Dear Members,

When I last wrote to you, we had six nominations for the two positions on our Board.

Since then, that has reduced to having three candidates for the two positions.

Andy Gowers, a former player and former Board member, Simon Taylor a former player and Director at PWC and head of our Young Executives Committee, and Charles Spicer a very successful school principal at a primary school near our Waverley Park centre, have all withdrawn their nominations.

They are all good people with a genuine interest in the club’s welfare and we will use all within our committee structure post the AGM.

That leaves three candidates, again all good people with the club’s interest at heart.

Current Board member Tim Shearer is offering himself again for a second term and has the unanimous support of the Board.

Tim has been on the Board for three years and we invited him to come on Board as both a long time Hawthorn supporter and because of Tim’s best of class skills and abilities to establish and grow Foundations. Over his term, Tim has been the architect of the Foundations, Yesterday (Heritage), Today (Hawks Community Foundation), Tomorrow (Facilities) and Always (Bequest) strategies which are vital to both sustaining and developing our club to be both successful and socially inclusive.

Tim has already raised considerable funds for the building of the Kennedy Community Centre. That work is not yet completed, so Tim, and we, have more work to do. Even when the Kennedy Community Facility is finished the Foundation will continue to provide resources to the club so that we can secure our financial independence and importantly, to help ensure our football department has the equipment and facilities we need to win premierships and the club can fund its community support programs.

We cannot stress enough to you how important Tim Shearer is to our future, and we would ask you to support his re-election. Tim is highly regarded by the Board and the notice of AGM will include Tim's statement. 

The other two nominees are Jennifer Holdstock and Ian Silk.

Both are long-term committed members of the club. Jennifer, a lawyer with 20 years’ experience, and Ian who recently retired from the leadership of Australian Super.

In your Notice of Meeting for the AGM you will also receive a statement from both Jennifer and Ian supporting their respective candidature. We leave it up to members to decide who they would prefer to be elected to our Board. 

Elections anywhere and everywhere are important. Your club is in an excellent condition. We must continue to build and again, I ask for your support.

Our AGM will be held on Tuesday 14th December at 6.30pm.

Because of our concern for public health and similar to all commercial Board meetings, our AGM will be held by Zoom or comparable means, the details for which will be spelt out in our Notice of the AGM Meeting which goes out on Friday.

Until then stay well and safe.


  

Jeff Kennett
President
Hawthorn Football Club