Life Membership – More Than an Honour

There are parts of the old Parramatta District Rugby League Football Club Annual General Meetings that I still remember very clearly.

One of the most important was the election and induction of Life Members.

These weren’t simply names being added to a list.

They were people who had given a significant part of their lives to our football club.

Some were players whose names every Parramatta supporter would recognise. Others weren’t household names at all.

They were trainers, officials, volunteers and auxiliary personnel—the people who worked behind the scenes, often for many years, because they loved Parramatta and wanted to contribute to their football club.

I remember that while a number of the players being recognised wouldn’t necessarily attend the meeting, many of those behind-the-scenes people certainly did.

And you could see what it meant to them.

The members bestowed the honour

Looking back at a Parramatta District Rugby League Football Club Constitution from that era confirms just how important a role the members played.

Life Membership wasn’t simply something decided behind closed doors.

There were eligibility requirements. Nominations had to be made in writing with a proposer and seconder. The Board considered the nominations and determined which nominees would be put forward.

But the final decision belonged to the members.

The nominees were presented at the Annual General Meeting and had to receive the approval of a majority of the members present and eligible to vote before being elected to Life Membership.

I think that’s important.

The Board could put someone’s name forward, but the members bestowed the honour.

One of the proudest moments of his life

Years later, one of our Life Members told me something that has stayed with me.

He said that, up until that point in his life, being voted by the membership to receive Life Membership of the Parramatta Football Club was one of the proudest moments of his life.

Knowing how the process worked makes that comment even more meaningful to me today.

His fellow members had considered what he had contributed to their football club and decided that contribution deserved its highest recognition.

It wasn’t simply the Club saying thank you.

It was the members saying thank you.

What does Life Membership mean today?

Parramatta continues to recognise outstanding contributions to our football club through Life Membership.

The Parramatta Eels describe Life Membership as a special acknowledgement for people who have made an outstanding contribution to the Club. Tim Mannah and John Monie were inducted as Life Members in 2023.

But the way that honour is conferred has changed.

Under the current PNRL Constitution, the directors may appoint a person as a Life Member. The old process I remember—where nominees ultimately went before the members at the Football Club AGM for election—is no longer part of the process.

I think something important was lost when that changed.

There was something particularly meaningful about a room full of fellow members voting to recognise someone who had spent years serving Parramatta.

For the players, trainers, officials, volunteers and others who received that recognition, it wasn’t simply the Club saying thank you.

It was the members saying thank you.

That is the tradition I remember, and it is a tradition I believe is worth preserving.

Today, our Life Members—like the rest of us who are Eels Members—have very little direct voice in the governance of our football club.

I believe we can retain the professional governance structures that Parramatta needs while finding a way to give members, including those people we have honoured with Life Membership, a meaningful connection to the future of the club.

Life Membership should mean something

Life Membership should never simply be a title.

It should recognise people who have given extraordinary service to Parramatta and make them a permanent part of the football club’s family.

That is why the Members organisation I have proposed specifically recognises our Life Members.

Under my proposal, every recognised PNRL Life Member would automatically be entitled to become a Voting Member of the new Parramatta Eels Members organisation for life.

There would be no annual membership fee required to retain that voting status and no three-year qualifying period.

They would be able to attend its AGM, vote in its elections, nominate eligible candidates and participate in decisions reserved for Eels Members.

It wouldn’t give Life Members control over team selections.

It wouldn’t put them in charge of recruitment.

It wouldn’t allow them to interfere with the coaches, CEO or football department.

It would simply give them something I think the words Life Member ought to mean:

membership for life.

Remembering the people who built Parramatta

One of the sayings I have used throughout this campaign is:

“Let those who drink the water remember those that dug the well.”

Life Membership is perhaps one of the clearest expressions of that idea.

Parramatta wasn’t built only by the great players whose photographs hang on the walls.

It was also built by trainers, administrators, volunteers, officials, coaches, supporters and countless people behind the scenes who gave years of their lives to this club.

Many of those people never ran onto Cumberland Oval or Parramatta Stadium in front of thousands of supporters.

Their contribution wasn’t measured in tries, tackles, premierships or first-grade appearances.

But without people like them, there would be no Parramatta Eels as we know it today.

Some received Life Membership because their fellow members recognised that contribution.

We should preserve that history.

More importantly, I think we should preserve what the honour meant.

I don’t want Life Membership to become simply a name on a list or a ring presented at a function.

I want the next person who receives that honour to feel what that Life Member once described to me—the enormous pride of knowing that the people of Parramatta recognised what they had given to their club.

And I want them to know that when Parramatta calls them a Life Member, the word Member still means something.

If Parramatta’s members consider someone worthy of the honour of Life Membership, surely they are worthy of a meaningful place in the future of their football club.