Hi Everyone,

I’m pleased to provide our Development Fund Board Annual Report for 2023.

I’d like to thank our dedicated team including John Thomson, Christian Born, Georgie Wettenhall, Neil Hannan and our advisers Bernd Neubauer and Kevin Pidgeon for their enthusiasm and contributions this year.

The purpose of the Development Fund Board is to protect the long-term financial viability of the Club by investing in or purchasing capital assets in order to:

1. Maximise returns and grow assets

2. Maintain financial strength; and

3. Retain financial flexibility.

As a team we made the following progress this year:

Invested $100K: equally distributed across two diversified Index Exchange Traded Funds (aligned to the Australian ASX 200 and the US S&P 500).
Transitioned ANZ Share Investments to CMC Market Invest. This was caused by ANZ’s decision to transition all customers to CMC as part of its strategy to focus on core banking services.
$122,984 is in our ANZ Cash Investment Account for further balanced risk investment in 2023.
Based on the sound financial position of the Club and no current strategic requirement for capital investment, the Board decided in July to invest the remaining funds ($122K) in further ETFs planned to be purchased in the month of July. This investment is considered by the Board to be a 3 to 5 year setting.

Finally, I’d like to thank the team for their support over the past couple of years on the Board.

I have enjoyed leading and working together to establish the fund charter, governance and initial successful investments.

Per our constitution, we renew our membership each year and as such I will be stepping down to allow new opportunity for our members to contribute to the Development Fund Board.

John Thomson is also planning to step down and be replaced by another Life Governor. We thank John for his wisdom and passion to the Board and Club as a whole!

I wish the future Board all the best and look forward to watching the fund grow from strength to strength!

Yours Sincerely,

Rich Wong (aka Wongas)

Development Fund Board Chair