NEWMARKET
BADMINTON FEDERATION
MINUTES
OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
HELD
ON TUESDAY 30th AUGUST 2005
AT
SCALTBACK MIDDLE SCHOOL, NEWMARKET
(followed
by fixtures meeting)
1. Apologies for absence were received from:
Borders and
Howard.
Clubs Represented:
11 (out of 14)
clubs – Burwell, Con Club, Crossways, Ely Victoria, Haverhill, Linton,
Littleport, Newmarket, St. Edmunds, St. Phillips, Soham.
Once again attendance seems to have been bolstered by combining the AGM with the fixtures meeting so this seems to have been a success.
2. Minutes of the 2004/05 AGM:
The minutes of
the previous Annual General Meeting held on 31st August 2004 were
approved and signed by the Chairman, Anita Jones.
3. Matters Arising:
No matters
arising.
4. Chairman’s Report:
The Chairman had
no formal report as any issues were to be raised in the course of this
meeting. However the Chairman is
standing down, so the meeting supported a vote of thanks to Anita Jones for all
her past service.
5. Treasurer’s Report:
The Treasurer
presented the accounts to the meeting, showing a net loss of £26 compared with
a profit for the year of £350, reducing current balances held from £1,386 to
£1,361. Once again the International
turned a profit of £227 (as last year minimizing costs by not employing the Red
Cross at £200 and by holding the event at just the one venue, Littleport).
The profit,
together with the net income from affiliation/team entries less expenses of
approximately £100 was used, as had been approved, to subsidise the thirtieth
celebration dinner and dance, which made a net loss of £355.
For the third
year, other than the International, tournaments were not held which used to
make losses and eat into the balances in any year and the position looks
reasonably healthy.
The committee, on
behalf of the Treasurer, proposed, and the meeting accepted, that league
affiliation fees should be the same as last year i.e. for each club £5 and for
each team £3. As there is no proposal to
hold future tournaments (apart from the International) no tournament fees were
set.
6. Election of Officers:
With the Chairman
standing down as well as Gerry Widger, there were at least two positions to
fill. The meeting agreed to the
election of Martin Little (Linton), co-opting John Harvey (St. Phillips)
(League Results Co-ordinator) to the committee, and the election of Trish
Thorpe to the post of Chairman. So the
full committee is :
Trish Thorpe (new
Chairman) John
Harvey (League Results Co-ordinator)
Angela Bowman
(Vice-Chairman) Belinda
Drummond (committee member)
Dawn Butterfield
(Treasurer) Martin
Little (committee member)
Sandra Arnold
(Secretary)
7. Amendment to Rules:
None.
8. Leagues for 2004/05 season:
There are very few changes to the teams playing in the leagues at the end of last season, with Burwell B new in the men's.
Update: Since
the meeting Impington have now confirmed that their Men’s team will still be
playing in Division Two.
The meeting were
happy with the league proposal which took into account the one-up promotions
and one-down relegations, but there were two proposals for restructuring
regarding the Ladies and Mixed Leagues.
Having trialled the Ladies’ last season as just one league the consensus was that the disadvantages actually outweighed the advantages, particularly that much was lost by playing against each other only once (either home or away) and that the lower teams felt outclassed. The meeting therefore agreed to return to two divisions.
The three Mixed Divisions are currently small and the option was considered to restructure to two Divisions. It was argued that this would probably be to the overall benefit of the leagues, but clubs were apprehensive of the playing standard that they might face and the extra fixtures that would have to be accommodated so the meeting agreed to stay with three Divisions.
Proposal B, which incorporated these two structures, was therefore approved by 7-3
plus 1 abstention
For information the comments raised at last year’s AGM regarding the advantages and disadvantages:
|
Disadvantages |
Advantages |
|
No incentive to play for
promotion from the second division |
Currently, due to the jump
in standard, teams are not keen to be promoted into the first division anyway |
|
Lack of incentive for
teams at the top and bottom to play each other given the difference in
standard |
They only have to play
each other once and at least the bottom teams get to play against a higher
standard |
|
Abbeygate may decide to
field better players than they had anticipated if the league includes top
players which may be tougher for the lower teams |
Can be absorbed within the
combined league and will make it more competitive for the top teams |
|
Littleport miss out on a
real promotion, having earned it last year |
They will have a weaker
side and now will get games against a broader range of standards |
|
Some teams will have home
advantage |
Will swap next year plus
can be flexible about venue (for example if the planned home side needs to
rearrange). |
|
|
Teams get to play a wider
range of standards and not against the “same old faces” so should be more enjoyable |
9. Tournaments:
Unfortunately,
apart from the International Tournament, no other tournaments were held and
only the International will be held next year (see diary date below).
10.
Any Other
Business:
International Tournament:
The committee is pursuing registering the tournament so that the Badminton Association of England can be asked to try to avoid arranging County matches on these dates which are likely to involve local players.
10. Any
other business continued:-
Club
Contact Details and new NBF Website:
Please can clubs notify Sandra of an Email contact so that these can be added to the Secretary list, which should assist future communication, particularly regular results and leagues updates.
In addition, soon to be officially launched, is a
new website where you will be able to see club contacts and details, get the
latest results and league tables and find the NBF AGM minutes, rules and links
to clubs, associations, Badminton England, etc – the address is: http://www.newmarketbadmintonfederation.org.uk/ .
Also, each club will have their own Members Area
(with separate logon and password) and the intention is to work with each club
to develop this to suit their needs.
John Harvey will be contacting secretaries with details soon.
Match
Time-keeping
Following a specific example which disrupted the match (and there are others) the meeting agreed that for co-ordination purposes home clubs should say how many pairs are required at the match start time. In addition, out of courtesy to both teams, players are asked to adhere to start times which is particularly important in terms of player rankings in the men’s and ladies’ format and to reduce the necessity for playing out of order in the Mixed. The meeting recognized that sometimes work interfered so the committee would rather encourage courtesy than go down a punitive line (examples were given of other leagues such as the South Cambs whereby games are conceded for every 10 minutes a player is late, the Bury League where if a match runs out of time then the last full team that arrived concedes the remaining rubbers, etc).
Newmarket Badminton Federation’s Thirtieth Birthday
Party, 27th May 2005 at the Heath Court Hotel, Newmarket
The meeting felt that the event was
very enjoyable and the venue was ideal and expressed an interest in a similar
function next year. The Committee therefore intend to arrange a function (as
yet to be decided whether to combine with the annual trophy presentation) at an
earlier time in the year so as to hopefully avoid the holiday season and
encourage support from other players and clubs who were not able to make it
last time.
Rushworth Knockout
Trophy:
The draw was made
so that clubs could arrange these fixtures along with the others after the AGM
on the same evening.
Clubs are again
asked to nominate the players in their team as best they can ASAP but at the latest 16th September
2006 so that first round matches can be handicapped (nil return will mean
handicaps will be based on last year’s team).
Also please
notify the committee of any changes which would significantly affect a team’s
strength, with notifications ideally coming from the club secretaries rather
than the team captains.
Trophy Presentation for Leagues and Tournaments 2004/05:
Trophies were
awarded to winners of leagues, apart from the Mixed Third Division as the
trophy has yet to be located.
Dates for your diaries:
International - Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th
February 2006
Rushworth Final - Tuesday 18th April 2006
Signed
................................................. Chairman