President weighs future
GEELONG’S board has started discussions about its preferred make-up going into a possible election at the end of next year.
Long-serving Cats president Colin Carter is yet to confirm whether he will stand again, saying he will be guided by the views of board members.
Carter is into his eighth year as club chairman and remains eligible to run when his threeyear term expires at the end of next season.
“I haven’t decided yet and, to some extent, that’s going to be a decision for my colleagues on the board,” he said.
“We have started talking about it, as recently as last week the board (had a discussion) about things like the board composition going forward.
“One of the things I said to them, ‘This is a question that we need to resolve, but it’s up to you to express a view on what you want to have happen, it’s not for me to say that I want to keep being president’.
“It’s on the agenda but there’s no urgency about it yet, there’s still a year-and-a-half.
“The question is: when do we start taking that question seriously. The election is in December 2019, so I would have thought that at least by the middle of next year we’d have to have a pretty firm view on it.
“I suspect we’ll have a view on that well before, but there’s no urgency.”
Carter said he remained fully invested and motivated in the role.
The Cats hope to be completely out of gaming by the end of 2020 and are on a path to be debt-free for the first time in half-a-century through the Our Ambition initiative that has raised more than $16 mil- lion, money split between eliminating debt and paying off the club’s contribution towards redevelopment works at GMHBA Stadium.
“I’m enjoying it and the club’s in pretty good nick,” he said.
“We’ve still got some stuff we’ve got to work on, but our ambition is to leave the club in better shape than we found it in and that it is still good in 10 years’ time. I know it’s a cliche, but that’s what we’re about.”