BATTS AGM MINUTES
17TH May 2012
Present : Jason Clark, Dennis Stocks, Mark Fielding, Colin Reeves, John Wilson, Dave Wright, Gus Heath, Graham Frankel, John Andrews, Alan Morley, Paul Collier, Aad Kwakkelstein, Eric Todd, Neil Brierley, Sharon Head, Martin Kubrt, Kuan Lim, John Holland, Maria Ingles
Apologies for absence : Fred Burdett, John Barnes, Ruth Lewy, Stephen Gertsen, Simon Lowman
Minutes from last year: These were accepted as a true record of the meeting.
Chairman’s Introduction: ET spoke about the capital improvements and the addition of air conditioning in the sports hall. The storeroom is taking longer than we had hoped. He thanked JW for the large number of hours he puts in and SH and her daughters , and NB for all their help. He paid tribute to Ed Nickless , who passed away recently, and had always been a very willing volunteer. He said the centre is functioning very well but highlighted two problems with the table tennis club. He had been a steward at a recent HTTL match that finished at 1.30 am and this was unacceptable. He also pointed out that a significant number of training balls are damaged each night and that a way should be found to limit or contain the number of balls. CJ commented that it can be tough to locate the match ball on busy nights and JH suggested we could use exclusively orange balls for training to counteract this. ET also floated the idea of a BATTS diary and a BATTS tie.
Treasurer’s report: SH reported another good year and said that the increase in membership to £120 represented very good value. Table tennis has risen to become 51% of BATTS total income. She commended ET and JW on overseeing bowls sessions producing £7200 of annual income. We still have some afternoon space which should be advertised. Expenses are rising and electricity averages £650 per month. The new air conditioning in the hall will push this figure up. An additional flat screen TV had been purchased. Plus a new top of the range Donic table with 3 more to come if it proves popular , to replace the poor quality Chinese tables. A new storeroom is in the offing with a 15k grant but around 10k will be needed from BATTS to meet the probable total cost. She thanked MK for his expert computer analysis of income and expenditure and AM for all his help and advice whilst producing the accounts .Finally SH reported that we have a current cash balance of £31,733.95. Debate here centred on ensuring that visitors fees are collected in. JW suggested visible membership cards and GH proposed that everyone signs in on entry. General feeling was that we need a steward on the night tasked with collecting in the money.
Secretary’s report : NB paid tribute to AK and said that he had transformed the club during his 30 months in post. He had helped develop the club structure but most notably had around 80 children on the coaching scheme with up to 5 coaches assisting. NB also thanked JA for attending and said we were fortunate to have such an enthusiastic and able regional manager. He also thanked GF for the huge number of hours of multiball he provides for the children. GF responded and said that structured coaching and more skilled coaching are the most crucial elements in the development of any club. NB thanked JW for the massive number of hours he spends as a steward. He also thanked DS and MI for all the coaching help they provide and JH for his coaching support at JBL. He thanked MK for the many and varied jobs he does for the centre. NB said that Stephen Gertsen , who was unable to attend as he was coaching at St Neots, had proved to be a superb regional coach and was committed to supporting BATTS as much as possible as a key hub club in his region.
Coaching structure and presentation: AK went through a number of slides and showed the detailed coaching structure that had been put in place during his tenure. Three different ability groups had the opportunity to play on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays when the centre was devoted solely to table tennis. He thanked GF, MI , DS and Mark Jarvis for all the help they give him. He showed the growth in competitive play with major participation in JBL and NJL this season. AK produced charts to show the increase in income since membership was introduced with junior fees now up to around £800 per month. The system of payments by bank transfer, rather than payment at the session , had been shown to work really well. GH proposed that we have a BATTS club player of the year with each league team making one nomination. JA delivered the exciting news that BATTS had been re-rated as a five star premier club, putting us amongst the top 6 clubs in the country.
Details of committee and vacancies : NB said we were fortunate to have a good number of volunteers but it would be beneficial to strengthen the committee. GF pointed out that parents are a largely untapped source of help and that we should have meetings with parents to try and get them more involved. JA reminded us that it is important to produce role descriptions as a first step to filling posts.
Membership scheme: There was no dissent for the proposal to increase adult fees from £110 to £120 per annum. Junior coaching fees were left unchanged.
Election of officers: All officers were re- elected and no new posts created at this time.
Any other business: MI had prepared a very impressive list of achievements of members of our junior coaching scheme through the season and she read out the details. KL talked about congestion on busy nights and it was agreed we would trial a fourth night from September when practice would be available from 8pm. AM said it could be better to change the date of the AGM to September in future years to tie in with the BATTS financial year at the end of June and to allow more time to lay out plans for the coming season. There was general agreement that this should be adopted. JC said players turn up late for matches and need to be told to arrive promptly.
The meeting closed at 9.30 pm.