WELSH AMATEUR BOXING ASSOCIATION
Annual General Meeting
to be held on
Sunday 11th October 2015
at 2 pm
in
The National Boxing Centre
Sport Wales National Centre
Sophia Gardens
Cardiff
CF11 9SW
INDEX
PAGE 1: ------TITLE PAGE
PAGE 2: ------INDEX
PAGE 3: ------AGENDA
PAGE 4: ------CHAIR’S ADDRESS
PAGES 5: ------MINUTES OF 2014 AGM
PAGE 7: ------OPERATIONS REPORT
PAGE 8: ------PERFORMANCE REPORT
PAGE 9: ------FINANCE REPORT
PAGE 10: ------PROPOSITIONS OF ARTICLE CHANGE
PAGE 12 to 19: ------2014 / 15 LIST OF CHAMPIONS
PAGE 20: ------PROXY VOTING INSTRUCTIONS
PAGES 21to 22: ------PROXY VOTING SLIP (PROPOSITIONS)
PAGE 23: ------2015 /16 CENSUS FORM
NOTICE OF THE 2015
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the 2015 Annual General Meeting will be held at Sport Wales National Centre in the National Boxing Facility on Sunday 11th October 2015 at 2pm
AGENDA
1. To hear the Chair’s Address
to include Apologies and Obituaries
Board Resolutions and Ordinary Business to be Transacted
2. To receive the minutes of the 2014 AGM, held December 2014
3. To receive the Operations Report
4. To receive the Performance Report
5. To receive the Finance Report
6. To receive and, if thought fit, to adopt the Accounts for 2014/15
7. To approve the re-appointment of Watts Gregory as auditors of the Association
8. To consider and, if thought fit to pass the following Resolution:
“Three skills and remit based non-Executive Directors appointed by the Directors, who will have a vote”
9. To consider and, if thought fit to pass the following Resolution:
“Until and unless otherwise determined by the Company in the Annual General Meeting, there shall be a maximum of ten voting Directors and the minimum number shall be four”
10. To consider and, if thought fit to pass the following Resolution:
“The Vice Chairman and Elected Directors shall hold office for two years, the Elected Directors will be staggered so two of the four retire at the AGM each year. However, at the 2016 AGM, two Elected Directors will be elected for two years, two will be elected for one year”
Member Resolutions
11. To consider and, if thought fit to pass the following Resolution:
“The Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the WABA Board must not be from the same division of the WABA.”
12. To consider and, if thought fit to pass the following Resolution:
“All notices must include an Agenda.”
13. To consider and, if thought fit to pass the following Resolution:
“No Chairman’s casting vote is permitted if a Conflict of Interest arises from such casting vote.”
Other Matters
14. To transact Any Other Business
C Metson, Company Secretary
September 2015
The following should be read in conjunction with the agenda for the Annual General Meeting:
Agenda Item 1
CHAIR’S ADDRESS
To. All WABA Members,
May I welcome you all to this the 2015 WABA Annual General Meeting.
Firstly, I would like to congratulate all of the boxers who have found success in the past season, those who won gold in the GB Championships and the numerous tournaments that we have travelled to. However, I believe that a special mention should be given to James Probert, who won a bronze medal in the European Junior Championships and also our five bronze medallists in the 2014 Commonwealth Games held in Glasgow, namely;
Ashley Williams
Sean McGoldrick
Joe Cordina
Nathan Thorley
Lauren Price
Hats off to Lauren, although Lauren was up against the very experienced Canadian, Ariane Fortin, Lauren excelled in her performance and was unlucky not to have won this bout. I would think that our National Coach, Colin Jones, will elaborate on the performance of our boxers.
I am grateful for the continued support from Sport Wales and especially Ann Bevan and Gareth Parry, both have given support to WABA, which has helped our athletes to deliver the results that they have achieved.
The past season, we have seen a major change in Welsh Boxing, James Thomas, Performance Director departed and has become the PD for British Judo, however, we have conducted interviews for the new PD and I believe that we have found a very strong candidate to continue this role.
I am pleased to report that the Auditor’s report has found that there has been a major improvement in the WABA accounting and that the book keeping is now greatly improved, and I would like to thank Colin Metson for his help in this matter.
We have, this past year, increased the Board of Directors with three skills-based Non-Executive Directors, which I am sure will add to the skills that the existing Board lacked, but I would say that the two new elected Board Members, Judith Woodman and Gordon Davies, have this year contributed greatly. I would also urge you to support our proposal for the three new Board Members to have a vote as they are seen as an equal around the Board table and are making valuable contributions.
I would like to thank the Divisional Officers who run boxing within their Division, it is a thankless task but I am sure that the members appreciate your work, to those of you who sit on the General Council again, I would like to express my thanks for your time and work that you give to Boxing, I hope that I can count on your continued support.
Finally, I would thank all the member clubs, the coaches, and all the people who help run the clubs, you are all doing a great job in supporting Welsh Boxing.
I will elaborate on the above and other points when we meet at our AGM.
Yours sincerely
David B Francis
Chair WABA.
APOLOGIES:
obituaries:
Eastern Division:
Thomas Hall, Dickie Bates, Ken Shute, Gary Thomas, Mike Holland, Winston Body
Southern Division: None submitted
Western Division:
Robert ‘Bobbo’ Williams, Alex Miles, Cameron Jervis
Northern Division: None submitted
Board Resolutions and Ordinary Business to be Transacted
Agenda Item 2
The minutes of the AGM held in December 2014 are printed below and require approval
Chairman: David Francis
President: Terry Smith
Executive Members & Staff:
John Wheatley (Operations & Logistics Officer), Colin Jones (National Coach)
Directors: Carl Pesticcio, Tony Wynne, John Waith, Judith Woodman
Members Present:
G Davies, D Griffiths, G Croft, C Reese, P Grenfell, S Brophy, J Radmore, R Thornhill, R Sampson, D Phillips, M Thomas, D McAndrew, D Owen, C Collins, R Thorogood, A Alsop, D Thomas, G Davies, T Richards, P Clarke, T Meakin, B Ahmed, T Collins
Others Present: C Metson, H Jones.
Apologies: M Wardle, D Davies, J Wynne, B Jones.
Past Members:
The meeting stood to remember our past members
G Gethin, J Brown, M Armstrong, K Harrison, K Malloy, D Kitchen, A Miles, H Thomas, G Howells MBE
The Chairman opened the meeting by welcoming Members and thanking them for their attendance, especially on a Sunday Morning.
Mr Francis stated WABA boxers had excelled in the Commonwealth Games, which had received good reactions from Sport Wales. WABA are going through a period of restructuring, helped by Mr Colin Metson and Mr Huw Jones, who had both worked considerably towards this. Mr Francis continued by thanking the Board and the co-opted members, and saying the Board were looking to co-opt further members. It was now time to move forward and build on what had already been achieved. In 2015, WABA will hopefully take big strides in all aspects. There would be help for the Divisions, with a regional training program. The West and the North were already excelling and the South and East need to improve.
The Minutes of the last AGM having been distributed were passed as a true record, R Thorogood, P Grenfell
At this point, the meeting chose scrutineers for the voting.
C Pesticcio (Chief Scrutineer), G Davies (North), P Grenfell (West), T Collins (East), B Ahmed (South)
Reports for Chair, Operations and Performance were shared.
Finance Report:
As the Treasurer was unavailable, the Chair asked Derek McAndrew (Finance Commission) to answer any questions pertaining to finance. No questions were asked.
Any Other Business:
D Phillips queried the WABA insurance and in particular recreational club members. The Chair replied he would contact Hendersons to ensure they were covered. This subject had already been discussed a few years ago, and the Chair added that this was OK then and he had no reason to believe otherwise now
D Owen asked what age youngsters could start in a gym and be insured. 5 years of age was mentioned.
Colin Metson explained his and Huw Jones involvement. CM will be acting as an Operational Consultant to lead on Governance, Finance and Child Protection with an immediate focus on Self Assurance and the Audit Response to the KTS Owen Thomas Audit Report. HJ will advise at Board level on Governance matters. It is envisaged CM will provide 3 days a week to this, whilst HJ will be as required.
Results:
Directors Elected: G Davies 42 votes
J Waith 35 votes
J Woodman 32 votes
T Wynne 34 votes
Proposals:
No 1 Nominated Representatives failed
No 2 Director’s meeting passed
No 3 Director’s discretion passed
No 4 Chair and Vice Chair failed
No 5 Director’s from Divisions failed
No 6 Only paid up Members passed
No 7 Performance Committee failed
Watts Gregory was appointed as Auditors for 2014/15.
Agenda Item 3
In my capacity as independent consultant, I have taken on the roles of Acting Operations Officer, Acting Company Secretary and Acting Treasurer and as such have provided the Operational and Financial report along with the Performance report as there is also no Performance Director.
OPERATIONS REPORT:
The Board has gone through a review, confirming current skills and identifying those skills missing from the group. Once key areas were identified, an open and transparent recruitment process took place and last month we announced that three new non-executives have joined the Board. All Board meetings follow a more strategic pattern and with the assistance of a Governance consultant, the whole Board is working through a Governance Programme to improve performance.
A key target for 2015/16 was to begin the development of a long-term plan for Boxing, in partnership with the membership and boxing community. A Working Group, comprising a mixture of Board members and club members has been established to start this planning process, focussing on Community Boxing.
The General Council has met regularly on the first Tuesday throughout the year, all minutes are posted on the website once approved and I would encourage everybody to read through them when they can.
Self Assurance, a Sport Wales requested process was completed in November 2014 and once again all actions coming from that are being worked through.
Finance will be picked up in the Finance Report under item 5.
Child Protection continues to be a concern across most sports and we are no different. Welsh Boxing is committed to achieving Level 2 of the Safeguarding standard by December 2015 and will ensure all relevant WABA Board members, staff, coaches and team managers have the required certificates and that they have been checked. All coaches require a DBS in order to receive an ID Badge and DBS certification is valid for three years only. If you require a renewal or new DBS please contact the Office or your Division.
Welsh Boxing has also signed up to achieving the Foundation Level of the Equality standard by early 2016. All information on this will be shared with our membership when appropriate.
We held three Level 1 coaching courses and one Level 2 course in South Wales during the summer and a course in each in North Wales. I would like to thank John Radmore in the way these courses are run in the South and remind all coaches that you should renew your qualifications every 3 years.
The lack of Referee and Judges is a perennial problem, so in August and September we have been running a fast track programme, which has shown significant interest and uncovered some new talent.
Although we remain short staffed in the Office, we will continue to support all our member clubs with any of your needs. Affiliations should be paid and Census Forms completed before the AGM (a Census Form is included in this pack), individual insurance payments will continue to be collected by each Division, ID cards are available from Bob McCoy and Medical Cards from Don Owen and Bob McCoy.
With regard to staffing, a new Performance Director will start shortly, with the next step being to recruit a Performance Coordinator. Once these are in post and a long-term strategic plan starts to take shape, Welsh Boxing can start looking at its other staffing requirements.
Colin Metson
Agenda Item 4
PERFORMANCE REPORT
2014 was a fantastic year for Welsh Boxing with five medals, albeit bronze, at the CWG and so 2015 was always going to be the beginning of a new 4-year cycle of planned success. As we advised the Sport Wales panel in November 2014, we had a vacant Performance Director post and we lost the majority of the Elite boxers from the CWG programme. When many sports took a significant cut in funding, due to our successes and having confidence in the organisation to deliver, we received only a 5% cut in lottery funding for 2015/16. The National Coach has signed a new 4-year contract and has put together a group of Performance Coaches who will support the current Performance Programme. At the time of going to press, the Performance Director position has been accepted and when the new post holder starts work, the first plan of action will be to develop the 3-year performance plan taking us to the Gold Coast in 2018.