Release 2.19p
Address of this website

www.claygate.club

President — Mary Blundell

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/cbc/eminence/

Your Committee

Chairman — Gavin Wilson 

Treasurer — Rowena Austin 📧 rowena@claygate.club

Secretary — Fay D'Abo

Membership — Pauline Harris 📧 pauline@claygate.club

Refreshments  Julie Minards 📧 juliem@claygate.club

Refreshments  Vicky Bevan 📧 vicky@claygate.club

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/cbc/committee/
The Director team

The Director team comprises:

  • Rowena Austin
  • John Murtagh
  • Gavin Wilson
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/cbc/directing/
The Scorer team

The Scoring Team comprises:

  • Gavin Wilson

Claygate now uses a wireless scoring system called BridgePal, which runs on smartphones and tablets.  Further information about BridgePal can be found here.

AGM 12th March 2018
Minutes of the Annual General Meeting of Claygate Bridge Club, 12th March 2018

President (in attendance)

  • Mrs June Buckland — (JB)

Committee

  • Gavin Wilson — Chairman (GW)
  • Kay Wilson — Secretary (KW)
  • Muriel Hodder — Treasurer (MH)
  • Yvette Barton — Refreshments Officer (YB)

Pauline Harris — the club's accountant — sent apologies for her absence.

1. Apologies for absence

Apologies were received from Joan Low, Janet Kefford, Rosemary Collin, Wendy Stainer, Pauline Harris, Rowena Austin, Judy Reilly, Joyce Grant, and Maurice Grant.

2. Minutes of the AGM held on 13th March 2017

Motion:
Proposer:
Seconder:
Votes For:
Against:
Abstentions:
That the minutes of last year's AGM, as distributed on the tables tonight and as displayed on the club's website, be approved.
Gavin Wilson
(not needed)
Passed unanimously
None
None

3. Matters Arising from the Minutes of the AGM held on 13th March 2017

There were no matters arising.

4. Chairman’s Report

The Chairman said:

"Those who know me will know that this speech is the last thing I want to be doing. Since the Companies Act 2006, there is no need for companies to hold AGMs, unless their Articles of Association say they should.

We hold AGMs because our club's constitution requires us to do so. After this evening's meeting, you may care to consider whether you want to alter that part of the constitution, but that question must be for another time.

AGMs are a good opportunity to hold the committee to account. But as we are always unpaid volunteers, we hope you are not going to be too tough on us. And the sooner we complete this AGM, the sooner we can get down to bridge.

Thankfully, the past year has been free from trauma. Yes, there have been upsets — partners falling out, caretakers failing to arrive — but these were nothing you couldn't handle.

Back in March of last year, there loomed the possibility that the Club would be handed over to a commercial operator. Instead you elected to the committee five acquaintances, whose mutual familiarity derived as much from the courts of Claygate Tennis Club as from the bridge table. Although knowledge of each player's backhand slice created a basis for trust within the committee, it didn't guarantee we would be competent at administering a bridge club.

So the focus of our first six months of office was on proving to ourselves as much as to you that we could keep the Club trundling along: staying solvent, managing Monday evenings without serious incident, running the Club's annual competitions, and keeping the various rotas and the website up to date.

We also wanted to be as open as possible — for example, publishing committee minutes online — because we knew we need as much help as we can get from all of you, to keep the club going.

Once I felt we were fine running the repetitive processes of the club, I wanted to tackle some of the more one-off, strategic issues confronting the club. But there isn't always an instruction manual for these:

  • If I had my time again, knowing what I know now, I would tackle the re-design of the convention card differently. (I had been led to believe we had much more flexibility about its design than was the case.) Thank you for your patience and feedback as we manouevred through this problem last year. We now have three years' supply of a convention card with 'CLAYGATE BRIDGE CLUB' printed across it, which no-one else should feel comfortable about using for purposes outside the club.
  • The implementation of bridge scoring handsets has been slower than I would have liked, but their eventual arrival is, I believe, inevitable. If we want a long-term future as a serious bridge club, we have to introduce electronic scoring, because that is what many beginners in the area are being taught to use in their duplicate sessions, and that is what they will expect when they join a club. There are now three of us on the BridgePal implementation team -- Carol Wildig, Wendy Stainer and I -- and you should see the roll-out beginning very soon.

Once we have bedded in the BridgePal system and we all feel at ease using it, the two fundamental issues I want the committee to tackle are new member recruitment and officer recruitment:

  • We need to create a pipeline of new members, because a number of more elderly members are falling away. I don't know quite how we going to achieve this when we don't have our own in-house teaching operation, so any suggestions you can make would be much appreciated. One aspect that concerns me is our retention of brand new members. I am aware of at least two recruits who effectively walked in off the street, and paid their membership fee, but then stopped coming after just a couple of sessions. We have to make sure we are very welcoming of all new arrivals, and treat their inevitable many mistakes with great tolerance and helpfulness.
  • Equally we need to build a pipeline of future officers, by which I mean not just committee members but also scorers, directors and duplimators. A big problem in a club with such a loyal membership is that most of the members have already "done their bit" at some point in the past, at this club or another nearby. This club depends entirely on unpaid volunteers for its survival. We need wider member involvement in committee work, so that each of us has a deputy and the knowledge of who will replace us when we retire or get run over by a bus. At the moment we have a critical shortage of directors — we will have a regular team of just two after May — so we desperately need at least two more members to begin training to become directors. (The club will be very happy to fund your attendance on the courses run by the EBU, provided you return to try out your new skills at Claygate.) In the mean time, we are extremely grateful to John McKimmie and Nigel Barnes for volunteering to fill the gaps in the director schedule we had up to the end of the year.

Finally I would like to say a big thankyou to my fellow committee members, to the scorers, and the directors, and to all of you for keeping this club going for another year. Before I took over this job, I had little idea of what went on immediately before or after each session. Now I have a slightly better idea and I am very appreciative. Goodness, someone even volunteered to take the bin bags away after the Christmas Party.

To all of you, many thanks."

Motion:
Proposer:
Seconder:
Votes For:
Against:
Abstentions:
To accept the Chairman's Report.
Kathryn McKimmie
Nigel Barnes
Passed unanimously
None
None

5. Treasurer’s Report

The Treasurer said:

"I will not be going into a detailed report on The Income and Expenditure account as it has been posted on the website for the past few weeks, along with a general invitation for you to raise any questions with the preparer, Pauline Harris, who is not able to be with us tonight.

Very briefly: we started the year with £6,771 in the bank and ended the year with £4,754. The main reasons for the reduction in the cash balance have been explained in the notes posted by Gavin on the website but are mainly due to a reduction in table money from £3 to £2 and a one off expenditure on the electronic scoring system of almost £1000.

It is our intention to keep table money at the level of £2 for as long as we can and to enable us to do this we would like to see an increase in membership resulting in increased subscription income and table money takings and Gavin has already talked about our desire for this to happen.

For your information we had 107 paid up members in 2017. To date we have received subscriptions from 79 members and although some members have not yet returned from their winter travels and will pay in due course it is likely our 2018 membership will be down on 2017.

If you do have questions on the Income and Expenditure account following tonight's meeting, Pauline has suggested that you email them to her and she will respond when she returns from her travels."

Questions from the Floor

Pam Normington asked why the Club needed a reserve of £4,000. Sue Osborne wondered whether it was prudent to leave table money at £2. The chairman replied that he did not believe the club's Duplimate machine — a £3,000 asset — was in imminent need of replacement. John McKimmie said that on current projections, the Club's income should be within £500 of the break-even point. We will continue to monitor the financial situation.

Motion:
Proposer:
Seconder:
Votes For:
Against:
Abstentions:
To accept the 2017 accounts.
Bernard Harber
Ken England
Passed unanimously
None
None

Motion:
Proposer:
Seconder:
Votes For:
Against:
Abstentions:
To appoint John McKimmie as Honorary Auditor for 2018.
Nigel Barnes
Pam Normington
Passed unanimously
None
None

6. Presentation of the Trophies

Yvette Barton announced the winners, and the president, June Buckland, presented trophies as follows:

  • Teams of Four (arranged pairs): Mike Mulligan, David Rotherham, John French and Jonathan Spring
  • Club Championships: Nigel Barnes and Philip Chan
  • Victor Ludorum: Nigel Barnes

7. Election by vote of New Committee

Motion:
Proposer:
Seconder:
Votes For:
Against:
Abstentions:
That the current committee of five be re-elected in its entirety.
Nigel Barnes
Betty Bueno
Passed unanimously
None
None

8. Any Other Business

There was none.

Other Attendees (in alphabetical order of surname)

Janet ADAMS — Elizabeth ADKINS — Frances ALLWORK — Kais BAHRANI — Nigel BARNES — Mary BLUNDELL — Valerie BORNHOFT — June BUCKLAND — Betty BUENO — Maria CHRISTOU — Bob EDMONDS — Ken ENGLAND — Julie GARDINER — Elizabeth GRAY — Bernard HARBER — Margaret HARBER — Pam HARRIES — Sue JACKSON — Jill LATTER — Cynthia {{sc|Lievens} — John MCKIMMIE } — Kathryn MCKIMMIE — Jack MORRIS — Margaret MORRIS — Mike MULLIGAN — Pamela NORMINGTON — Val NORTH — Sue OSBORNE — Ursula OSCROFT — Sue RAWLINS — June RETTER — David ROTHERHAM — Vida SMITH — Koon Wah TAN — Lay Choo TAN — Carol WILDIG.

Kay Wilson, 13th March 2018