Saturday represents our final home game of the 2012 Toyota AFL Home & Away Season, and the Club is using this game to thank and recognise you, our incredibly loyal members for your dedication and support throughout the year.

As a club, we continue to be driven by our passionate and committed members year on year.

From our corporate, reserved seat and general admission members, interstate, overseas, and sideline members; whatever level of support you’ve provided the club this season, it is highly valued by everyone at your football club.

There has been significant change this season, most notably with the appointment of Scott Watters as senior coach. In addition to Scott, there were 13 new appointments within our football department plus the arrival of 12 new faces in the playing group.

With an eye on the future, the Club launched the Saints Player Academy in May. The Saints Player Academy is a new initiative to the AFL and applies a holistic approach to developing players’ values and skills, both new and existing.

To date, four players have made their AFL debuts plus a number of other emerging players have made important contributions throughout the season.

It only seems like yesterday we were filming our “Drawn a Line in the Sand” membership campaign involving over 2000 current members on the beaches in the bayside region of Melbourne.

This season, we made a commitment to you to become a more inclusive club and engage with our membership base on a new level.

In addition to our pre-season Family Day at Frankston, this season we introduced an exclusive Members Day at our traditional heartland of Moorabbin, commenced taking the club to the members with our ‘Saints in the Street’ and ‘Saints Express’ campaigns in the Bayside region plus held a number of Fans’ Open training sessions.

For the first time in many years, our interstate training sessions were opened for members and supporters to attend.

We have increased the resources in our digital communications team to help keep members and supporters up to date with all the happenings at the club.

We continue to recalibrate our membership service team since moving it in-house, with a view to improving the interaction and support we can provide to our members.

Additionally, we have established an annual conference for our interstate and country supporter groups so that our members’ views are heard.

While we have two games left in the home and away season, the Club will approach 2013 with much anticipation.

St Kilda is on the verge of becoming the first club to play for premiership first points outside of Australia, when we hope to play in New Zealand on Anzac Day in 2013.

We are looking to make a formal announcement regarding this in the near future.

The Club’s executive continue to work hard to bring to fruition our aspiration of growing our brand and being at the forefront of promoting the great game of AFL abroad.

We hope you take the opportunity on Saturday to participate in the numerous activates taking place around Etihad Stadium and immerse yourself in our Members ‘Thank You’ Round.

Something not to be missed at 11:30am is the Legends Match featuring former players Aaron Hamill, Andrew Thompson, Brett Voss, Jayson Daniels, Russell Morris and cricket great Shane Warne.

The current playing group will also be participating in the festivities when they run on to the ground today wearing a unique Members’ Guernsey featuring the names of 1200 of the club’s longest serving members.

A strong and involved membership is the lifeblood of the St Kilda Football Club, and together we will continue to work towards achieving long-term sustainable success.  

On behalf of the St Kilda Board, the club’s executive, our staff and the playing group, thank you for your ongoing support.

Fortius Quo Fidelius

Go Saints!

Michael Nettlefold
Chief Executive