Minutes of Gwent Badminton Association’s Annual General Meeting held on Friday 12th May 2010
Present
Geraint Williams (Chairman), Martin Palmer (Treasurer), Pauline Jenkins (Fixture Secretary), Carol Pell (Secretary), and 8 clubs were represented.
1. Apologies
Apologies were received from PD.
2. Minutes of the Annual General Meeting of 13th May 2009
The meeting approved the minutes of the AGM of 13th May 2009 and the chairman signed them.
3. Matters Arising from the Minutes of the AGM of 13th May 2009
The county team played in the WBU county tournament.
4. Chairman’s Report
The chairman gave a verbal report, his main points were:
Most clubs are struggling for numbers and teams are reducing in leagues everywhere. A positive point is the 5-60 clubs in schools; these are after school clubs each night, one of which is badminton. Geraint urged clubs to contact schools to source new members.
Gwent Open – There was once again a good entry and a very good standard. We made a small profit of £150 on the day. Geraint said that we should look for sponsorship for this event in the future. He thanked Chris and Alison for their good work once again.
WBU – The minutes for the WBU AGM can be found on the website. The WBU has been struggling for some time but now Eddie O’Neil is in charge he is pulling the organisation together. Geraint said this was encouraging.
Shuttles – The GCBA needs to find a cheaper source for shuttles the WBU not as cheap as Yelex through mid Glamorgan, these are £2 a dozen less than Central Sports. Clubs need to decide whether to carry on getting them in bulk. The excess that the GCBA had left were used for the Gwent Open and the Knock out Cup final.
Website – We are looking for more feedback for the website. James is looking for contacts to be able to edit their own pages. Geraint will encourage juniors to use the website. Please contact James Lampard with info and he can put people in touch with relevant clubs.
Junior Teams – The junior section has built in numbers and is becoming very successful. It is starting to gain strength in all age groups – this is more through development squads and it is only a matter of time before there is some success.
Presentation night – This was moved from Croesyceiliog due to the fall in numbers attending. It was held at the Kings Head in Abergavenny – 33 attended this year and out of 8 trophies awarded 6 went to Abergavenny. Geraint asked if anyone knew of a central venue with room and bar to accommodate 40-50 to get in touch with him.
There was a general discussion on how to get more to attend the Presentation evening. Geraint asked for a vote to decide whether to keep it going. The vote was unanimously in favour of it carrying on. Martin said that we could keep losing money especially if Abergavenny did not attend. Carol suggested clubs having to pay an amount at the beginning of the season towards the ticket price, £10 per team maybe.
This is to be discussed further in the meeting.
Geraint thanked committee – Martin, Pauline, Carol, Gail & Christine and said that he would be resigning this year.
5. Treasurer’s Report
Copies of the accounts were handed out to all present. These showed that the county had used up £600 of surplus funds for the year. The county still has a healthy bank balance of about £3,600. The treasurer proposed keeping the fees the same, ie no fee for Gwent and to carry on subsidising the WBU fee.
The discussion then moved to the Presentation evening and the general opinion was that each team should pay £5 entry fee to league and this would give the club one ticket to the presentation evening.
6. Fees for season 2009-2010
It was suggested that we should keep the fees the same as last year as the WBU, proposed by Abergavenny and seconded by Monmouth.
- WBU fees: Senior Players £10, Junior Players £6;
- GCBA: no fee for the year;
- Knockout Cup: no fee for the year;
- Club Registration: no fee for the year;
- Team entry: £5 per team.
7. Committee Reports
League: Pauline reported that some clubs were not sending in cards when they had conceded a match and asked if clubs could remember to do this in future. There were a lot of matches not played in ladies division 2 mostly due to injury.
The Knock Out Cup handicaps were not very good at the start of the competition but sorted themselves out towards the end. Ponthir had not put a team in for a few years and had to have their handicap adjusted several times. Handicaps need to be done earlier and it was suggested that the draw for the Knock Out Cup is made before fixture arranging is started and then those matches could be sorted out first
8. Coaching
Steve Jones is still coaching at Ponypool.
Martin Lewis can be contacted directly to coach in clubs or through the WBU. It was pointed out that clubs could join together to do coaching.
9. Website
See previous notes under Chairman’s Report. Geraint thanked James for the work that he is doing on the website.
10. Election of Officers
- Chairman: Geraint Williams (Abergavenny) agreed to continue.
- Secretary: Carol Pell stood down – Situation Vacant
- League Secretary: Pauline Jenkins (Chepstow) agreed to continue.
- Treasurer: Martin Palmer (Abergavenny) agreed to continue.
11. Ex-Officio Members
Other members of the committee will be Gail Saunders, James Lampard and Chris Shuker.
12. Appointment of Auditor:
Steve Morgan – Nat West Bank
13. WBU
Geraint Williams will attend meeting and Neil Morgan agreed to go with him.
14. League team registration
Pauline Jenkins will send these out to all clubs.
15. Date of next Annual General Meeting
The date of the next AGM was set at Wednesday 11th May 2011, at the Ashbridge Inn, Cwmbran 7.30pm
Presentation Evening Friday 6th May 2010 (venue to be confirmed).
Fixtures meeting Wednesday 8th September at the Ashbridge Inn, Cwmbran 7.30pm
AOB
There was no other business
Gwent County Badminton Association.