11
Minutes of 2nd Executive Committee Meeting
2011 – 2012 Season
Held @ Penrith Rugby Club
7-30pm Wednesday 25 January 2012
E-2-11/112-1 ATTENDANCE/APOLOGIES
1.1 Attendance
Tom Armstrong Chairman & Secretary & Tournament Organiser
Linda Reay Treasurer
Chris Lilley County Team Organiser, County League Secretary,
Guy Huxtable Marketing, Publicity, Communications
1.2 Apologies
Ronnie Bell Marking & Refereeing
Paul Bell Development Officer
1.3 Club Representative
Ian Lowrey Whitehaven Squash Club
E-2-11/12-2 MINUTES OF 8 NOVEMBER 2011 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING & ASSOCIATED
ACTIONS
2.1 Minutes
The minutes were accepted as true records of the meeting
2.2 Actions
In accordance with the new process advised in the minutes of the 25 January 2012 meeting, the Action Register was not reviewed at this meeting - Tom updated it prior to the meeting. He will revise it if any meeting business gives information that changes the status of any of the actions. The up to date Action Register has been appended to these minutes
– Refer to Appendix 1
E-2-11/12-3 CSR ACTION PLAN - 1ST HALF SEASON REVIEW
As Tom stated in his e-mail on 21 January 2012, in this meeting we will give a first half season report on progress on our Action Plan. Members approved a draft prepared by him and issued to them prior to the meeting. There were a few a few minor changes – Refer to Appendix 2
E-2-11/12-4 LEAGUE CUP FINAL – VENUE
After lengthy discussion it was agreed that the venue for this season will be Carlisle Squash Club. Windscale Squash Club`s offer to hold it on Saturday 24 March 2012, starting in the afternoon, was much appreciated but was not accepted for the following reasons.
4.1 The date of the final, Friday 23 March 2012, was set in September and published to everyone in an e-mail from Chris on 2
October 2011. We have an Executive Committee directive that once the date is set it will not be changed – Ref
Minute E-6-06/07-3.2.2 of the 17 April 2007 Executive Committee Meeting, This was the result of a major
upset when we changed the date at short notice for 2006-2007 season finals, related to player selection problems when
players selected for the first date were no longer available for the revised date etc – full details are given in those minutes.
We vowed then that we would never get into that situation again – thus the directive. A similar situation could result this
time if we did change, because for example Chris & Ronnie who may be involved in the finals would not be available for
their clubs as they are playing in the Over 55 Inter County Championship on 24 & 25 March – other involved clubs may
also have problems
4.2 We are not against `giving it a go` and holding the finals on a Saturday at Windscale Club but we were too late in
discussing it. The unfortunate situation is that we were aware of a request by the club to do this before
publishing the 23 March date. Chris apologises for this but all of the committee were aware of it and none of us reacted to
it. We are all to blame and apologise to the club.
4.3 Holding the event at Windscale on the Friday (23 March) was discussed but once again members still support the
decision made a few seasons ago to hold it at Carlisle if we elect to hold it on a Friday.Ref 15 March 2006 Executive
Committee Meeting, Minute E-4-05/06-4.3.1
The history is that Windscale Club held the Men`s (A & B) finals in 2004/2005 season as a favour when Carlisle Club was
flooded. We had an excellent evening and as a gesture to the club the intention was to give it the 2005/2006 finals. But, in
that season the women`s final was re-introduced giving more matches and this created a different set of circumstances that
still apply. The decision to return to Carlisle was made after consultation with the clubs involved in the league – it was
made for practical reasons associated with maintaining the timing and efficiency of operation of the event under the new
circumstances i.e.
-the need to get an early start - travel problems to Windscale associated with doing that
-more courts available at Carlisle to use at the beginning of the evening to support an early start and to pull in for use
through the competitionif we have long matches and are falling behind on time.
-the need to finish play at a reasonable time to:progressthe League Cup and League trophy presentations, carry out the
Hazel Awardpresentation in meaningful way for the recipient, keep spectators interested and attend the after competition
buffet and general socialising
Last seasonat Carlisle, even with an early start and the use of extra courts,we still finished later than we would have liked.
The offer from Windscale is very generous and we thank the club very much for it. We would like to support it by making a
commitment to it now to hold the finals at the club next season on a Saturday in the format it suggests. The date will be selected as soon as we have access to our local CSR and ESR 2012/2013 activity programmes, to ensure we avoid clashes with other events.
The club will be contacted about the decision – Action Chris
E-2-11/12-5 PLAYER RECOGNITION
5.1 To support the decision at the November 2011 meeting that recognition should be in the form of CSR Squash shirts for all
county players – boys, girls, men and women – the following process was agreed: 2 CSR squash shirts will be given to a
player the first time he or she is selected for a county team. If we have a sponsor for that team the sponsor`s logo will be
on the shirt. Shirts will be replaced on an as needed basis as they deteriorate (for many different reasons) and using them
would have an adverse effect on County image.
5.2 Tom would have preferred a more elaborate process that in his opinion would be more meaningful to the players by
identifying on the shirt the team being played for and issuing shirts each time a player plays for a different category of
team – this would give a player a history of achievement which he believes is very important. He was not supported by
other members on this and of course accepts the majority decision
5.3 The process will be introduced for qualifying players in 2012/2013 season. Meanwhile the current County Badge process
will be followed for this season. This includes the catch up on awards for juniors in 2009/2010 & 2010/2011 seasons - Ian
will contact David to assist in achieving this - There is already an Action Register item to cover this.
5.4 Roger Smith (Managing Director of Thomas Graham & Sons Ltd) our current sponsor of CJS has made another very
generous offer, this time re helping to cover the cost of the new recognition process – thank you Roger – very much
appreciated. This needs to be discussed with him to get more details of what he is thinking and to give him some ideas we
have. To help us to plan and manage the process correctly and cost effectively we are looking at an operating period of
five seasons as a starting point – Action Guy.
5.5 The new shirts will display a new logo currently being developed by Guy to meet our new CSR identity – this is already
being addressed by an existing item on the Action Register.
E-2-11/12-6 ESR AFFILIATION & MEMBERSHIP PROPOSAL - County Association Review
6.1 Refer to Appendix 3 for the proposal – this review of it is carried out purely from a County Association perspective on the
understanding that Clubs are carrying out their own reviews and reporting to ESR independently on their approval or not
6.2 Generally we support the proposals - we discussed the County Association aspect as follows:
Getting an average increase in rebate from ESR of 20% is a significant amount - £145 based upon last season`s rebate – we
would need very good reason to turn down such an offer providing we can meet the administrative requirement which
relates to the collection of the County Player £10 fee from each club and returning 50% of it to ESR.
Linda says that she is willing to manage this as long as clubs meet their requirements and deliver their fees to her on a timely basis - as a single payment including their County League Team Fees. She is not prepared to do the work unless this is guaranteed – she is not prepared to do time consuming work chasing them up for late payments. This makes the problem detailed below in section 7.1 very important for the success of this initiative – all payments must be made on time and to achieve this we need to tighten up on our payment processes. Clubs note – if the proposal is implemented, this is a very important consideration that can make or break it as far as CSR is concerned
Tom reminded members of a similar initiative several years ago before the current ESR Membership & Affiliation System was introduced – we accepted a major role in managing the system that was in place at that time on behalf of all clubs and in liaison with ESR – we were the middle man. All clubs did not meet the payment discipline and created a lot of extra work for our treasurer in chasing them for outstanding payments and was ineffective – we were very pleased when it was abandoned by ESR when the current system was introduced.
We discussed the proposal of registering County League players and decided that because of the way we operate (without such a register) it would be totally impractical for us. We support an alternative proposal by Wigton Club (presented by Guy) that we should pay a standard fee per team on the basis of each team having say 8 players – that would mean each club pays us £80 for each team entered into the County League alongside its £60 per team fee
We also discussed ESR suggestion that perhaps the player fee should be extended beyond those who participate in County Leagues, and be required for Inter County players and those entering in Sanctioned events. We do not support this as there would be only a few additional players - as most of the players in those competitions are League players.
ESR will be informed of our findings – Action Tom
E-2-11/12-7 OTHER BUSINESS
7.1 CSR Accounts
Linda identified from her monthly reports on status of budgets and accounts , dated 22 January 2012, that County League Team Fees had not been paid by Dalton, and Penrith clubs and Club Individual Membership Subscriptions had not been paid by Dalton, Penrith, Whitehaven Seniors and Wigton clubs.
It appears that since that date, including action at this meeting, some have now been paid leaving the Individual Membership Subscriptions for Dalton & Wigton as the only ones outstanding. These must be paid as soon as possible please
This is a very poor situation – we should not have to accept fees/subscriptions not being paid on time and drifting in over the season as and when clubs see fit to send them. This is unacceptable as all clubs know very well when the payments are due – first day of June each season. Sending County League Team fees late may be accepted in some cases because a few clubs very often do not know how many teams they are fielding until a couple of weeks or so before the start of the competition (this season w/c 17 October) but they should be paid shortly after they do know. To show how lax the system is, in Linda`s report dated 31 October 2011 only one club had paid this season`s League Team Fees and only five clubs had paid Club Individual Membership Subscriptions.
E-2-11/12-8 NEXT MEETING
To be decided – Action Tom
Tom Armstrong
APPENDIX 1
STATUS OF ACTIONS
FROM LAST REVIEW 5 NOVEMBER 2011
1 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING 25 MAY 2011
1 Ref E-3-10/11-2.2.1 Change the name of CS to Cumbria Squash & Racketball - Tom
Change agreed at this meeting – membership approved it at 2010/2011 AGM on 7 September 2011
Tom asked Guy to manage the change –
Various changes/actions to be made including: logo, letterhead, constitution, names of bank accounts, informing ESR – other?
Guy has given consideration to developing a new logo for the organisation – this is a copy of a section of his note to the Committee – we support this approach. It was agreed at the last meeting we would leave CJS logo as is.
“Logos
I’ve been talking to a teacher of design of a school in south Cumbria (Kirkby Lonsdale) about our logo. Apparently logos are part of the curriculum, and we thought that designing a new logo might make an interesting project for some of the kids. So unless anyone has any strong objections, I’ll carry on with that and chat to her in more detail. It may be that we have to decide between some competing ones as a committee at some point, but I’ll keep you posted.”
Action in progress: Guy
2. Ref E-3-10/11-2.2.2 Review CS Constitution against constitutions from other organisations to see if changes/improvements can be made - Tom & Chris