AGM Meeting Minutes

Chairman’s Report January 2024
Thank you for all attending this year’s AGM. I’d like to start by thanking the committee for their work throughout the year. We all do this on a voluntary basis. It is often a thankless task and can be difficult balancing work and family commitments alongside time we dedicate to the club. As always, I ask the whole membership to consider if they can give some of their time to the club by joining the committee and sharing the workload. I’d also like to thank those who support the club in other ways, such as at working parties and running club events. It is really appreciated. I’d like to thank outgoing committee members Joe Ridings and Matt Golby due to work and family commitments. It is hugely disappointing that coming into this meeting we have not had any new volunteers to take on the Secretary role. This role is vital to the smooth running of the club. Without new volunteers, the tasks will fall to existing committee member to do more or things like the club email address won’t be monitored. I am pleased to advise that Elliot Griffin has put himself forward to join the committee and support Malcolm with his accountancy expertise.

As set out in last years report, we need to re-build our funds before we can consider significant investment. I’m pleased to say that we have started to re-build the sinking fund this year. We will consider what amount we can put aside this year as membership starts to come in again. I still see the main priorities to be completing all sides of the stop netting and converting our floodlights to LED. Courts 3-5 were cleaned this year and remain in good condition.

We have looked into available funding to support these projects. The Warwickshire LTA scheme allows us to access up to £20k to improve facilities interest free, to be repaid over 5-years in equal six-monthly payments. This is fairly new news and something that the committee can consider accessing if we feel it is the right thing to do to support early delivery of these projects.

We advised last year that the club had moved to become a registered charity and that the work was being finalised. I’m pleased to advise that this is complete and would like to give enormous thanks to Ken Key who led this project for us.

With regards to coaching, we have recently put a further 1-year contract in place with Now Tennis (Inspire to Coach) to the end of 2025. We set out our intentions last year to tender for the coaching services. We didn’t do this for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the relationship with Now Tennis has improved since the last AGM and I am confident that our quarterly meetings are ensuring that objectives are more aligned. I make this judgement through significantly less noise and complaints from the membership. Secondly, at the time where we might have considered doing this, our long-term Head Coach Mark Hughes left the club for another opportunity which suited him and his family better. Stability and continuity were therefore important at this time. Now Tennis are focused on recruiting us a new Head Coach. In the meantime, they have a network of coaches running the coaching programme, which I believe to be going well, but we are all keen for the new Head Coach to be found as soon as possible. I’d like to place on record my thanks to Mark for all his time and effort at Nuneaton.

Overall, another successful year for our Coventry league teams. Our men’s 1st team remained in Division 2, with our 2nd team dropping out of the same league having been promoted the year before. Excellent news from Divisions 4 and 5 saw our 3rd and 4th teams promoted as runners-up. Our fifth team competed well in Division 8. Our Ladies team were unfortunately relegated from Div 4, having been promoted the year before. In the Rugby leagues, the men won the league again, with the Ladies finishing in the middle of the pack. The Mixed team came really close to winning the title but finished a very credible second place. We continue to put out Junior teams ran by the coaches. Ours Vets team for our Over 45’s were relegated last year but are currently 2nd with four matches to play. As communicated early in the year, there are other opportunities available should people wish to put themselves forward to run teams.

I wish you all a fit and healthy 2025. Please, if you can, speak to any of the committee members about how you can support.

Ryan Forrest, Nuneaton LTC Chair

Treasurer’s Report 2025

This report accompanies the figures outlined in the 2024 NLTC accounts spreadsheet, which provides a detailed breakdown of the club’s finances and a comparison with the previous year. The club’s 2024 financial year (FY) spans from 1st November 2023 to 31st October 2024.

In FY 2024, the club experienced a net surplus of £7,481, which represents a decrease of £3,497 from the FY 2023 surplus of £10,978 (excluding the £15,605 final payment for the resurfacing of courts 1 and 2 in FY2023).

The weakened financial performance in 2024 is primarily attributed to the following factors:

1. Increased utility costs: £1,686 additional expenditure on electricity and £412 on gas.
2. Legal fees: £1,194 spent on transfer of land title deeds into the name of Nuneaton Tennis Club.
3. Hard court cleaning: £900 for court maintenance.
4. Reduced membership fees: A decline of £482 in annual memberships.

The impact of these expenses was partially offset by:

1. Deferred lawn maintenance costs: £600 in invoices not received during FY 2024 (expected in FY 2025).
2. Increased ball sales: Generating an additional £319.

Utility Costs

Electricity remains the club’s largest annual expense, with both usage and unit rates proving unpredictable. From 6th January 2024, the variable electricity rate increased from 30.920p per kWh to 48.200p per kWh, leading to higher costs. To mitigate future expenses, the club negotiated a new fixed-rate tariff with OPUS Energy, effective from 19th March 2024 at 22.1p per kWh. This tariff will remain in place until 19th March 2026.

Sinking Fund

In October 2024, the committee approved a transfer of £10,000 from the current account to the sinking fund. As of 31st October 2024, the total cash balance, including the sinking fund, stood at £23,869.

Malcolm Thomas

Treasurer, January 2025

Membership Secretary’s Report 2024

Our overall membership has stayed roughly the same this year. 2024 membership 214, was 218 last year and 243 in 2022. We remain concerned about the lack of growth in membership numbers which is mainly in our junior sections. Especially worrying as the junior sections are the future of the club!

Detailed membership breakdown:

• Female junior: 35 (38 last year)
• Male junior: 63 (76 last year)
• Female senior: 34 (30 last year)
• Male senior: 82 (74 last year)

At last year’s AGM it was agreed that memberships will include floodlight usage. But we still kept the resulting fee increase as low as possible – the rationale being to retain and increase membership numbers. Looking at the increases in senior memberships it seems that this strategy is working. So, again this year we have tried to keep the fee increase as low as possible. However electricity costs, our main outgoing, continue to rise. In view of this we have decided to propose 2025 membership fees as listed below which are based on a 6.5% increase.

We need do all we can to increase our membership in 2025 and get us back into the growth pattern that we have had in previous years. In particular we need to focus on growing the junior membership sections.

Ken Key (January 2025)