Meet Kate Roffey

Intro well kate firstly congratulations on becoming the 22nd president of the melbourne football club i've got to ask you from the outset what does it mean to you yeah look it's it's almost hasn't sunk in really yet i still because i've been on the board for for eight years already so first and foremost i'm a director of the organisation and as directors we have special responsibilities that we have to deliver on so i'm i'm a director and i'm still a director but being the president it's it's a huge honor i mean these are not things that you stick your hand up and say i want to do it they're things that others ask you to do or others choose you to do and so they become even greater honours and greater responsibilities because others around the board table the staff at the club the players the coaches and the the members and supporters they put their trust in you to actually deliver at the highest level and it's something that you really take very seriously and with a huge amount of responsibility and and give this role a huge amount of respect because it's so important to the club that's so important to our supporters and it's very important to me i mean i'm absolutely honoured and you know totally honoured to be the first female of this fabulous football club as well What do you want to achieve and you did mention you have been on the board for a while now for eight years what do you um really wanna i suppose achieve in your time as per as president yeah so we've been on a growth journey for that those eight years so i came in when peter jackson and paul ruse came in and we knew we had to go through a significant transformation of the club right from the playing group and coaching right through to to staff and everyone to be the best on and off the field that we can be and really eight years on people are asking oh what's happening you know all of a sudden our women are winning our men are women winning games but this is the sort of culmination of eight years of very hard work that i've i've been here for and part of that incredible journey and so now to me this is really about trying to put the final touches on that journey of growth and that's about having the right lists for our playing teams having depth in this list having the right staff the right culture but really one of the most important things to me now is making sure that we understand we are one united club so i always say i'm the president and i have a role to play but it's no more important than the role that every other person involved in this club has to play and that's not just coaches that's not just the players it's not just the staff i'm talking about the members i'm talking about members of our coterie groups our inner sanctum groups our foundation heroes our armchair members our gold members everybody has got a role to play in supporting this club and i really want to make it very very clear that everybody is welcome here and everybody is going to have to play their role if we want to get to where we want to be which is winning men's and women's afl premierships and i How did you get into AFL suppose um our members and supporters would know a little bit about you but it would be great for them to to know um a little bit more as well as you move into your new role so i suppose how did you first fall in love with footy and and become a demon well it's a it's quite a fascinating journey because i actually grew up in a small country town in the northwest of new south wales i went to my public primary and high school we had never heard of afl up in narrabri so we were very much rugby league and rugby union and when i went away to university and studied in canberra and went to play sport there all of a sudden i heard about this sport called afl and i actually started playing afl in our men's team at university and me and another friend because there was obviously no women's league so we played in the men's team and it was just such a great sport it gave us such a great sense of being able to play in a you know in a sport with our men because i certainly wouldn't have played legal union uh in the men's team so i started to develop an interest in afl and then i moved down here to victoria to take on a role as the ceo of vic sport and of course then everybody said well you must have an afl team to support and it's funny when you don't come from a family or an inherited background as a supporter you get to choose a team and i of course was melbourne-based i did a lot of melbourne-based work as the ceo of vic sport so i chose the mighty melbourne demons and from that day i've you know somehow made my way through to president of the club What has led you here and from a business point of view what what uh what has led you here yeah so i've i've been involved in my in all my life in sports i'm actually a sports scientist by background i'm a biomechanist and a sports psychologist so i first started my working career at the australian institute of sport as a biomechanist actually and having always been involved in sport i've transitioned into big facility developments over the years and i think through roles in terms of uh ceo of vic sport i was the ceo of the committee for melbourne i did the redevelopment of melbourne park for tennis australia so that background we're very much a skills-based board here at melbourne football club and and when we're looking to fill board positions we seek out people who have specific skills that we think are going to fill a niche and the time i was asked to come onto the board we really wanted that connectivity with melbourne which i had through my role as the ceo of the committee for melbourne and facilities obviously are something critical and i've been involved in the delivery of probably the biggest facility developments uh in australia certainly in victoria so that was a really important um piece of the reason why i was specifically asked to to come onto the board Staying connected and we have seen you down in the race interacting with members and supporters so how important is it for you to stay connected first and foremost i am a melbourne football club supporter i mean my blood runs red and blue like every other melbourne football club supporters i'm as happy as they are when we're playing as well i'm as sad as they are when we miss a goal so you that is why we get involved in clubs that's why we take on roles like these because we're passionate supporters so i love standing down there and you'll often see me looking up into the stands it's such a great feeling to look up there and see everybody out there cheering and you know in the end i'm another member you know just like everybody else and and i'm happy when they come up and they ask for a selfie or they come up to give me a hug or you know they say well done which doesn't really have anything to do with me whether we win or lose but i'm really happy that they're excited and i'm excited and i know on anzac eve i was sitting there in the crowd and i think we had more support more belief more feeling around the stadium on anzac eve this year than we did when we last made finals back in 2018 it was such a great feeling i was standing there there were a group of really great young guys next to me supporting and cheering away and i said come on keep cheering you know we've got to stay behind our teams when our men and women are playing and you know potentially they're going to lose a game of course they are but don't give up fans don't give up supporters stick by them because they can feel that and you know sometimes it's your cheering like the anzac eve gave that's going to get them over the line um sometimes it'll be your cheering that that gets them to pick up in the second half when we don't start so well against a north melbourne or someone so we we've got to stay the course we've got to believe members because this is our time and like i said it's every single person at this club is going to lift us the last bit of the lift we need to get us to that premiership flag i wanted to ask you about our afrw AFLW program program we have been um around since the beginning of the afl women's competition how significant is it for you to be part of one of the pioneering clubs oh absolutely look i i've you know i have to say that really i spend a lot of time with our afl women and i cannot think of a better group of young women and i'm not just talking about in the afl these they're exceptional young women it's an absolute pleasure for me to be part of this club that has been pioneering the aflw and really absolutely embrace our afl program as much as we embrace our afl men's program they're an integral part of this this club they're every bit as important to us as our men's program and really again we're going through that phase now where we're starting to actually see the five years of work that's been done for our women's program coming to fruition there is a lot more to do absolutely there's a lot more to do we know that we have player shelly scott who drives a couple of hours each way to to come to training they're still working almost full time or studying full-time to play the game that they love so as an industry and speaking to to nick livingston and others at the afl there's a lot more that we want to do for the afl women's competition in general and there's a lot more that we hope to be able to do to support our afl women here at melbourne football club but you know they're an exceptional group as are our men they're exceptional young people and we want our club to be the best that it can be on and off the field so we're not just talking about winning premierships we want this to be a great club for our staff for our players for our supporters for our members so that means we do more on and off the field and that means that in some cases we're going to have to find other ways to support our afl women because they're not paid as full-time athletes and i know from experience it's very difficult when you have to try and blend your sporting career with work and other family commitments as well so they're a credit to us i think every afl women's team is a credit to their club but there's a lot more that we can do i think as an industry and i hope to be part of that going forward and you are the first ever First female president female president of the club and only the third in the league do you see that i suppose how do you say that um the significance of that and how that can really help from a successful success point of view both on and off the field yeah i think this to me is about um contemporary it's a reflection of contemporary society now so that's not about being a female it's about actually showing that we're a reflection of contemporary society and like i just said we want this club to be the best that it can be on and off the field and that means that we embrace diversity that means that we embrace inclusivity that means that we respect and we always show respect no matter who you are no matter where you come from you're given equal respect and we expect everybody involved in this club to show equal respect to everybody else around them so i think they're the sorts of things that having your first female president is reflective of it's not so much the difference between men and women in a skill sense or anything else it's actually showing that we are a contemporary club we want to be the best club like i said on and off the field and this is a genuine reflection of how we're going to go about doing that i wanted to ask you um footy can be Outside of footy pretty consuming um and it can be 24 7. so kate ruffy outside of the footy club and away from footy yeah can you give us a bit of insight into into what you do outside of the club yeah and and i often get this talking at um you know women's leadership things or something how do you find balance and i always say there's no such thing as balance if i'm doing melbourne footy club stuff i'm doing melbourne footy club stuff and i'm doing it wholeheartedly um we we say these are volunteer roles and the reason we point out that their volunteer roles is because um like most other people i have to work to pay my bills and pay my mortgages and things so it means i can't do as much as i might love to i can't do footy 24 7 because i have to do other things and so i switch from footy to work but when i'm not doing those things and i absolutely need to have a break then i'm away from anything and that means away from my mobile phone as well so i grew up in the country i ride horses i ride motorbikes i have a property outside of the city that i go to and my father he's actually a builder he was a builder and he was a very good woodworker and he passed on that love of woodworking to me so i have a big workshop that's full of hand planes and spokeshaves and things and i actually in my spare time make fine furniture and i find that that's where i can actually really go to actually really do clear my mind and do other things that i enjoy and love and have absolutely nothing to do with uh to do with footy Legacy i love that so cool and just finally um i suppose what do you what do you want your legacy to be when you do finish up your time here whether it's um hopefully with a couple of premises in the bank absolutely but how do you really want to leave the club really like i said um i play a role as president it's a very different role we only have one but um it's no more important than the role that anybody else in this organisation plays and hopefully you know my good friend peggy o'neill says there is really no better feeling than being president of your club and winning a premiership and i you know really do hope that i am president of this club when we win our men's and our women's uh premierships because i couldn't think of any better feeling but that's not going to be because of me that's going to be because we've all collectively gotten these teams to where they need to be to win those premierships and you know i if i can go away with the legacy is that i go away as someone that the staff all the players all the members feel like they can come up and give a hug and say thank you then you know that's a good enough legacy for me