2011 Annual General Meeting Minutes

Date – Friday 29th July 2011

Venue: Huyton Constitutional Club

Present: Jay Willets, John Timson, Alan Linnett, Pat Keeley, Fred Fletcher, Lee Evans, Mark Willis.

 

Apologies: - None

 

The Chairman’s Report

 

The Chairman opened the meeting at 8.05 and immediately asked everyone to recognise the passing of Colin Taylor within the season, but especially we recognise his contribution throughout his life he made as a player, as Secretary, as Chairman and as President. He will be greatly missed.

The Chairman then gave his thanks to everyone who contributed to a successful presentation, with special mentions to Rod Lawler, Frank Southwick and Huyton Cons.

 

The Secretary’s Report

 

The secretary also opened on a sad note, reflecting on a year of great losses to the league, including Colin Taylor and also a number of players and family members of players. Rest in Peace to all of them!

 

The season ran relatively smoothly with the exception of a couple of matches on the Monday league. The fines introduced at the November meeting have been a success with results being sent in on time now with only a few exceptions, and meetings are much better attended now.

 

The billiards has once again been a success and a lot of credit goes to Alan linnet and the rest of the handicap committee who are doing a great job, so much so that there was a 3 way tie for the Thursday league this year. If this isn’t a good advocate for good handicapping then what is?

 

However, the snooker handicaps have been a constant source of debate throughout the season, with new players’ handicaps the main point. At the February meeting it was agreed that a new handicap committee was required.

Other matters that arose and passed at the meetings where;

·         No League game can be cancelled and must be played no matter how many players are available otherwise a 7 0 will be awarded.

·         All results are to be phoned in before midnight on the night of the match.

·         All match cards must be either posted or handed in on or before the monthly meeting.

·         All teams must have a representative at the monthly meeting, otherwise fined.

·         Fine at the start of the season to cover non-attendance at the meeting increased from £10 to £80. A fine of £20 to cover the first 4 meetings with a warning given before the fourth meeting is missed that the next £20 will be applied and so on up to £80.

·         A new over 50’s competition in memory of Colin Taylor will start from next season.

·         A new over 25’s competition to start from next season in place of the under 21’s, which only had 3 entries this season.

·         More open dates required for next season to accommodate the competitions on a Monday’s rather than Wednesday’s.

·         Re-spotted blacks to only count in the last game of Rosebowl matches.

·         When referees are arranged for finals it needs to be the same ref for the whole match.

·         A member of the management committee to be at all finals.

·         If a club has more than one team in the league, a player can play up to 4 games for each team and then can only play for the lower team after that.

·         Scotties are pulling out of the league.

·         St. Dominic’s can no longer play at St. Aloysius.

·         Therefore I would welcome new teams for next season.

·         The re-design of the league website is still in progress and I have set a deadline of July 31st for completion well in time for the new season.

·         There are a number of different versions of the league rules, along with new rules to be added, so I will amend them and get a copy out to every club with the handbooks for the new season.

 

 

 

 

Treasurer’s Report

 

Refer to attached sheet for the income, expenditure and balance.

The treasurer reminded the secretary that a further 2 trophies were required for the Reform club. He also thanked Fred Fletcher and Tony Williams for doing the Auditing.

The accounts were proposed by Fred Fletcher and seconded by Jay Willets. Accounts Passed.

 

Election of Officers

It was passed unanimously that all officers are re-elected. The Secretary proposed and it was seconded by Jay Willets, that Fred Fletcher to become the new President. Fred accepted the role and so it was passed.

 

Management Committee

 

The only member of the management committee present was Fred Fletcher. Paul Dykins will be replaced by Lee Evans and with only 1 member present it was decided to refer this to the next meeting.

 

Auditors

 

Fred Fletcher and Tony Williams are the new auditors.

 

Any Other Business

 

 

·         Lee Evans Wednesday league

This is how the Scotties format works:

o    • 4 man team

o   • 6 frames / 1 point per frame / addition point for agg

o   • 3 players can play twice each, or

o   • 2 players play twice, & other 2 play once each

o   • Only once do you allow for 2 players turning up only (as other two could be away). 2 players turning up would play three times each on that occasion. If it happened again, only four frames would be played, with remaining 2 frames awarded to opponents (100-0 for each).In a long season you may want to tweak that? Great thing with this mate is that you could always turn up with 3 of your 4 players and fulfill the fixture. Even turning up with 4 doesn't though mean all 4 must play. Just 3 could play twice. Up to the captain. The format is loved by everyone and money is put aside for eventual top teams. If you did in in this league, you could have

o   £1 per frame played.

o    £12 per match

o   If 7 matches (14 teams) that's £84 per week

o   26 weeks would give you £2184

o   Maybe a sponsor could top that up? Certainly we could use what would have been money spent on trophies. Then split winnings (for example)

o   Winner £850

o   Runner Up £600

o   3rd £400

o   4th £250

o   5th £150

o   6th £75

o    The way Geoff does it there's money for each team, so every position counts! Not sure you could do that here though.

o   The difficulty will be the collection of money?

o   It'd have to be handed over at committee meeting or better still paid electronically?

o   Golden rule is players can't be swapped mid-way through event. You stick with what you got. Wise I guess for each team to nominate a 'reserve' just in case a player drops out?

o   Geoff has a generic reserve list that is just a pool of people waiting to join in. It's in first come first served order too. Anyhow, it goes down a storm at Scotties. We each throw in a couple of extra £'s and a footie ticket raffle goes on. Winning team gets £80 each week in Scotties. There's 12 teams (not won it so far in last 3 weeks!!) You could ask each team to throw up £2 per week (50p a man) and you do raffle draw at each monthly meeting? Winner could get £100 that month and you could make it more appealing by awarding that to a player as opposed to the team. Just put numbers against players names? 56 players for 14 teams.

 

 

 

·         The Presentation format

 

Although the presentation was another success I think Rod doesn’t want to do it again next season. He mentioned that Andrew Higginson would be interested but I don’t know how much he would cost. Ian McCulloch was mentioned for this season but I thought his price of £775 was way too high for us as a league should pay. We got Rod for £200 and that was including him presenting the trophies as well.

 

If we can’t afford anyone else I would like to propose a different idea but along the same lines. I would like to make it a Challenge Night. If Huyton Cons can hold it again, or if another club would like to bid for it then fine.

·         We can allocate time for 6 matches.

·         The matches can consist of billiards or snooker.

·         A player can challenge any other player from the league.

·         A team can nominate a match between their best player and another team’s best player.

·         A challenge can include a wager.

·         The league could act as an intermediary between two teams making a bet.

·         A vote will be taken at the last meeting before the presentation to decide which matches should take place.

 

The trophies will be presented by the chairman and the secretary as in previous seasons.

No decision made on this point and it will be referred to a later meeting.

 

·         It was decided that a Man of the Match feature should be on next season’s Match cards, with each captain nominating an opposing player each week.

·         A Handicap committee was formed consisting of John Timson, Lee Evans, Mark Willis, John Burns, Darren Burns, Fred Fletcher and John Welsh.

·         A motion of the Home Team has to put the names down first was not passed.

·         A motion of not being able to give more than 46 in a frame was not passed but the handicap committee will reassess it next year.

·         An adjacent handicap system to run alongside the current system in the Monday Snooker league was passed. Lee Evans is to provide the secretary with the details in time for the new season.

·         The new Colin Taylor over 50’s competition will be handicapped.

·         A letter is to be sent to all clubs to gauge the interest to start the Wednesday league back up.

·         In future AGM’s the previous year’s minutes will be read out at the start.

·         The last Friday in July is the deadline for the registrations to be handed in.

·         Friday 12th August is the first handicap committee meeting.

·         The minutes should be published on the website.

 

The meeting approximately finished at 9.30pm.