THE ASSOCIATION OF LONDON CLUBS - ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

Held at TheNational Liberal Club on Monday 26thJune 2017

Chairman’s Report for 2016/17

I am pleased to report that the Committee met three times during the course of the year. This is in addition to the four main meetings which have also taken place including the Annual General Meeting and I would like to thank all those Clubs that have hosted these meetings (In & Out, Oriental, English-Speaking Union, East India & National Liberal).

Membership of the Associationhas reduced during the year and now stands at 54 Clubs.

During the year we lost The Arts Club, The IOD and The Royal Aeronautical Society, and there has been more movement than perhaps normal amongst our own numbers, with Stephen Skinner (Farmers), Jonathan Orr-Ewing (Carlton), Wally Vincent (Special Forces) and Ian Campbell (Caledonian) all retiring.

As a consequence of these retirements and various other changes, we have a gaggle of new Secretaries, namely: Simon Robinson (Carlton), Andrei Spence (Farmers), Anthony Lee (In & Out) Lugina McConnell (Special Forces), Alan Flitcroft (Hurlingham), David Balden (Caledonian) and Edward Plunkett (City of London), all of whom are very welcome to the Association and to Clubland.

We had a very good Annual Dinner at The Lansdowne Club with 59 members and guests attending from 33 Clubs which was certainly one of the best attendance levels I can recall for some time.

I would like to thank Tim Cagney and all his team for putting on such a good evening and for organising an excellent speaker in Sir Roger Gifford.

We were also very privileged to have the Secretaries’ Dinner at The Tower of London for which we owe Roddy a huge vote of thanks.

The following regular surveys were carried out over the course of the year, but you will see from the number of responses that sadly not everybody participates in these surveys. Participation is not of course compulsory, but if more Clubs take part, the more use the results can potentially be to all of us.

Analysis of Wages2017 34[33]

Subscription Survey201748[48]

Bedroom Charges201734 [36]

I would like to thank all of the Executive Committeefor their support and hard work on your behalf:

Particularly Roddy Porter[Royal Over-Seas League] and Janet Russ, [English-Speaking Union]who are standing down at this meeting,and it is no secret that Roddy is retiring from the League in August so I’m sure we all wish him well in whatever projects he finds to keep himself out of mischief.

I would particularly like to thank our Secretary, June,for all she does for the Association and for keeping me in line and upto speed on everything that I ought to be doing.

I can report that the Annual Accounts remain in a healthy position with income over expenditure for

2016 of £928.

The 2016/7 Interclub Staff Ten Pin Bowling Competition was held on 8 May 2017 at the Kingpin Suite. 17 Clubs participated and fielded 28 teams. The winners this year were – 3 Guys 3 Holes (Caledonian),in second place came The King Pins (Carlton) and in third RAF 2 (RAF).

A huge amount of work goes into organising this event both in advance and on the night and I would like to thank Eleonora Manfredi of the Caledonian Club who did so much to make sure the event went so well.

I would also like to thank those Secretaries that turned up to support the event and their own teams and perhaps next year we might get a few more attending and enter a team of our own!

Club Watch continues to be very successful under the Chairmanship of Sheila Seddon (Oxford &Cambridge) however after 27 years at the Ox & Cox, 13 of which she has been chairing Club Watch, Sheila retired earlier this month and I am pleased to say that she will be our guest at the Secretaries’Dinner later this year when we will be able to properly thank her for everything she has done for us in running such an important group.

Our associatIon with CORCA (Committee of Registered Clubs Associations) and the British Hospitality Association continues. Our thanks to Paul Varney and June Aitken who represent us at CORCA meetings, and I would remind you that we also have a special arrangement for anyone interested in membership with the BHA, which is a very useful organisation.

The year has of course not all been positive and the biggest challenge for the majority of us this year has been the new levels of business rates, which despite our objections have been implemented at rates that are simply extortionate.

I hope that the work we have done thus far may help in getting these levels reduced on appeal, but sadly it will take some time before we know what the outcome of our challenges will be and I feel sure that we will still be discussing this topic this time next year.

Thank you all for supporting the Association this year and finally can I thank Simon and his team here at the National Liberal for hosting this evening and laying on such good weather for us.

Ian Faul

Chairman

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