MINUTES OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 2024

Thursday 21 November

at 7.30pm in the clubhouse

1. Apologies

Pauline & Ian Connolly, Julia Campbell-Barwick

Minutes of the 2023 AGM

Approved and signed by CH as Chair.

Chairman’s Report 2024 (Chris Howat)

Firstly, I’d like to thank everyone for attending tonight, your contributions to the meeting are extremely valuable to us as a committee, especially when there are important decisions to make. Thank you also to Sara for the loan of her fan heaters to help keep us warm on this cold, wintry evening.2024 has been quite an expensive year for the club, as Steve will go into in more detail in his Treasurer’s Report. The Rejuvenation of Court 3 came at a significant cost but was a very necessary undertaking and has certainly been worthwhile. The court is now draining very well in heavy rain and is once again in good condition. We already know that Courts1 and 2 would benefit from a similar Rejuvenation, so we must plan carefully in order to meet those future costs. All the jobs undertaken by our committee members and other volunteers were outlined in the Autumn Newsletter, so I would just like to say a few thank yous to those concerned for all their continued work:

• The court maintenance team (in no particular order): Steve Temple, Mick Miller, Gary Carpenter, Richard Barwick, Mark Baxter and Geoff Bullock. Thank you also to Gary for his monthly Health and Safety report. Our Mixed Fixtures Secretary, Sara Heron, who ably led and guided our mixed team

captains Pauline Belt, Paul Harrison, Tim Spakouskas and James Dutton.

A special thank you to Paul, Tim and James, who were captains for the first time this year and have all done an excellent job.

• Congratulations to Pauline and the 1st team on their promotion to Division 2 next season. The ladies team captains: Chris Howat and Amanda McVey. A special thank you to Amanda for the more difficult job of fielding the 2nd team and huge congratulations to her and all the 2nd team players for winning their division and gaining promotion. Amanda and Laura can’t be with us tonight as they are attending the Ladies Presentation Evening to receive their trophy.
• Congratulations also to the ladies’ 1st team on gaining promotion to Division 4, finishing in 2nd place behind Dunnington by the narrowest of margins. The men’s team captains: Tom Shouksmith and Steve Temple. Thank you for all your work in what has been a difficult season, compounded by injuries. Hopefully, the 1st team will enjoy more success in Division 3 next season. It is also good to see that the 2nd team has so many men playing competitively.
• Thank you to James Dutton and Tim Spakouskas for their weekly WhatsApp messages, encouraging us all to go to club sessions. Club sessions, on Sunday afternoons now, are still going strong - 12 people played through the rain last Sunday!
• Thank you to Pauline Belt for organising the adult coaching, and to Rob Jones for delivering the very popular advanced sessions on Monday evenings. Hopefully, next year we might see a return of the coaching for non-team members, as we see more people returning to or taking up tennis.

• Thank you to Jill Le Pla for all her work with the junior coaching sessions and summer camps. Jill has helped forge a very good relationship with Appleton Roebuck Primary School and the juniors are thriving under her tuition. Thank you also to Kelly Hunter and Jill for another very successful Wimbledon Experience Day.
• Thank you to Keith Hunter and Tim Spakouskas for managing our Facebook and Instagram pages. These platforms are very important for us to promote the club.
• Finally, a huge thank you to Kath and Steve Temple. Kath continues to devote a great deal of time and effort in her role as Secretary and does an excellent job. She also had the great idea of producing the weekly results update of all the matches this season, making it very easy for all our members to see how the teams are faring. Equally, Steve plays a very important role as our Treasurer, keeping a close eye on our purse strings and business plan. He is currently in negotiations for the renewal of our lease from Sam Smith’s Brewery - more on all that from Steve later.

The work undertaken by all those mentioned earlier can take up a significant amount of time and is much appreciated by us all. However, if any other members feel that they could spare an odd hour or so occasionally, we would love to hear from you.

As I have already mentioned, the club is facing some significant costs over the next few years and the committee is looking at the various ways in which we can boost our finances. Our committee members have several great ideas for fundraisers in 2025.More will be revealed as the plans come to fruition in the new year.

We are also pursuing ways in which to attract new members - there will be more

advertising in our surrounding area to promote the club, as well as encouraging anyone expressing an interest to come along and give it a go. We pride ourselves on being a small, friendly club where everyone is welcome. In the meantime, I hope you all continue to enjoy your tennis and look forward to seeing you on court - especially for our Christmas Cracker tournament on Sunday 8th December. Any new outfits this year?!

Secretary’s Report -Kath Temple

Thank you to Chris for her report and giving all the thanks to the people who have ensured a good year for the club both in terms of success on the courts and maintaining the facilities that we all enjoy.

As Secretary my view of the year is that we have had to respond to a number of challenges quickly that has required strong leadership and vision for the future despite us coming to the end of the lease and the future being unknown. These decisions have been made so much easier by Chris in her role as Chair.

Chris is a great listener and proactive in all her decisions, always having the best interests of the club at the heart. Her enthusiasm for promoting junior tennis and liaising with Jill Le Pla have established a strong base which parents in the local community greatly appreciate. I also admire her important work as our Safeguarding Officer and her willingness to plough through numerous policies on behalf of the club. Without her drive we would not be able to fulfil the LTA requirements and guidelines. Her views are always considered, and she is highly respected at all levels of the club-there’s always an open door. So, thank you Chris for making all our lives easier and I hope you know how much you’re valued by us all. Let’s hope you can delegate some of the more mundane jobs next year, so you don’t have to take the weeding and painting on too!

This year I have tried to focus on keeping members in the loop to hopefully create a sharing ethos of what’s going on in the club. It’s never easy to judge how successful this has been but the newsletter and the round up of match results hopefully goes some way to achieving this- if people read them to the end! Sometimes it seems to need a good deal of reminders to get things like Doodles and tournaments full but the turnout of 22 at the Defib training this Tuesday was pleasing and worthwhile. Thank you to everyone who came and brought people with them.

Finally, if I am elected Secretary for another year I will focus on encouraging all members to volunteer some time to help maintain the club to the standard we would all like, even if it is a one off for an hour by asking people to sign up for regular doable jobs throughout the year that could be delegated to anyone in the club. Jobs like checking the clubhouse, recycling tennis balls, grass cutting, weeding, repainting benches. Hopefully sharing the load will benefit us all.

Treasurer’s Report – Steve Temple

£xxxx deficit in the year, bringing the closing funds to £xxxxx

Main income sources :

- £xxxxx Subs from 54 adults, 5 families, 14 juniors and 2 friends.

Decrease of £402 on the previous year, mainly due

to fewer adult members.

- £xxxxx Match fees. Similar to the previous year.

Main expenditure :

- £xxxxx Court and ground maintenance : £xxxx court rejuvenation, three Replay maintenance visits, £xxxx

Club House renovation, £xxxx tree lopping

- £xxxx LTA, insurance etc : £xxx LTA, £xxx insurance, water and electricity

- £xxx Club House : £xxx septic tank emptying, £xxx rent

Other Notable Items :

- £260 raised for Breast Cancer

Safeguarding Report – Chris Howat

As mentioned in the Autumn newsletter, I have been updating all our safeguarding policies over the last few months to bring them in line with current LTA guidelines. These are now almost complete and, once approved by the committee, they will be posted on the ARTC website. My thanks go to Kath Temple and Gary Carpenter, who form the safeguarding sub-committee with me, and are the first to review any changes. Applications for the Young Person’s Welfare Ambassador scheme are due to close at the end of November. To date, I am not aware of any of our younger members, who must be age 12-24, choosing to take up the opportunity. I attended the Welfare Officers meeting which described how the pilot scheme had worked and was very impressed by the benefits to both the young people taking part and the clubs which they represent. Hopefully, the scheme will appeal to someone in the future. Finally, a reminder that all members have a responsibility to keep safeguarding in mind. If anyone has any concerns at all, doing nothing about it is not an option. Here are some options:

• in an emergency, dial 999

• contact me as Welfare Officer

• contact the LTA Safeguarding team online

• contact the NSPCC

Election of Officers

The current Officers all agreed to stand for another year.

Chair – Chris Howat. Proposed by Mick Miller & seconded by Gary Carpenter

Secretary- Kath Temple. Proposed by Sara Heron & seconded by Pauline Belt

Treasurer–Steve Temple. Proposed by Amanda McVey & seconded by James Dutton.

Election of Committee 2024-25

Subscriptions 2023-24

It was unanimously agreed that the following subscriptions be adopted for 2024-25 with no reductions for early payment:

• Adult rise to £95 pa with no reduction for early payment.
• Family rise to £210.
• Match fees to go up from £4 to £5. All other fees will remain the same. SEE Website for details.

Approval of Auditor

Steve Temple nominated Quentin Howat which was seconded by Pauline Belt.

The meeting closed at 8.45pm.

Date of the next committee meeting 25.1.24 at 7.30pm in The Roebuck.