Intro kate it's fair to say it's been a big few months for the melbourne footy club how are things tracking off the field from your perspective yeah fantastically well i mean we've we've had probably i think historically one of the best years that the club's ever had i mean to win a premiership but to turn around what was we were looking at sort of a three million dollar loss into a two million dollar profit off the back of some fantastic work that our executive team and our staff have done particularly around the grand final and merchandising i've spoken to so many people like myself who've said i've just spent every spare cent of cash that i've had on merchandise i'm following the grand final so it's great it's been a really fantastic last few months i mean the club has been so great with things like taking the cup around i'm still asked i do radio interviews i did one last week and the the guys who are interviewing me saying this cup tour is just fantastic so many people have got linkedin pictures up and twitter pictures up and facebook pictures up of them with the cup and it means so much to everybody you know this club has just done an extraordinary job of making everybody feel like they were part of such a successful 2021 and i think we're well underway off field to actually um progress with another great year in in 2022 and it's really exciting times for this club i mean who wouldn't be proud to belong to the melbourne football club right now AFLW update footy is well and truly back underway through our aflw side a loss on the weekend but tracking well overall you must be excited by their progress yeah look i love the the afl program and i love to get down there and watch the games and get down to training with the girls we had a great start a three zip start to the season adelaide are always unbelievably tough i mean i think it's really good that we got to play them fairly on in the season because that's always the litmus test i look at adelaide have been there or thereabouts every single year and speaking to you know the coaches some of the girls after the game they know that it's given us some areas that we know we need to work on we had a really good fourth quarter we've had a really great quarter in each of the matches we've played but now they realise there's work to do and to string four really good quarters together they're certainly capable of doing it i think if you're going to have a loss like that it's a good time to have it because there's still plenty of time for us to work and you saw at the end of last season we were really starting to hit our straps as we got towards that end of the season and again that pesky adelaide beat us in the semi last year so hopefully we'll be able to go all the way and make a grand final this year but work to do and the coaches and the players are well aware of that and looking forward to next week's game home game down at casey so get down there fans and and cheer the women on as they come back and hopefully have a big win next weekend in more off Board election your news the first board election on you is coming up what do members need to know in the lead up for that yeah look it's it is a board election it's not an ideal um situation certainly for me as as president i'd like to see stability and just be able to get on with it we we do have a a challenged and contested election we have some challenges um and look it's the members right um to nominate and challenge me as president or the board if they think we're we're not doing a good enough job or we need to change so we are in a contested election situation it does create a bit of a holding pattern i'm not sure who's going to be on my borders yet so ballot papers are out i do really encourage people to vote i as president i'm incredibly happy with where we are as a club i'm very very happy with the directors i have on the board i'd like to see us progress forward with unity and stability so get out and fill in your ballot papers when they do arrive members i apologize for the postal voting i know it's um it's antiquated and it is part of our constitution i did actually ask legally you know given the constitution hasn't been updated i think in more than 20 years can't we consider electronic voting as as postal voting in this day and age it wasn't around at the time the constitution was last updated but legal advice is no it has to be a postal vote so it's a bit of an annoyance but um look it's a bit disruptive but like i said members have the right to challenge us members have the right to vote so let's get on so i know who we have got on the board and can move forward hopefully in 2022 with unity and total alignment like we saw in 2021 and again have another great year members will Gaichos Paddock project also be interested in the gosh's paddock project there's a bit of a redevelopment going on out there have you got any update for us yeah look the the gauchos paddock project is going on uh really well the interestingly just our women have been training over at the glass house at collingwood's facility while the paddocks being redone and if you talk to them down at training they say how much difference the surface actually makes that'll be fantastic when cautious is ready for use and generally overall in our facility our home base um update not always everyone asked there's not much i can tell you other than to say i've done a few of these i did the billion dollar negotiations for the tennis centre redevelopment i'm doing another stadium out in the west at the moment the negotiations for that and i can assure members that while we don't have a form formal update we can give at the moment those conversations um in all circles are progressing as well as any of the conversations i've had so um we're hoping that we will have um news on a a good solid home base to go along with um gosh's paddock sometime soon and AFL season the afl season is not too far away you can zone on for a big round one against the dogs you must be pretty keen to see a packed mcg once again yeah look how extraordinary will it be for us to unfill the flag it's a wednesday night game and that is unusual but we said we definitely want it um to be our first game against the bulldogs again and unveil the flag so wednesday night it is i'm sure members won't care at all about the fact that it's a wednesday night um if we can get 37 odd thousand people to turn up to a fantastic replaying of the grand final here at the mcg i'm sure we will fill that ground on wednesday and get down there this is the first time in 57 years we get to unfurl a premiership flag and it'll be a really exciting time for the club the the men have been training incredibly hard i know speaking to them post grand final pretty much when they got back from perth they were into their own personal training they just said there's no point us having time off and having to get fit again so they're all keen as mustard to get straight back into training in little groups all by themselves and according to the coaches they came back to formal training really fit ready to go focused on hopefully challenging well into the september 22 period and maybe just maybe bringing home a premiership um here at the mcg which is something i know that's driving the whole club and in particular the players because um it was extraordinary to do it in perth it's probably the only time it'll ever be played over there as a grand final but to do it at home is is something that means so much to the club and the players and i know they'll be giving it their best in 2022 to make the crab incredibly proud once again there's a lot to look forward to thank you kate thank you