negative publicity and gaining positive publicity which would see us once again enthroned as the people's club.

You know it makes sense.