Committee
Meeting minutes
Location: Club House
Date: 21st January 2023
Attendees: Patrick Bywater (JPB) – Chair (for the meeting) & Secretary, Caroline Huft (CH) – Membership Secretary, Judith Read (JR) – Safeguarding Officer, Nigel Registe (NR) – Keeper of the balls, Jonathan Waters (JW) – Grounds Maintenance & Interim treasurer, David Holdsworth (DH), Nigel Glover (NG), Danny Burrell – Head Coach (DB)
Prospective Committee Member: Martin Winham (MW)
Apologies None
Start Time: 4:30pm
Finish Time: 7:10pm
It was agreed that the meeting was quorate and proceeded as per the agenda.
Agenda items
- Approval of minutes (All): Approved as amended
- Coffee Shop: CH distributed comments from members and a discussion ensued. It was agreed that the effort and commitment from Phil and Libby was such that members enjoyed the coffee shop mainly due to their personalities. The result from the discussions were:
We would ask Annette Yates if she would oversee buying of stock and managing volunteer rotas.
As a general proposition, the coffee shop would be set up as a self-service facility and an honesty box.
That we would ask the club members for more volunteers and
We would ask Phil and Libby if they would run special events as a coffee shop as they did in the trial period.
A vending machine was briefly discussed, and it was decided that this would be something we would ask the members about should the volunteer system not work.
Actions:
CH to speak to Annette to see if she would take on the role of manager and set up the coffee shop as a volunteer / honesty box facility
PB/JR to speak to Phil and Libby to see if they would run events.
MW to compose an email to members updating them on what we have decided and how it will run once we get feedback from Annette, Phil, and Libby
3. Safeguarding: JR
No new safeguarding issues have been notified / identified since the last meeting.
JR followed up on the outstanding action from the previous meeting on the young person policy. Having spoken to other people at other clubs and after talking through with DB JR concluded that the risk assessment on file from DB was an excellent policy. JR shared this with the meeting, and it was agreed that the club would adopt the risk policy as presented;
4. Finance Update – JW (RB has already circulated the cashbooks and summary report to December 2022 – he was not in attendance at the meeting)
Action points to follow up and complete were
Access to the bank for CH, JW and JPB
To investigate a better interest rate for the club funds (proposed by MW at this time as previously raised by JW)
To see if a better rate can be obtained for the electricity for the lights. MW presented the work done by Mike Thomas that confirmed that at the new rates we were charging about the right amount
5. Health and Safety – JPB
No slippages or accidents of note have been reported since the last meeting;
To It was agreed that we will continue with the current court cleaning programme of 2 * cleans per court per year. One in spring and one in late autumn.
It was agreed that JW would get extra movement sensitive lights for the path to courts 5&6
It was agreed that we would buy a grit bin and sand so that the paths can be gritted for members. However, this was not to be used for the courts.
We discussed painting a pedestrian path in the carpark. JPB agreed to take this away for practical consideration and the carpark is limited for space.
JPB agreed that he would ask Pavescape to paint the steps with a white line to aid visibility when the court works start;
6. Competitions
The American for May was discussed, and it is understood that Libby was still willing to run that event;
A general discussion was had on competitions with CH, JW and RB to run then and put proposals forward for this year. Some discussions were held regarding a tiebreak 10 competition.
It was noted that in the previous year’s Sandal had been criticised for not providing teas and biscuits following competitions. It was agreed that JPB would reach out to the captains to emphasis that efforts should be made to provide this at the end of matches.
The Wakefield league was discussed, and JR and CH confirmed that they had tried to reach out to the league to find out the date of the AGM. It was noted that the website was out of date and no responses had been received back from reaching out.
7. Event Calendar
This was discussed and in general agreed it would be a good idea. Slight amendments suggested were:
Open day to be the last weekend before the schools break up in July;
That we produce leaflets to promote the event and distribute within the local area
Libby would run the American in May
To make the finals day a full event that we work towards as an event.
That the finals match(s)could be played up to one week before finals day to encourage more people to enter the competition if they have a clash with the finals day
Action – JPB to update suggested calendar and distribute for approval.
8. Security Proposal (Phil Babb) : The committee reviewed the proposal and confirmed that it was in favour of accepting the proposal as long as the WIFI connection was good enough to support such a system; It was requested that we get a specification of the system and confirm to Phil that the committee were in favour of the system;
9. Coaching Update: DB stated that demand for coaching was running at lower levels than previously, his estimate was around 25% less interest due to competing interests for children. This has led to some sessions being cancelled.
In other developments, one of the level 2 coaches (Adam) has given notice to DH to move on as he has been offered a salaried coaching position at another club. This leaves DH short staffed. As an interim measure he has asked Peter to run Saturday sessions and Sara to run Sunday sessions. However, as Peter has yet to do his level 2 exam (that DH is sponsoring him though) DH’s planned rescheduling of his week had not happened yet, and he will be supervising on Saturdays;
10. Discussion on club legal structure: After further discussion it was agreed that this would be looked at again in the autumn;
11. AGM – This was briefly discussed and agreed it would be held on the same date of the next planned committee meeting.
12. AOB:
MW presented the lights / electricity information prior to the meeting; this was reviewed and it was agreed that the new charges (for lights) were about at the right level. To be reviewed if a new rate can be achieved by JW;
MW presented the idea of the club improving its insulation so that any money spent on heating was not wasted. His initial quotes were around £2/3K for the main part of the building. It was agreed that more quotes and a formal proposal would be worked up and presented to the committee by MW
In addition, a field pump and or air conditioning combination may be a suitable heating / cooling solution for the club. Again, it was agreed that quotes should be obtained by MW
Also, there was a discussion on windows and it was agreed that the existing quotes should be reviewed and new ones obtained by MW
13. Date of next meeting: 11th March at 12:30pm
Meeting Closed