Dear members and supporters,
First, a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your families on behalf of all of us here at the club - it’s a special time of year and I hope you have a relaxing and enjoyable time over the next few weeks.
At the club, you’ll be pleased things haven’t slowed down in the slow part of the year!
50,000 members
It never ceases to amaze me how many passionate Port Adelaide people continue to commit to the club, and despite two tough years on field, we’ve been tracking at a near-record rate of membership sign-ups.
Our target is 60,000 members. We’ve made it these last two seasons, and we’re confident we can do it again.
Open Training and Family Day
We’re lucky to have a club community that relishes the chance to be part of our footy club, and to support our players at training. On Monday, we had over 1,000 people come to Alberton for our first open training of the pre-season. In scenes reminiscent of our SANFL heyday, it was great to see so many kids leaning over the fence waiting to get an autograph from our players, and our footy team getting around our people.
The next big opportunity to see the players in action will be our annual family day in February. Make no mistake this will be a huge event, combining our season launch with our biggest supporter day on the calendar (outside of our games, of course!)
SANFL and Next Generation Academies
The SANFL fixture has been released for next year and it’s a pleasing draw. There’s the novelty of night time footy with away games against the Bays and Redlegs in the opening two rounds, and the excitement of hosting games in Anzac Round, Indigenous Round and Multicultural Round.
Importantly, our calendar is advantageous for those wanting to get back to supporting the Maggies this year – we are very happy that only two Alberton home games fall on weekends where the Power also play home, so there’s plenty of chances for you to get around Chad Cornes and the boys in 2017.
As an extension of this, our Next Generation Academies have started up and we’ll have some exciting coverage of these brand new footy development programs in the New Year.
Player leadership
Travis Boak will lead our group again next year. His fifth season as captain will be another big challenge, but we’d all agree his leadership has grown significantly in that time. He’ll be supported by Ollie as vice-captain – a huge step-up for Ollie, but one that he’ll take in his stride, and Hamish, Brad, TJ and Jacko will give the pair of them plenty of support in the extended leadership group.
China
Things are moving well on the China front. Interest in the Shanghai game is high and you’ll be hearing a lot more about that in the new year. It’s wonderful to have Cathay Pacific Airlines join us as a partner in the past week, another really positive indicator of the club’s potential to attract new partnerships as a result of our China Engagement Strategy.
Cathay join Shanghai Cred and Ausgold as the other major partners of our China campaign.
At our recent Promotional Tour in Shanghai we introduced over 2,000 children to our game and to our club, held a media event in front of the 18 leading media outlets in China and continued to put in place the foundations of a successful game in May 2017. If we reflect on the year we have had since the Prime Minister announced our intention to play the first AFL game for points in China in April, it’s quite remarkable the progress we have made. Next year, we hope to take it further again.
The year ahead
I’ll conclude by simply saying thank you for your support this year. It is appreciated by every corner of our football club. Port people are traditionally a tough crowd to please, but we wouldn’t have it any other way – it’s the greatest motivator we have.
Take care this Christmas and New Year, and we’ll see you in 2017.
We Are Port Adelaide.
KT.
