DRAFT

Horley LTC

Minutes of AGM held on Tuesday 8 September 2015

Attendees:Pam & Dave Akehurst, Sue and Sophie Atkin, Alison Blay, James Blay, PatEmens, Jackie Hayes, AnnHooper Smith, Peter & SallyHorder, Suzanne Jamieson, LizMorrall, JulieNewton, GailPalmer, IanRead, Jo Rosendale, Simon Rosendale, PaulSmith, Oli Webb, NeilWensley, VeeYeabsley

Apologies:Richard & Mattie Bothwell, SheilaCoward, Dave and Stuart Cox, DebbyEdwards, JackieHerdman, AngieHorne, Christine & RoyPage, Ann Trickett

  1. Minutes of Meeting of AGM dated 29 September 2014

Approved.

  1. Chairperson’s Report

Pam Akehurst (PA) read out her report. “Thank you all for attending this evening and I am sure you all appreciate the fact that we can hold our AGM this year on our premises rather than someone else’s!

Well we did it!! The Club has had a long struggle to arrive here, and so many people, through hard work and determination have made this possible, some of whom have not at times always been given the thanks that they deserve.

I as Chairman have felt proud at having seen this project through with the rest of the Committee and Sub-Committee members who have all been so involved in getting us here. My thanks to you all. I would though, particularly like to thank Dave Johnson and Jon Warren for all their tireless efforts in ensuring that the Clubhouse is looking as fantastic as it does, also the many members who have contributed under Dave Johnson’s and Gill’s Cox’s direction, Gill was of course our Project Leader and main fund raiser for the Clubhouse building.

All Committee members have done an enormous amount of work behind the scenes regarding this new Clubhouse as well as carrying out their ‘normal’ roles as Committee members – no easy task – so thanks must go to Jo Rosendale, Gail Palmer, Julie Newton, Pat Emens, James Bothwell, and of course Justin Griffiths our Head Coach and Oli Webb whose jobs have not been easy whilst building works were carried out. My sincere thanks to you all.

I must also thank all the fund raisers who have raised substantial amounts towards club funds by their generosity in giving their time and expertise in cajoling people to attend the various social functions that have been held in the last few months. Thank you

Now onwards to the accounts – Julie.”

  1. Treasurer’s Report

Julie Newton (JN) handed out copies of her draft accounts, which she said were not quite balanced and yet to be approved. They will be completed and approved in time to be submitted to the Charities Commission in November.

  • Peter Horder and David Sharratt asked how much the clubhouse had cost to build. JN replied £232,796 and said that we will be repaying loans, which enabled us to pay for the new clubhouse, for the next 10 years.
  • Alison Blay asked how many members we have. Pat Emens didn’t have figures to hand but thought it was the same as last year – not that good.
  • Sally Horder asked what the projections were looking like and JN said it would be a great help if we could attract more members and start earning income from hiring out the clubhouse.
  • Alison asked what it would cost to resurface courts 4 & 5. JN replied approximately £18k. This would leave approximately £20k in our reserves, which is good.
  • JN reported on the good amount that Vee’s lunches and teas had raised for the club, especially considering that we didn’t have a clubhouse for such a long time; the summer raffle had raised an amazing £2,483.
  1. Coach’s Report

Justin Griffiths read out his Coach’s Report:

Junior Coaching Programme:We are still running our 10 Junior squads throughout the week ranging from our mini red to Elite squad with an age range from 4 – 18.

Unfortunately some of our older juniors have moved on and gone to college and university but what it has created is more opportunities for our younger juniors, and we have restructured the junior programme.

This makes progression much easier on a day to day basis where juniors will not have to switch days when they need to move up a group and in turn is much more productive for everyone involved.

During the Summer season we were also running regular coaching sessions at Meath Green Junior school and since Danny Sapsford’sBright Ideas for Tennis, we will be running free tennis taster sessions at Trinity Oak, Langshott and Horley Infants. Trinity Oak are also wanting to start an after school tennis club with us in 2016.

By next year I am hoping to have my Referees qualification so we can run junior tournaments at the club as I think we can all agree we now have a great venue here and I am hoping this should encourage our existing juniors to start to play competitively and is also a good way of getting new people down to the club that could possibly join.

Tennis Camps: This year we managed to get back up and running full Easter and Summer camps. We ran 5 weeks over the summer with over a 100 attending for the 4th year running and we were pretty much booked up before week 1 which really shows how popular they are becoming. Hopefully many of these juniors will sign up to our coaching programme but only time will tell.

Adult Coaching:Adult drop in coaching is still going strong and with help from the Open Day and Danny Sapsford’sBright Ideas for Tennis we have had a great new intake. I am hoping, as has already proved from last year, many of these beginner and intermediate members will be full members by next year and a new intake will come from next year’s Open Days.

Last year we also started our brand new beginner coaching group on a Monday night. This started with no one and now has a regular group attending with Oli each week, I think this works well and is an easy step for complete beginners to play with no pressure and hopefully in time build their confidence to becoming full members.

Finally I’d like to pass on my thanks to my coaching team this year, especially Oli who Is now Level 3 and running many of his own groups, it shows just how much our coaching programme has progressed as there is enough work for the 2 of us, and with our future plans and this fantastic clubhouse it’s only going to get better.”

  1. Captains’ Report

Jo Rosendale (JR), on behalf of the Ladies and Mens Captain (Simon Rosendale), read out the League results to date:

“Surreys - Winter 2014/2015

M1 – Div. 10 East – Stu Cox – 2nd out of 6 so will go up to Div. 9 East. Well done boys.

L1 - Div. 7 East – Fran Johnson – 3rd out of 6 so will stay.

L2 - Div. 15 East – Julie Scott-Browne – 3rd out of 6 so will stay.

Surreys - Summer 2015

M1 – Div. 13 East – Stu Cox – currently 4th out of 6 so should hopefully stay in Div. 13.

L1 - Div. 10 East – Alison Blay – currently 1st out of 6 with 1 match to play. Will def. go up.

L2 - Div. 14 East – Julie Scott-Browne – Currently 4th out of 6 so should stay.

Dorking & Leatherhead – SUMMER 2015

M1 – Div. 2 – Sam Bracken/Simon Rosendale – 5th out of 8 so will stay.

M2 - Div. 5 – Richard Bothwell – 2nd so should go up to Div. 4. Well done chaps.

L1 - Div. 1 – Caroline Webb – 5th out of 8 so will stay.

L2 - Div. 3 – Julie Scott-Browne – top so will go up to Div.2. Well done girls.

Weald – Winter 2014/2015

M1 – Div. 4 – David Johnson – 6th out of 6th so will stay in Div. 4.

L1 – Div. 1 – Jo Woodards – 4th so have stayed in Div. 1.

L2 - Div. 3 – Ann Hooper-Smith – 2nd so have moved up to Div. 2.

Weald – Summer 2015

M1 – Div. 5 – David Johnson – currently 5th out of 6 with more results pending.

L1 - Div. 1 – Jo Woodards – currently 2nd out of 6 but other teams yet to record results.

L2 - Div. 3 – Ann Hooper-Smith – currently top out of 6 so will hopefully go up to Div. 2.

Mixed – Div. 1 – Jo Rosendale – 7th out of 7 so will go down to Div. 2 next summer.

A big thank you to all team captains for their hard work throughout the year and to the players.”

  1. Election of Officers

The existing Committee members were happy to stand again and no other candidates had been proposed. Therefore all were re-elected unopposed.

Dave Johnson (DJ) said that James Bothwell had tendered his resignation as Mens Captain and the Committee had temporarily co-opted Simon Rosendale to the post. He has been formally proposed so was elected unopposed.

PA said that David Sharratt had agreed to stand again as President.

PA asked for volunteers for the position of the club’s Health & Safety Officer. Alison asked if we could advertise what the job involves. PA said we had an extensive list and that if anyone was interested, please come and see her. Sally Horder asked if the person needed to be qualified to do this job. PA replied that no qualification was needed and the club would be willing to send that person on the Council’s Health & Safety course. DJ mentioned that we needed a ‘responsible person’ to carry out this role, which would involve things such as weekly and monthly fire alarm testing; general risk assessment of the whole clubhouse, with regular reporting to the Committee. Suzanne Jameison asked if it just involved a routine assessment. DJ said yes it did, but the person would need to regularly report to the Committee on their findings.

  1. Any other business
  • PA started by reading the extract from our Charity Report, which listed what we had achieved in the financial year to end March 2015.

“Promoting the Charitable Objects

In furtherance of the Charities objects (promoting the amateur sport of Lawn Tennis, and encouraging the well-being and health of the community), the Charity undertook the following activities:

  • On 30 May 2014 the coaching team ran Excite Tennis for all the local schools: where all the local schools hold a sports week where the children pick a sport they would like to try. A morning camp was held for those that had chosen tennis. They had a very good turnout of 24 juniors. This was provided at no cost to the children or their parents.
  • Summer camps could not be run without a workable solution for cold/wet weather days and no clubhouse. However, due to an arrangement the Club made with the Church of the English Martyrs to use its hall and toilets when needed, the coaching team were able to run Summer Camps with 100+ juniors attending over a 5 week period. This is a paid for activity (but see *Note below) which enables parents to leave their children in the care of experienced and qualified coaches, and the children to be entertained and taught tennis.
  • The coaching team also offered free taster sessions to adults and juniors who wish to take up tennis, and routine drop-in adult coaching aimed mainly at beginner players though with sessions for improvers as well.
  • Some of the more capable juniors have continued to play for a mens’ team in inter-club matches, in order better to develop their playing skills
  • In November we supported the Horley Harriers (a local running club) charity fundraising sponsored bleep test by donating the use of tennis courts and floodlights
  • The Club participated in a 24 hour tennis marathon run by Bright Ideas for Tennis. This raised £5,000 to promote the sport of tennis into local schools and to help raise funds for disabled access into the new clubhouse

*Note: The coaching team leads for the charity on delivery of the tennis playing aspects of the Objects. Although the coaches sometimes charge clients for their time according to a variety of schemes (some activities are free to the clients with the Charity paying the coaches), the Charity makes the tennis courts available to the coaching team free of charge, so that those costs are minimised. The coaches also get a reduced rate for the floodlights, a saving they pass directly to their clients.”

  • PA asked members to sign the Attendance Sheet if they had not already done so.
  • Gill Cox (GC) asked the coaching team how they advertise their coaching for beginners, as she would be interested in doing more advertising for this. JR said that Jackie Herdman had produced flyers which she distributed nearby, including in the Rec. GC reiterated that we need to advertise more – we can produce leaflets but we need to decide what to do. GC suggested the coaching team send a monthly email to members. Peter Horder asked if it could be put on our website. James Blay said he could advertise on the website. DJ said we have used Facebook and Horley Street Life - with Alice and Sam Bracken and Angie Horne doing this. GC said we need more co-ordination on this – we used to be promoting everything heavily. Alison agreed that we need to email members with regular updates. JR suggested advertising on the white board but PA said we have the electronic display screen for this. Sue Atkin said we need a board outside the club so that it is more visible. She asked if we had put up flyers in surgeries etc. Sally said that surgeries won’t take flyers. The Library probably will take flyers but PA thought there may be a charge. Sally asked about flyers in schools. JG was asked if he could pass on his school contacts to the club so that we could email them with updates.

The meeting finished at 8.03pm.

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