Dear Members & Supporters,

At the AGM on Friday night, we presented our Strategic Vision, titled ‘Chasing Greatness’. It is an ambitious picture of the future which guides our strategic agenda and it embraces the expectation of Port Adelaide. When you’re a football club that has won the ultimate 37 times from 79 Grand Finals in its 150 years, it’s not hard to work out why the expectation is so high.

Chasing Greatness absolutely sets the bar high, at Port Adelaide we are surrounded by eras of greatness. In the AFL era though we haven’t achieved that yet so if we are driven to build an era that rivals any in our Club’s history, we need to aim high.

We have a great foundation to build on. Our playing group is in an exciting position, our members are as connected as ever, we are passionately chasing growth, commercially we are in a very strong position with three major partners locked in long term and the Alberton precinct re-development has started. Debt reduction now has to be a priority for the next few years.

I’ll be providing members with regular updates on each of our strategic priorities throughout the year, so you can clearly understand how we are performing and tracking as we ‘Chase Greatness’.

The Alberton Oval Precinct re-development is bold and will ensure our Club becomes the epicentre of the entire Port Adelaide community and also sport in the western suburbs. It will include a magnificent social and retail offering for our members and serve as a base for local community sport in the north-western suburbs together with a world class high performance centre for our players, coaches and staff.

We have already started with Stage 1 of the Port Club renovations underway, and are hopeful of securing the final funding for Stage 2 by mid-year to ensure we start that as soon as possible. Stage 2 sees the Bob McLean sports bar and bistro move upstairs to capitalize on the magnificent views out over Alberton Oval, the city and the vista of the Adelaide Hills in the background. It’s going to be a fantastic place for our members and the community to immerse themselves in the Club.

The bigger Alberton Oval precinct re-development is progressing rapidly. Consistent with our approach to ensure we focus on what is absolutely most important, we have spent the last ten months refining our vision for the precinct. We have worked closely with the Council to ensure we create a precinct that meets the needs of not only an elite AFL football club of the future, but also the local community.

Our plan for the Alberton Oval precinct is for a unique multi-use sports and community development. It will bring together high performance men’s and women’s sport (AFL & AFLW), community junior sport with the West Adelaide Bearcats Basketball Club and the North West Junior Soccer Association, whilst also being an important cultural and community precinct at the gateway to the revitalized ‘Port’ which is strategically significant for the state with the future industrial transformation of the region.

Importantly, we have council support, the planning and approvals process is underway and we are in positive conversations with all levels of government to secure the funding we need to make this exciting project a reality. Subject to funding, we are is ready to start.

In conclusion, the chase for greatness at Port Adelaide never ends. It gets passed from one generation to the next, and we know that our people expect nothing less.

Ultimately though, it now comes down to actions and our focus shifts back to today and tomorrow to do all we can to bring this vision to life.

I look forward to keeping you updated on our progress.

Richo.