AGM 2016

Eldon Leisure Squash Club  

Annual General Meeting  

Wednesday 08 June 2016, 7:00pm at Eldon Leisure Centre  

Minutes 

Present

Richard Adamson, Martin Bone, Adam Coates, Alan Coates, Mark Manuel, Shef Popat, Clare Woroniuk, Steve Drummond.

Apologies 

Vera Wealleans, Nigel Miller  

Guy Jepson & Asmat Ullah Bajwa have stepped down from the committee.

Minutes of previous AGM, 5th June, 2015

Minutes of the AGM from 5th June, 2015 were discussed and agreed. One matter arose MM suggested that committee meeting attendance should be monitored on a case by case basis.   

Treasurer’s Report- Shef Popat

A detailed balance sheet has been circulated by SP. The account balance at 1/6/16 was £1101.87. She noted the pro-rata payment to England Squash and informed the committee that the next payment to England Squash will be 1st January 2017 which will no longer be pro-rata. Eldon should aim for yearly membership payments to be collected before this time. 

RA proposed team league fees and balls to be paid from this. Cost will be £45 per team. This was discussed and the decision was reached that the team league fees and balls will be paid by Eldon next season 16-17.  

League Secretary’s Report- Adam Coates 

Adam highlighted an increase in league players from 68 in 2015 to 76 in 2016. He also noted an increase in the number of games played per division from last year, following an increase in the number of players per division from 6 to 8.  He has found some issues with the current league software; it is slow and has no way of deleting inactive players. He is researching software systems for squash leagues and will update when he has found a suitable system.   

Election of Officers

It was agreed that the officer posts will be Chair, Secretary, Treasurer, League Secretary and General Member Officers. The team Captains will fulfil the role of team manager (for the men’s teams this will be as a collective).

The following officers were elected;  

Chair- Martin Bone (staying in Newcastle until Summer 2017 so happy to stay on as chair)  

Secretary- Clare Woroniuk

Treasurer- Shef Popat 

League Secretary- Adam Coates

General Member Officers- Richard Adamson, Mark Manuel, Mark Steven, Steve Drummond (Webmaster and deputy LS), Vera Wealleans.

Discussion of Proposals  

Team Squash

Proposed by Martin Bone  

New Men’s 3rd team captain. Matt is standing down and we will need another captain.  

Following the changes to Winter League Squash Rules, identification of a third team captain is essential. Action- MB to identify a new third team captain by 30.6.16  

    - Recruitment of new men’s team players 

Men’s team captains will work together to recruit new players liaising with Adam Coates who has identified players from the leagues who could be suitable for the teams and speaking to new players joining Eldon from Newcastle University.  

    - Cost of courts for Team matches (Raised during the meeting by RA) 

RA will meet with Eldon new general manager to see whether a lower cost can be agreed for team matches. Action MB to cost men’s team matches. CW has provided costs for Ladies team matches to SP. It was agreed that as ladies have significantly less matches than men any reduction in cost will decrease match fees equally for men’s and ladies teams.   

Regarding the need for an enthusiastic contribution from new committee members to support existing committee members. 

Proposed by Martin Bone  

New club members who may be able to support the committee were identified (Seth Ridley, Jack Smailes, and Conor Lawless) MB will liaise with them.  

Sponsorship for Tournaments 

Proposed by Adam Coates  

Sponsors for tournaments would help to pay for t-shirts and other aspects of the tournament (i.e. courts, trophies and the other bits and bobs).  

It was agreed that this is a good suggestion which can be discussed in further detail at the early stages of tournament planning.  

Annual Court Cleaning  

Several suggestions were put forward as to how to encourage club members to join in with court cleaning but no final decision was reached as to the way forward for summer 2016.  

Any Other Business  

• Raised by SP- Eldon need a contact point with England Squash for the launch of the new England Squash Website. This will include updating club information on the website. MM agreed to do this. Action SP to forward MM the details. 

•   Raised by MB- Social activities- It is quite a lot of work for one person to organise a social event every two months. Action SP mentioned K Beeson keen to be involved in social organisation she will talk to her about whether she wants to do it jointly with K Hunt.

•  Raised by MB- England Squash open funding calls over the course of the year for match funding towards training squash coaches. SD and Henry Darragh have shown an interest in being trained as a coach with the understanding that they would then commit their time to Eldon to train up new players. MM and MB are happy to write the funding application.