Coylton Tennis Club AGM Minutes

29TH Feb 2024, 7.30pm

• 01 Apologies:

Beth Davidson, Liz Milroy, Andrew Singleton

Attendees:

Donna Breakey, Gillian Dick, Lynn Drummond, Fraser Drummond, Ross Duncan, Liz Gelling, Lee Hazley, Ian Martin, Lianne McCreath, Marion Murdoch, Grant Murray, Caitlin Murry, Miran Petković, Joan Purdie, Catherine Reilly, Allan Thomson

• 02 Minutes of the last AGM

Were completed and waiting on completion for two people for Safeguarding training completion and certification. Joan proposed and Marion seconded.

• 03 Chair’s report

Lynn read out her notes, and spoke about the number of contacts that had been engaged with over the year (23 and counting) and the work that is underway to upgrade the courts, pursuing a long term lease/ Community Asset Transfer and engaging a new coach. She also spoke about how well the teams had done in the last season for such a small club. The club had been flooded and the work that went into repairing that damage and investigating remedies via the council.

• 04 Treasurer’s report and appointment of Auditor

Our current treasurer is leaving after 25 tears sterling service. The club bought him and his wife a voucher for dinner by way of thanks. The accounts are still healthy but we need to look into the future to make sure the club had enough money for maintenance going forward when it is likely the courts will be upgraded.

Liz Milroy has taken over control of the club’s account, so we wish her luck in her new role.

• 05 Junior Convenor’s report

Lynn spoke about the difficulties of getting a coach in Ayrshire, mentioning the many meetings she has attended with that as an aim. We have had a discussion with a grade 3 coach who said he is willing to come and coach the juniors to start with and we are waiting on him coming back with a schedule of when he can run sessions. Gillian was thanked for her help in facilitating sessions for the younger children in the meantime and gaining a level 3 coach will help her enormously.

We have also been in discussions with Jade Davis who is the Active Schools Coordinator for South Ayrshire and she is going to run a session with children from Coylton Primary School on Fridays from 3-4pm, along with Paul Wright from South Ayrshire Council.

• 06 Election of Elected Charity Trustees

The current trustees were voted in to remain in office for another term, and Liz Gelling and Ian Martin were both voted in as trustees to take us to our maximum number of 12.

• 07 Annual Subscriptions

It was agreed that subscriptions could increase by £5 for all, except family which would be £10. It was also agreed that the current Pay-as-You-Go system wasn’t good enough if we have to pay for a coach, so they can be removed. Block or monthly bookings were voted as a replacement for them. It was also suggested that being able to pay the annual subscription monthly as an option would be more acceptable to the members as it is a smaller outgoing amount.

It was also agreed that being able to pay online would be a simpler and easier method of handling fees, and accordingly, we would remove the options for paying by cash and cheque, but keep BACS as an option - although it means there could be up to a 6 week delay in becoming and active member.

• 08 Appointment of Office Bearers (trustees), Committee Members and Team Captains

Trustees are:

Chair: Lynn Drummond, Vice-Chair: Marion Murdoch, Secretary: Fraser Drummond, Treasurer: Liz Milroy. Other trustees are Allan Thomson, Gillian Dick, Caitlin Murray, Grant Murray, Ross Duncan and Joan Purdie, Liz Gelling and Ian Martin.

Team Captains (and also League Captains) are:

Men’s 1st Team Captain:       Ross Duncan

Men’s 2nd Team Captain:      Allan Thomson

Ladies’ 1st Team Captain:     Allyson Wilson

Ladies’ 2nd Team Captain:    Caitlin Murray has to stand down as she is unable to carry on for this season. No-one volunteered for the position so we still need a replacement.

Junior Convener:  Ian Martin has volunteered to take on this role

Fundraisers:   Allyson Wilson, Miran Petković, Grant Murray

Maintenance:  Lee Hazley said he would like to do this, but his timings aren’t flexible enough to commit fully. It might suit if a timetable could be produced with objectives that needed to be addressed.

• 09 League and dates

The ladies’ start on 17th April with the men’s following on the 19th. The club will enter 2 ladies teams and 2 men’s teams. We won’t be entering a team for the Masters League due to the lack of senior men and the timings of that league’s matches.

Marion agreed to order 30 boxes of new balls for the start of the season.

• 10 Update on negotiating new lease/community asset transfer

Fraser spoke about the continuing contact with South Ayrshire Council to get a lease, which is now tied up with their development of a plan for the club buying out as a Community Asset Transfer. SAC doesn’t have the funding to renew the courts, but finding is available for CAT projects. We are also having discussions with our contact at SAC about the legal side for our future reference.

• 11 Charity status

SCIO was approved 12 Sept 2023 and it allows us to better pursue funding and gain at least an 80% reduction in rates. Last year we narrowly avoided paying over £5,500 in rates due to a lot of correspondence between the secretary and chair and various authorities.

•  12 Contingency Planning

It was agreed that is would be beneficial to have at least one other person being capable of taking over a current role within the charity should the need arise.

Chair - already catered for with the Vice-Chair

Treasurer  - Caitlin Murray

Secretary - no volunteers yet

CWPO - Liz Gelling, Lianne MCreath and Donna Breakey

Web Admin - no volunteers. Docs are in Google Drive for trustees to view.

Junior Convener - Iain Martin

Fundraising - already catered for with 3 volunteers

•  13 AoB

Joan Purdue is stepping down as Child Wellbeing Protection Officer (CWPO) this season and we have two volunteers to help take over that role once they are fully accredited. Joan is willing to stay in position until then, so thanks Joan.

The 3 new CWPOs are Liz Gelling (the main contact) and Lianne MCreath and Donna Breakey. Thanks to all three. Joan will help and advise on courses etc.

The club’s Open Day was agreed to be the 23rd of March and 11am to 1pm for the juniors and 1pm to 5pm for the adults. There will also be a raffle with prizes so please bring some cash with you – online payments and BACS transfers not possible.

It was also agreed that the t-shirts etc. that were bought by the club to sell to the parents for their children could be subsidised by the club, bringing the price down to £5 for t-shirts and £10 for the others. Lynn volunteered to collect the money.

Grant Murray and Allan Thomson both said they would volunteer for PVG training and become accredited in order to further help with the juniors.

Close of meeting 9.00pm.

My thanks to everyone who attended the AGM, both for their patience in covering a very large agenda and also for their input and ideas for the various topics under discussion making it a very interactive meeting. The club is now in a better footing and organisation that before, so here is looking forward to a fantastic season of tennis.

Fraser Drummond

Secretary