Read Chairman Angus Johnson’s speech from the 2011 Club Champion Awards.
At last year’s Club Championship I spoke about the challenges we had ahead of us and the opportunities.
The theme of the speech and for the year ahead was ‘Adversity Breeds Success.’
Whilst on the field this year we weren’t successful in terms of our win/loss ratio, we have laid the foundations to achieve success in the years ahead.
A couple of weeks ago Michael Voss signed a new 2 year contract to coach our side.
I sent Vossy a text that evening congratulating him, stating that whilst it might not appear apparent today, we’ve just had the most productive year in a long time.
On and off the field.
Over the past 12 months, one of the great strengths of this Club has been our ability to be brutally honest with ourselves and recognise our deficiencies - and then do something about it.
There’s been a selfless determination within this football Club to do what needs to be done to be a dominant force in the AFL competition and the sporting landscape in Australia
How?
By getting the best people on board, learning from our mistakes, not compromising our values and making decisions only in the best interests of the Brisbane Lions.
For the first time in this Club’s history, both the football department and administration have been comprehensively restructured, simultaneously.
We have a new CEO in Malcolm Holmes, a new look Executive team, and a far better resourced football department headed by Dean Warren.
This year the Club has finalised our first ever Members’ Charter and 10 months ago implemented a social media platform including Facebook and Twitter which already has over 40,000 followers.
We will be shortly launching our Youtube channel and will be constructing a media studio at the Gabba to help us continue to grow on the 1,700% increase in traffic this year on Lions TV.
The opportunities for us to produce our own content for the electronic and broadcast media in 2012 is significant and incredibly exciting.
This is a massive opportunity for our Club, members, corporate partners and supporters and another initiative of our new management team.
There are over 65,000 members at the LIONS@springwood club that are a part of this Club that weren’t with us 10 months ago.
We have re-engaged with our past players having held two functions during the year and are determined to build on this next year and beyond.
The relationship with Fitzroy, an important part of our history along with the Bears, has been repaired and is flourishing.
Notwithstanding the impact of the floods, sponsorship has increased by 10%.
Our players and coaches have spent over 1,500 hours in the community in 2011.
We are determined to be Queensland’s number 1 community based sporting organisation.
Relationships with every one of our stakeholders continues to get stronger.
The list goes on and we still have more to do.
At a recent strategic planning session the Board, management and key stakeholders presented, discussed and debated where we are at, where we want to be and how we’re going to get there.
As I’ve said recently, this wasn’t an airy fairy talkfest but an initiative that was determined to produce outcomes.
The strategic plan that will be finalised over the next few months will be made public.
It won’t sit on the shelf gathering dust, but will be a living, breathing document with measurable KPIs that encourages everyone associated with the Club to be accountable.
We will not compromise on our values or on the effort required to be the best.
We won’t compromise on the people we employ, players we recruit or on creating a culture that allows and encourages everyone to be the best that they can…a culture of continuous improvement, integrity and honesty.
Successful organisations are built on the foundations of strong values and good people. Individuals who recognise that they are part of a team and put the organisation before their own self-interest.
Today at the Brisbane Lions, the quality of people we have is outstanding.
The vision is clear.
We are all united.
And there will be no compromises on creating a culture that take our team, our Club, back to the finals and ultimately the Premiership.
Thank you for your support this evening and throughout the year, and Go Lions.
