Posted on Facebook by Bob Mann today:
Dear Warriors Members,
Last night a group of passionate Warriors members gathered to go over recent events in regards to what we can do to avoid our great club going out of business. This meeting was brought about due to revelations this week about our finances and due to the email sent to members via Stephen Walter. We will be arranging another event this Sunday, especially for the girl's teams and for those who could not make last night to discuss this further. Keep any eye on your in-box today.
The major drama threatening our club’s future is now a financial one more than a governance one with the club carrying significant financial liabilities accrued since 2013.
We provided those in attendance with a number of options for them to support or reject. These included options to combine in with other local Associations for both domestic and rep competitions. The main option though that was discussed long and hard was saving the Oakleigh Association and allowing our kids to continue to play for the club they have represented so well over the past five years and they have come to love as their own.
I am glad to say the vast majority (only two opposed) supported a concerted effort to save our club from the mess we find it in. to do this we very quickly need to do the following:
Step One - Lobby Basketball Victoria through the following contacts: -
TODAY (preferably before 2:00pm) we need to get as many people to lobby the Basketball Victoria contacts I have listed below. In that email simply be passionate about what the club means to you and your children, a bit of history of your involvement and why you believe it should be given the opportunity to continue and how you believe we can come together to overcome the financial and governance issues facing us.
Once you have sent your email in get other to send in theirs as well. We need lots of emails to make this effective. Doesn’t matter whether they are with the Warriors or not, anybody who thinks this is wrong needs to get involved. I have listed Stephen Walter’s phone number along with his e-mail, as he has encouraged members to get in contact, so do so, but be respectful while being passionate at the same time.
Stephen Walter - Basketball Victoria appointed Manager for the club
E-mail stephen.walter@basketballvictoria.com.au
Mobile: 0400 966 829
Nick Honey - Basketball Victoria CEO via his executive assistant Merry Sholer
E-mail merryn.sholer@basketballvictoria.com,au
Note: Ensure you mark this one for Nick Honey’s Attention
Mike Bainbridge – Basketball Victoria President
E-mail mbainbridge@iprimus.com.au
Step Two – Do you have auditing/accounting experience: -
We have had one and possibly two members with experience in these areas, who have volunteered to go through our financials to get an absolute and clear picture of where our club is financially. At the moment other than knowing that we face a significant debt, nobody seems to know exactly what that debt is. If you have similar auditing/accounting experience in this area, please contact me via my details below to help out.
Step Three – Developing a plan to trade our way out of our debt: -
Much of our debt is to the ATO. I have been advised now by several people that we can arrange a strict payment plan over a period of time to repay that debt that should allow the club breathing space and time to address all area of concerns and to allow us to trade in a solvent manner going forwards.
I need people with a business/finance background to assist us to come up with a plan to ensure that going forward
We trade in a solvent manner,
That we can put in a plan to eliminate debt and
We can put in place processes that the club can grow at a significant rate to ensure it is an ongoing viable concern into the future.
If you have experience in this, again we would love to hear from you via my contacts below.
Step Four – An executive for the future: -
We have had six wonderful people nominate for an interim executive who have worked their butts off behind the scenes over the past eight weeks. They nominated for those positions as under our constitution you need to have been an approved voting member who has served a 12 month probationary period. All these people meet that criteria and put their hands to do what they could to rescue the club
We now need to arrange for new people with fresh ideas and energy to nominate for the next executive of the club. There will be an SGM called at some stage once we have dealt with our financials to elect a new committee. At that SGM a new constitution will be adopted to allow all paid up members to nominate for an executive position. So now any parent of any child can nominate and be voted onto our executive as can any member 18 and above.
If you want to help firstly save and then rebuild our club to a position of strength, please get in contact with once more via my details below.
Step Five – Fundraising: -
We are going to bring together a group to put together a number of fund-raising events and initiatives. If you would like to help out with this group, yif ou have any fund-raising ideas or things you can provide for ways to raise funds again get in touch. Already last night, one of our members has kindly offered to donate a prize for a raffle or event to raise funds for the club. That’s the spirit we need.
If you are like that please get in touch.
In an email earlier this week I used the below saying from master motivator Anthony Robbins. Read it carefully. How appropriate is this to our club right now?
"No matter how long a wall has stood, none has the power to withstand the continued force of human beings who have decided to persist until it has fallen"
We can sit back and allow others who are not a part of our club, who don’t know the people within it or the passion they have for the Warriors to decide our club’s destiny or we can make our club’s future direction our choice!
To start that effort go to step one and get busy lobbying and get other into the effort. We need good people NOW!
We will keep you updated with further steps in coming days.
Go Warriors!
Kind Regards
Bob Mann
0468 543 173
bob_mann@mannkobe.com.au