IGTC AGM, Saturday, 24th February 2018
in the Pavilion Iden Green
Meeting started at 6pm.
1. Apologies for Absence: Genevieve Greenwood; Sally Harrington; Stephen Oakes;
Rohan Barnett; Emma Cunningham; DicconGray; Roy Isworth; John Moat;
Wendy Pullen; Marion & Edward Stevenson-Rouse; Eddie Valdus
14 adult club members attended the meeting
2. Approval of the Minutes & Matters arising from AGM on
27/02/17:
Proposed by Stephen Cochrane, seconded by Dick Mohr
3. Chairman’s Report:
Ellie Cochrane reported - My first year as chairman has been enjoyable but eventful at times! I have really enjoyed club mornings and participating in matches.
Our main focus this year has been the floodlights issue and the associated possible loss of the junior coaching.
All club members were invited to participate in a survey for/against floodlights. There were 27 replies, 16 in favour and 11 against. Some of the 16 subsequently proved to be ineligible to vote. The committee did not feel that the support level within the club was high enough to justify pursuing the matter further. It has unanimously decided not to pursue installing floodlights at the club but I am happy to announce the winter junior coaching will now take place at Benenden School. We are truly grateful to Benenden School and Steve Simmonds for organising this as it will allow us to continue our junior coaching programme.
The club continues to thrive and our regular Saturday morning mixed and Monday men's club sessions are well attended. Any ladies wishing to set up a regular ladies’ session would be more than welcome to do so.
Our social coffee and cake mornings are particularly well attended. Members don't seem to want to participate in tournaments but do like cake. I am not sure what that says about us! Anyone wanting more competitive tennis is more than welcome to join the team and should contact Ros Judd.
My heartfelt thanks go to the committee who work tirelessly on your behalf. They are a great team.
Finally, our thoughts go out to Steve Oakes, our treasurer, who is unwell. We all hope that he gets better soon.
Kent Barker raised the issue of floodlights. He felt that the survey had shown a clear majority in favour of floodlights and that information should have been sent to club members so that they had time to comment and put forward a proposal. He felt that the committee’s behaviour had been a disgrace.
4. Officers’ Reports:
Secretary (Catriona Prynne) - I took over from Dick after last year’s AGM and my role is less wide-ranging and more administrative than his was. He remains a pillar of the committee.
The club’s membership of the LTA has been renewed so that members are eligible for the Wimbledon ballot and the insurance is up to date.
The insurance of the club house is also up to date and the electrical equipment has been safety checked.
Kent LTA is planning to introduce a set of Minimum Registration Requirements, improving safeguarding and legal compliancy within tennis venues. The club will have to meet these, as yet undefined, standards.
Membership Secretary (Mike Large) – Adult members 112, 18-25yo 9 and U18yo 9.
The Adult membership remains steady (2015 = 106; 2016 = 118) and new members are joining.
The Junior membership has been affected by the uncertainty in the coaching arrangements but we are hoping to build up the numbers now that Evolution Tennis can base themselves at Benenden School.
The membership fees generated £6690.
The online membership forms are working well and are facilitating keeping track of membership categories.
Discussion ensued re the efforts being made to increase the club’s membership.
There is an ongoing drive to attract new members, with regular advertising in the Benenden Magazine and online court booking proving popular.
Treasurer’s Report (Stephen Oakes) – read by Nick Conington –
The club ran a surplus of £1,818 for the year 2017, taking the cash reserves for major court repairs up to £25,320. If you take out the effects of the coaching changes, the real cash surplus was around £2,500.
On the negative side, income from subscriptions was down £600 but the committee is confident that we can encourage Evolution Tennis to help us bring in more Junior membership fees in 2018.
Steve undertook a quick survey of other local tennis clubs’ membership fees to see if the IGTC fees remained appropriate and, after review at the last committee meeting, it was agreed that the club would maintain current fees for 2018/19.
Back to the accounts, offsetting the lower membership fees was reduced expenditure on gardening, tennis balls, events and parties. Given that the state of the courts looks good at present, there’s every reason to think that the club will remain cash positive in the current year.
Wealden League Report (Ros Judd) –
We have continued to hold our own in the Wealden League, playing in Division 2 (of 3) this year. We have played 8 of our 10 matches, with the two remaining matches against Sissinghurst on 25th Feb and 11th March.
Having won 6 of our 8 matches played so far, we are in the fortunate position of being second top of the division with these two matches in hand. Even if we lose them both we will still be promoted to Division 1, because the way the scoring works means that you get a point for a 4-0 loss, which will make us top! The other team to be promoted with depend on the outcome of some of the remaining matches - it will most likely be Goudhurst or Cooden, but could even be Sissinghurst if they were to win their four remaining matches 4-0!
The team has generally been the Cochranes and the Judds but lately we have had a pair of new members, father/daughter James and Keira Aylott. If there are any doubles pairs who would be keen to play, please contact Ros Judd. It is a great way to improve your tennis at the same time as meeting lovely people from other clubs. With two more pairs we could even field two teams, which would be great.
Club / Played / Won / Drawn / Lost / PointsGoudhurst 1 / 10 / 4 / 3 / 3 / 43
Iden Green / 8 / 6 / 0 / 2 / 42
Cooden / 9 / 3 / 3 / 3 / 36
Hawkhurst / 10 / 3 / 2 / 5 / 35
The Green 2 / 9 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 30
Sissinghurst / 6 / 2 / 1 / 3 / 22
5. To present the Annual Accounts for approval and adoption:
The annual accounts were adopted by 13 of the 14 members present.
Proposed by Charles Hume, seconded by Dick Mohr
6. To re-elect Charles Trollope as examiner of accounts:
Charles Trollope was unanimously elected.
Proposed by Penny Cunningham, seconded by Donal Brady
7. Annual Compliance Report for Trustees:
Dick Mohr confirmed that the club was compliant in all respects.
Sheila Hume enquired whether there was a Child Protection Policy in place. If not, a policy should be adopted and incorporated and refreshed annually. CP to check.
8. To re-elect the existing Committee and Stephen Cochrane as
acting Treasurer:
Proposed by Kent Barker that the entire committee should stand down as he felt very strongly that it had steam-rollered over the results of the floodlights survey. No seconder.
13 voted to the re-elect the committee, 1 voted against.
Stephen Cochrane was unanimously voted onto the committee.
9. To elect the Chairman and Officers of the Committee:
Ellie Cochrane as Chairman, Catriona Prynne as Secretary, Mike Large as Membership Secretary and Stephen Cochrane as acting Treasurer were elected unanimously.
10. Motions to the AGM:
None
11. AOB:
Andrew Herbert was being presented with the Club Personality Awardfor his enthusiastic and regular attendance at the Saturday club sessions.
It was asked that more effort should be made to ensure that the AGM did not clash with
the 6 Nations Rugby matches.
It was agreed that AGM Minutes should be marked as such on the website and that they should be emailed to club members with the AGM agenda in future.
Meeting ended at 6.45pm