Minutes of RTC Committee Meeting - Thursday November 22nd 2018

Present:

Rupert Matthews (Chair)
Mike James (Secretary)
Nicole Hamblin (Membership)
Matt Fellingham (Coach)
Deborah Dunford (Ladies’ Captain)
Claire Crafter (Social)

Apologies:
Doug Coton (Men’s Captain)
Mike Fellingham (Webmaster)
Stuart Long (Head Trustee)
Russell Hollinshead (Treasurer)

Insurance Claim

A Club member has placed a claim against the Club, alleging that an injury was sustained while changing the height of one of the nets on court. Our insurers are dealing with this. The Committee is waiting to receive details of the claim from the Head Trustee in case there are lessons for us to learn.

Actions update (All)

See the Action Log, progress on Actions and comments in the original file through this link here:  Action Log (Click to access) 

Matters Arising (All)

Chairman : Parking

The Conservators are looking at charging for the car park at The Heath and want to spur off the RTC power supply to create the means of doing so.

Mens Captain: Update

Attended the Cambs league AGM last night. Points of note:

1. League fees will be invoiced annually in future rather than split between summer and winter. They will also be developing an online payment method
2. Men’s 1st team are provisionally not relegated from Div 1 after the Fulbourn team pulled out of the league.
3. Captain collected 3 trophies for the club, which I will have engraved and put in the blue cupboard in the clubhouse

Secretary: Changes to Committee

A reminder to members that The Chairman, Secretary and Treasurer all commented at the 2018 AGM that they probably would not stand for re-election at the 2019 AGM. Committee discussed the need to encourage members to propose themselves for Committee roles. No one has come forward yet. The Committee needs volunteers who know the Club and will take action and serve on the Committee for 2019.

Secretary: Emails Deleted

All Club email records on Gmail prior to 21/9/18 have been deleted by person(s) unknown. Google advise me that the emails cannot be retrieved. This mass deletion of records occurred while I was away. I have not been able to find out who did it so I changed the password to the Club email account - only known to Chairman and me now.

Secretary: Who are the Honorary members

The Contracted Coaches (two people) get Honorary Membership as a "perk" of their Contract with the Club. Previous Honorary Members have not rejoined the Club, so there are no others. During discussion a proposal was made that Committee members receive Honorary Membership but this was not supported.

Coach: Nathan is leaving the Club on 14th December this year.

As previously recorded, we now have Alfie in place supporting Matt.

Coach: Herts Tennis Club and Performance Network

Matt Fellingham is now part of the Herts Tennis Club and Performance Network which recognises coaches that are dedicated to increasing participation and have a track record of supporting the development of young tennis players.  Matt is involved with ‘Herts Inspires Tennis Potential programme’, which gives players the opportunity to be involved with county level training and events. Matt has also been selected to be a county coach, being involved in training the county teams every month.

Coach: Our Mini Green teams won the League 20-0!
Our Oranges came 2nd. Our Reds are trying hard.

Coach: Matt is a Tennis Referee, LTA accredited

Matt will be running Tournaments at Royston in the Summer and Winter. Dates tbc.

Coach: Club Nights are very poorly attended.

This is a subject the Committee discusses at almost every meeting and is a cause for concern. The evening Club Sessions and the Sunday Session are dwindling almost to nothing at times.The mid-week morning Club Sessions on Tuesday and Friday are very well attended. Are we focussing too much on Team and Match play and not enough on Social play as a Club? What can we do to encourage more Social play ? What do Members want from the Social Sessions ? There are no easy answers; it may be a reflection of the age range and demographics of the Club; many Adult members work and have families. Agreed that no simple solution presented itself - a topic for more debate at a later date.

Chairman & Secretary: Trustees

It may be sensible to re-visit the suggestion and decision made at the 2018 AGM about having more Trustees. During a wide ranging discussion a number of points were raised:

• Secretary reminded the Meeting that Trustees are appointed by the Chairman and are in place until they resign. 
• We have two Trustees (Rupert and Stuart)
• Upkeep of the facilities seems to be problematic; we have long term issues with court cleaning and lights being out for example
• Trustees are separate to the Committee
• A good link between Trustees, Committee and Conservators of the Heath is important to the Club
• Changes to the committee membership in 2019 may give a good opportunity for a refresh of Trustees

The Chairman and Secretary took Actions to discuss the matter further.

Social: Club Event

It would be good to have a Club wide social event such as the Start of Season Wimbledon Draw BBQ discussed previously. This is planned in outline for the new membership year around mid April 219. This was strongly supported and endorsed by the Committee members present.

Chairman: It will be timely for a Financial update at the next meeting

Chairman: Used Tennis Balls

Would be useful to ask for used balls to be picked up on a regular basis to keep Clubhouse clear; Chairman will undertake this. Balls are given to Heathlands Charity. See http://heathlands.org.uk (Secretary)

Date of next meeting (Secretary)

Agreed mid January 2019. Date to be defined by Secretary.
[ Post meeting note: Date set for January 17th at 8pm in the Clubhouse]