Bulldogs board face-off: 'I can work with Dib' says Anderson

Rival ticket leader Lynne Anderson says she can work with Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs chairman Ray Dib if the upcoming February elections delivers both of them onto the new club board.

The 900 club members will vote on February 11 at the annual general meeting for seven directors.

Dib and the current board join Anderson and her six rival ticket members, plus four independents, to make up the 18 candidates on the ballot paper.

The long-standing tenure of Dib clashes head-on with the long association Anderson has with the club. The popularity of the pair could result in them both being elected to the board.

Members and fans would be dreading that outcome because it could lend itself to a divisive, dysfunctional board.

"I'll be working really hard to make it collaborative and engaging. That's me. That's my whole philosophy," Anderson told NRL.com after she addressed an open fan forum at Campsie RSL on Tuesday night.

"If that was to happen then straight away I'd be saying (to Dib) 'Let's sit down. Let's have a meeting. Let's work things through and look at any challenges we've got.

"But at the end of the day I absolutely believe that all of the 18 candidates are there because they absolutely love the Bulldogs. So there's common ground here."

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Anderson said the fact that she and Dib have now engaged lawyers over an allegedly defamatory statement made in the lead-up to the February 11 vote, doesn't mean she can't work with him in the future.

"Absolutely I could. And I would. There's no worries with that," she told NRL.com.

Anderson's father is the legendary Peter "Bullfrog" Moore, who was club secretary/chief executive from 1969 to 1995 during which time the club won four premierships. Her husband Chris Anderson is a former player and premiership-winning coach. Her brother Kevin Moore was also head coach at the Bulldogs from 2009 to 2011, winning the Dally M coach of the year award in his first season.

Anderson herself was the Bulldogs marketing manager for four years in the 1990s and is now CEO of the Australian Paralympic Committee.

The other five members of the Bulldogs 2018 Reform Team are: former Clive Churchill Medallist in the Bulldogs' 1988 grand final win Paul Dunn; two-time premiership winner Steve Price; long-time former manager of the Canterbury Leagues Club John Ballesty; a local businessman with 35 years' involvement in junior rugby league, John Khoury; and former board member Nick Dimas.

Several speakers at Tuesday night's forum expressed concern over the use of proxy votes in the board elections as a form of stacking the numbers. Anderson said, if elected, she would make moves to end proxies.

"We're going to look into the process of it," she said.

"I'm not sure how easy it will be, but our leagues club structure doesn't have it. However, the football club does have it and it controls the leagues club as it appoints four of the seven directors.

"So for me if proxies aren't considered appropriate at leagues club level, then we have to look at the football structure," she said, adding that her preference was to have the NSW Electoral Commission conduct the ballot.

Anderson said the use of proxies had evolved after initially being used for members who genuinely couldn't attend a meeting.

"But now it seems to be a tool where everyone is canvassing support in advance. I'm sure that wasn't the original intent so we'll be looking into that.

"In terms of the last voting election in 2014, there were also some people opposing the current board but the current board went into the room with about 200 proxies.

"The opposition had nearly 100 so that's around 300 proxies on the table. There were only another 275 people who voted on the day. So with less than 600 voters and you walk in with 200 then you've got 33% of the votes in your back pocket. That's a really big advantage.

"We want to change that because I want as many members as possible to have their voices heard. So it's about not voting beforehand, but getting there on the day, having a think about it, and then making a decision."

Anderson told the Campsie RSL meeting that she would introduce regular fan forums to hear members views firsthand.

She also wanted to set up a members' advisory committee so when directors left mid-term, new board appointments were not made without consultation.