MINUTESOF THE 56^TH ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF

THE LOUGHBOROUGH BRIDGE CLUB

THU 17^TH MAY 2012 AT JOHN STORER HOUSE

In attendance were the Chairman and 51others.

Apologies.       Apologies were received from:

                                    SBarney          J Wilcox           T Glover          J Starkie

                                    GJones            T Jarvis                        P Stockdale      C Bray

                                    JWorters         J Taylor            S Mensley        R Page

                                    SPerrett

The Minutes of the last AGM had been emailed to members and were not read out.

Matters Arising from Minutes of Last AGM.  There were no mattersarising.

Chairman’s Report.     Easily the mostsignificant event this year has been the change of venue.  After many good years at the Grammar SchoolCentre they changed their requirements at exam time meaning that we were notallowed access.  This meant no bridge forus in January and the first week of February for mock exams and then at leastthat length of time again for the proper exams in the summer – some 10 weeks orso in total.  The only alternative wewere offered in January was a squash court which we tried but which was not atall satisfactory and we decided to consider other alternatives.  JSH was our first enquiry and they were ableto offer us accommodation for all our nights albeit in a variety of differentrooms depending on their previous bookings together with good toilet and coffeemaking facilities.  We provisionallyaccepted these whilst other venues were considered.  However none of the alternatives suggestedwere very appealing with the main consideration being whether they could offerus all the nights we required.  We werealso concerned not to lose JSH through procrastination.  As time went on and JSH realized we wereserious about our bookings being for the long term they started to give uspriority, opened up the café area for our use and provided us with storagespace for out tables and other equipment. Our relations with them are excellent and the only times we shall nothave access are on about three Tuesdays each year immediately after some Bank Holidays when the buildingwill not be open.

Over the last year the number of regularplayers has stayed exactly the same at 88 but with 12 new names replacing 12others.  The total number of club membersis higher than this due to occasional players and also because the Universityused the Scout Centre up to Christmas to play their league matches and werequired that all their league players became member of our club.

In league both teams had a satisfactoryseason finishing mid-table in divisions one and four respectively.          

We shall shortly have a notice on the boardasking players to sign up for the teams for next season and I would urge youall to consider playing in a team even if you have not done so before.  You are all members of the EBU & LCBA andno further payment is involved.  Howeverplayers at home matches will now be required to pay table money which will be£2 as for normal club nights.

There have again been several noteworthyperformances by some of our regular players

SusanStockdale continues to be a regular member of theEngland Women’s team and was part of the team which finished 3^rd inthe Women’s world championship held in Holland and 2^nd in the WorldMind Games in Chinas as well as being involved in a competition in Japan.

DickPathan, usually playing with Alan Langley ofPhoenix, has regularly represented the County first team.

TimGlover, playing with Peter Neville from Glenfield,regularly represented the County Second team.

Brianand Sheila regularly played for the County, splitbetween the second and third teams and JohnWilcox, playing with Robert Northage from Glenfield, regularly representedthe County third team.

The County introduced a new competition, apair’s league, which comprised four divisions of six pair.  The event was run over five evenings and thewinners of the first division were Dickand Lucy Pathan with Brian andSheila Stockdale runners-up.

DianaBowden and Richard Rees, representing Bradgate, wonthe Hyman Crammer Trophy which is competed for by the club champions from each clubwishing to be represented.

Sheilaand Susan Stockdale finished runners-up in the OlgaCup, which is the County Ladies Pairs competition.

As usual both the Christmas and summerparties were well attended and were enjoyed by all.  We have again booked the usual room for theChristmas party but, as part of the matters arising from my report, wouldwelcome your views on whether to hold a summer party.  The room used for the Christmas party will notbe available to us but we would be able to use the café room as usual and toset out our food, drinks etc in the receptions/hall area outside the café.

I would like to thank all the committee forthe work they have done over the years. Hughie was the leading light in our urgent and time consuming negotiationswith JSH and as I have said earlier our relations with them are excellent.  Bob and Hughie have also continued to carryout their key roles very capably and conscientiously, rarely missing anevening, and Paul has taken over the responsibility for collecting table money.  Barrie joined the committee last year and hasdone a great job in regularly fixing up partners for players in need – even tothe extent of being on call, and used, when he was on holiday in Lanzarote.

All the committee, but particularly Hughieand Bob who organized the bought in food and drink, and Paul who verycompetently ran the raffle at the Christmas party worked hard to make theparties a success.  As well as thecommittee John Wilcox ran the bridge at the Christmas party and many of youmade both parties a success by contributing food and prizes.

Following the unexpected loss of Steve dueto work commitments Sue has taken over the responsibility for Scorebridge,including trying to keep Bob and I on track, and has also taken over themanagement and indeed development of our website.  Her work is invaluable.

Stuart took over the captaincy of thesecond team and has carried out a difficult job, certainly more difficult thanthe first team, very well.  He alsoorganized the Sim Pairs events which were both for charity.

Finally, on the question of Sim Pairs, wewould welcome your views, again as matters arising from my report, on whetherwe should continue to hold them.  If wedo then table money would be £5.00

Matters Arising from Chairman’s Report.     Sheila Stockdale asked ifthe intentions of the club were to stay at JSH on a permanent basis.  The chairman said the answer to that was yesand Hughie Cairns added that we were contracted to JSH for 1 year but if afterthat time somewhere better was brought to the attention of the committee thenit would be looked into.  It wassuggested that some of the tables were not the best shape for bridge.  The Chairman was sympathetic with this butinformed the meeting that JSH were not too keen on us moving their tables andin any case we would have no place to put the moved tables during theevening. 

On the matter of the summer party theoverwhelming feeling of members was that they wished this to continue.  The new committee will be tasked witharranging this.

On the question of Sim Pairs the membersindicated that they would like the club to continue with these.

Treasurer’s Report.     The Treasurer reported anoverall loss of £912.74 for the year, mainly due to the loss at the ChristmasParty and the highly increased rental as a result of our move from the GrammarSchool.  To stem this drain on ourfinances the Treasurer had taken the step of increasing table money to £2.00soon after our move from the school.  Heassured the members that he hoped there would be no need of having to further increasethe table money or the subscription in the coming financial year.  However he will monitor the impact of ourfinances over the first and second quarters of this year to see if the £2.00per head table money is matching the cost of the room hire and P2Pcharges.  Hopefully it will suffice butif not the question of raising table money will be discussed by the committee.

He asked those in attendance to accept thereport and acceptance was proposed by Lynda Simmons and seconded by BrendaStead.

Motion.           A motion put forward by Sue Hardieand seconded by Su  Northam stated that:

As from 1^st June results would only bedisplayed on our website and no longer be emailed to members.

Sue explained her reasoning for this andthe motion was overwhelmingly accepted.

Election of Committee.           In an unopposedelection the following members were voted on to the committee:

            Chairman                    Geoff Shaw

            Treasurer                    Hughie Cairns

            Secretary                     Bob McCulloch

            GeneralCommittee    Paul Anderson

                                                StuartMcDonald

                                                SueHardie

                                                RuthJohnson

The trophies were then presented by IrisWalker, the winners being:

            AliceCup                     H Cairns          J Worters

            JacksonCup                 D Pathan         L Pathan

            LoughboroughCup      S Stockdale      S Stockdale

                                                PStockdale      B Stockdale

            SharandaCup              C Bray             A Khan

            DorisFawcett Cup       L Pathan          D Pathan

                                                SHardie          J Northam

            JohnDixon Cup           S Perrett          R Page

            Palfreymancup           J Lloyd

The meeting closed at 7.30 pm and wasfollowed by a session of bridge.

MINUTES OF THE 55^TH ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF

THE LOUGHBOROUGH BRIDGE CLUB

HELD AT THE SCOUT HALL ON THU 26^TH MAY 2011

The meeting was attended by the Chairman, Mr G Shaw, and 48 others.

Apologies:           Malcolm Dawson             Jill Bentley           Ken Moore         Freda Walker

                                Susan Stockdale                               S McDonald        Sue Bowyer        Gary Jones

                                Tracy Jarvis                         Sue Northen      Ron Ferguson    Bill Whalley

                                Linda Simmons                  Patricia Harris     Jim Taylor            Bob Seymour

The Minutes from the previous AGM had been emailed to members and were not read out

Matters Arising From Minutes.  There were no matters arising.

Chairman’s Report.         The Chairman began his report by welcoming everyone to the 55^th AGM and then reported:

Over the last year the number of regular players, as indicated on the ranking list, has actually risen by 2 from 86 to 88 with 13 new names replacing 11others.  However not all attend as often as previous and as a consequence attendances on club evenings have declined slightly recently.  The total number of club members is higher than this due to occasional players and also because the University use the Scout centre to play their league matches and we require that all their league players became members of our club.

In the league the first team had a very successful season finishing top of division 2 after relegation last year.

Prior to the start of the season two introductory evening to teams bridge were held with the objective of encouraging more people to play for the second team.  The evenings were run by Malcolm using material prepared by Brian and with players from Ashby also attending.

We were able to field a second team and they finished a creditable fourth in division 5.  I cannot overstate the role played by Linda in taking over the captaincy in difficult circumstances at the start of the season and then seeing it through to the end.  She did a great job despite having health problems.

We shall shortly have a notice on the board asking players to sign on for the teams for next season and I would urge you all to consider playing in a team even if you have not done so before.  You are all members of the EBU &LCBA and no further payment is involved.

There have been several noteworthy performances by some of our regular players.  Taking pride of place is Susan Stockdale who has regularly represented the England women’s team and has been non-playing captain of the England Junior Women’s team.

Dick Pathan, usually playing with Alan Langley of Phoenix but sometimes with his wife Lucy, has regularly represented the County first team and was also part of the runners-up team in the Josephs Bowl which is the County teams championship.

Brian and Sheila Stockdale won the Stanley Trophy which is a cumulative competition played over the season with the best four scores out of a possible seven counting.  They also finished runner-up in the Otto & Edith Bowl which is the County mixed pairs championship and regularly represented the County second team.

Time Glover, playing with Peter Neville, and representing Glenfield, won the Hyman Crammer which is a County competition where each club is invited to send the winners of their club championship.  They also finished runner-up in the Stanley Trophy and regularly represented the county second team.

Diana Bowden and Richard Rees were part of the team which won the Wilde cup which is a County event with restricted entry.

Finally Ben Norton was part of the Grammar School team which won the National schools cup.  Since then he has also set a club record which is unlikely to be beaten by winning the Alice Cup, partnered by Bob Seymour, at the age of 13.

As usual both the Christmas and summer parties again were well attended and were enjoyed by all.

I would like to thank the committee for the work they have all done over the year.  Bob and Hughie have continued to carry out their key roles very capably and conscientiously, rarely missing an evening, and our relations with the Grammar School remain good.

Sheila, Hughie and Bob, have again been the driving forces behind both the Christmas and summer parties, helped enormously by so many of you contributing to the food and prizes.

Steve is our Scorebridge specialist always getting the results out before he goes to bed, and has also organized the Sim pairs events this year.  Malcolm has done an excellent job in setting up and maintaining the website – never being afraid to let the scorers know when they are being tardy!  In my case he also found the appropriated contact at bridgewebs when I was unable to enter results onto the website.  Others have also been impressed and I have been asked by Jim Taylor, who couldn’t be here tonight, to pass on his personal thanks in my report.  However the latest news is that Malcolm is likely to be leaving the area when he has sold his house.  My understanding is that this could be within the next two months.  He has agreed to carry on with the website until then so as to give us time to find an alternative.

Finally I would like to thank Barrie Parker who is not on the committee but who volunteered to run a telephone system whereby people without a partner for any evening could contact him and he would try to put them in touch with another player in the same position.  I believe it has worked well.  This was to replace the previous standby system which was failing due to lack of volunteers.  As this is the subject of a motion later in the meeting I would appreciate it if you could leave any comments on it until that time rather than giving them as matters arising from my report.

Matters Arising.                                There were no matters arising from the Chairman’s Report.

Treasurer’s Report.         The Treasure reported a loss on the year of £74.76 pence.  The room rental was up by over £700 from the previous reported year but this was due late billing from the Grammar School resulting in some of last year’s rental being shown up on this year’s.  The Treasurer was happy to recommend that subscriptions (£10 per year) and table money (£1 for members, £2 for visitors) stayed the same.  He informed members that he was happy to accept subscriptions from now and these should be paid by the end of June

In closing he thanked John Wilcox for his work with the auditing of the accounts.

Matters Arising from Treasurer’s Report                               There were no matters arising.

Motion                 Proposed by Sheila Stockdale     Seconded by Brian Stockdale

That the members be given the opportunity to discuss and vote on the merits or otherwise of the former standby system and the telephone system currently being used on a Thursday night.

Sheila explained to the room that she thought the Committee acted hastily when it changed the system from standby to telephone.  She felt that there had not been enough discussion on it and that the members should have had a chance to vote on it at an AGM.  She was not advocating one system rather than the other but felt it important the matter should be discussed. There were various suggestions put forward and when the matter went to a vote 28 members were in favour of using the telephone system with 12 members in favour of the standby system.  It was therefore agreed to continue with the telephone system run by Barrie Parker.

Election of Committee                   The three officer posts were not contested therefore the incumbents were re elected. 

Chairman             Geoff Shaw        Treasurer            Hughie Cairns    Secretary             Bob McCulloch

General Committee:  Two members (Lynda Simmons and Malcolm Dawson) retired this year and voted onto the new committee were:

                Steve Francis     Paul Anderson    Stuart McDonald            Barrie Parker      Sue Hardie

There being no further business the Chairman asked Pat Simpson to present the prizes.  The trophy winners:

                Jackson Cup                       Brian Stockdale / Bill Whalley

                Sharanda Cup                    Val Challands / Harry Gordon

                John Dixon Cup                 Sue Northam / Ron Ferguson

                Palfreyman Cup                                Linda Simmons

                Doris Fawcett Cup           Harry Gordon / Tim Glover / Ken Moore / Freda Walker

                Loughborough Cup         Claire Bray / Gary Jones / Tracy Jarvis / Pankaj Shah

Post Meeting Note:        Hughie Cairns and Bob McCulloch would like to pay tribute to the huge workload (much of it unseen by the members) taken on by Geoff Shaw year in year out.

54^th ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF THE LOUGHBOROUGH BRIDGE CLUB

HELD AT SCOUT HALL ON TUESDAY 25^TH MAY 2010

The meeting was attended by the Chairman, Mr. G Shaw, and 41 others.

 Apologies: C Oldroyd, J Lawrence, H Hughes, J Highfield, I Walker, S Northen, P Simpson, D Kettle, J Wilcox and R Ferguson.

 The Minutes of the last AGM had been emailed to members and were not read out.

 Matters Arising from Minutes.  There were no matters arising.

 Chairman’s Report.  Over the last year attendances at the club have held up well.  The number of regular players, as indicated on the ranking list, has only fallen by 2, from 88 to 86, with 8 new names replacing 10 others.  The total number of club members is appreciably higher than this due to occasional players and also because Loughborough University use the Scout Centre to play their league matches and we require that all their league players become members of our club.

 The situation in the league has been disappointing this year.  Firstly we did not have enough members wishing to play league bridge to support three teams and so had to abandon the previous ‘B’ team and only enter two.  Then the performance of the ‘A’ team was poor with the consequence that we finished bottom of the first division and shall be relegated.  The one bright spot was an improved performances by the ‘B’ team, which was substantially the previous seasons ‘C’ team, who finished 3^rd in division 5.  A lot of credit goes to Jackie who was co-opted onto the committee as captain who managed to juggle 14 players into 12 different partnerships over the season.  My job with the ‘A’ team was as nothing in comparison.

 As a consequence of the EBU’s new pay to play arrangements all members of our club, which is affiliated to the EBU, will automatically become members of the EBU and the LCBA, which is the County Association, without the need for any further payment.  This means that all our members will be eligible to play in the league and County competitions if they wish, without payment of a further subscription.  We shall shortly have a notice on the board asking players to sign on for the teams for next season and I would urge you all to consider playing in a team even if you have not done so before.  It will be good if we can get back to three teams.

 There have been several noteworthy performances by some of our regular players.  Dick and Lucy Pathan, playing in the BGB Simultaneous Pairs at our club, achieved the highest score in the whole of the country and were also part of the team which finished as runners-up in the Josephs Bowl, which is the County teams championship.

 Also Dick, playing with Alan Langley from Phoenix, regularly represented the County first team.   Tim Glover, playing with Peter Neville from Glenfield, won the Buckby Cup, which is the County men’s pairs championship; and this pair also regularly played for the County second team.   Gerry Bucciero and Bob Parker also regularly played for the County Second team.  Sheila Stockdale, playing with her daughter Susan, was again runner-up in the Olga Cup which is the C county Ladies pairs championship and Janet Green and Molly Pointon were the highest placed non-experts in this event.  Also Sheila, playing with Brian, were runners-up in the Stanley Trophy, which is a cumulative pairs event with the best four scores out of a possible seven counting and regularly played for the County, usually in the second team.

 As usual both the Christmas and the summer parties went very well.

 I would like to thank the committee for the work they have all done over the year.  Bob and Hughie have again carried out their important roles  very capably and conscientiously and our relations with the Grammar School remain good.   Sheila, along with Hughie, have again been the driving forces behind both the Christmas and summer parties.    Steve is our Scorebridge specialist and this year his work has been crucial in ensuring that all our membership details are correctly set up with the EBU. 

 Finally I would like to thank Claire for again organizing the three Sim Pairs events.

 Matters Arising from the Chairman’s Report.  There were no matters arising.

Treasurer’s Report   The Treasurer reported another successful year with an end profit of £211.08.  Our Christmas and summer parties, which are deliberately subsidised, showed a loss of just over £600.  The Treasurer highlighted the marked difference in the interest received this year and last year.  Last year we received £144.51 while this year, from a similar amount in the bank, we received only £4.31.  It was his intention to recommend an increase in the annual subscription from £6.00 to £10.00 whilst keeping table money for members at £1.00.  The table money for visitors already has been increased to £2.00 (to compensate for our contribution to P2P).  He finished his report by thanking John Wilcox who once again has done our auditing.

Matters Arising from Treasurer’s Report.   There were no matters arising.

 Motion                                A motion had been put up by Jennifer Parker, seconded by Pat Simpson, that:

 We should have a bottle of hand sterilizer at the signing in table so that hands can be cleaned.  There is a virus called ‘Noro’ spread by hand and resulting in diarrhea etc.  Regretfully some hands are not of the cleanest and the cards could be safeguarded if this was done’.

 After some discussion it was agreed that we should trial this and monitor the progress.  The new committee would make a final decision depending upon usage etc.

 Election of Committee.                The Officers were re elected unopposed.  These being:

                Chairman:  G Shaw          Treasurer:  H Cairns         Secretary:           R McCulloch

 There were five nominations for the general committee, all of whom were elected.  These were:

                Sheila Stockdale             S Francis               M Dawson          P Anderson        L Simmons

 From the room Gary Jones thanked the retiring committee who in his opinion had done a very good job.

 There being no other business the meeting closed at 7.35

 Prize giving.    The trophies were presented by Hughie Cairns and we then had a session of bridge.