Minutes of the 41st Annual General Meeting of the CCBA held at Carnon Downs Village Hall on
Sunday 21 September 2025

Present 28 :
Ian Marriott(Chair), Chris Bickerdike (Secretary), David Stone (Treasurer) - plus 25 other members.

Apologies 4 :
Mike O'Neill, Geoff Smith, John Golding, Heather Holder-Powell.

The meeting was opened at 3.55pm during the tea interval of the Autumn Pairs event.

There were no matters arising from the minutes of the last AGM held in September 2024.

Chairperson’s Report

In his first report as Chairperson, Ian Marriott began by indicating that, for the six events run last season, numbers attending were up an encouraging 26% on the previous year - from 83 pairs to 105 pairs.

Successes on the table included:

1. The outstanding success for the Western League C team - winning each of its 7 matches and winning the league by the massive margin of 26 Victory Points. In the national final, we beat Yorkshire, but we lost our other 4 matches.

2. The achievement by  Maureen Brinton and Judith Williams, winning the inaugural national Nine High Corwen Trophy by over 2%. A convincing win for a two session event.

3. Winners of our two  county green-pointed events were Bill Thomson & Mike O'Neill (John Perks pairs) and Rob Jones, Geoff Smith, Rob Mabley and Paul Rundle (Harold Payne teams).

4. The Pivot Teams in April was won by Jan Keast & Janet Heath for the second year running, this year with Beverlie Horton and Martin Winters as partners. 

Ian told the meeting that, in his 18th year as secretary, and tenth year as competitions' secretary, Chris was retiring at the end of the current season. Consequently there is an urgent need for a new secretary to be found in the course of the year ahead.

Treasurer’s Report

David Stone outlined that there was no income during the year as we continue to run down the very large surplus.  The deficit of £1331 for the year ending August 2025 was £271 more than last year, and was due to a cancer research donation and the C team playing in a national final. There is now a surplus of £7570 going forward. 

Again, there will be no entry fees charged for the coming year, and there will be no income from Pay to Play. A similar loss to this year is therefore anticipated for 2025/6.

David concluded by thanking Mick Robson for auditing the accounts again.

The motion to accept the accounts was proposed by Jan Keast and seconded by Rob Mabley. The motion was carried unanimously.

Programme for 2025/6

Chris Bickerdike outlined that we shall be running six events again this season - two before Xmas and four afterwards. Four of these events will be face to face, all at Carnon Downs, with the two National qualifying events again online with Jeremy Child as our external director. Dates have already been planned for all but the final event which will be sometime in late-April 2026.

Seven teams have indicated their interest in joining a new online league - making six matches to be played by the end of March next year. Mike O'Neill, who will be running the league, will be writing to team captains shortly with details.  

Election of Officers

All five existing CCBA committee members were willing to continue in post, and with no further nominees, they were proposed en bloc by Diana Coate-Bond and seconded by Jo Bryant, and re-elected unanimously. 

Chris stood down as EBU Shareholder, and although not at the meeting, Geoff Smith had indicated his willingness to stand. Living in Kent most of the year, and his knowledge of the politics of the EBU, made him an ideal candidate for the job. His nomination was proposed by Chris Bickerdike and seconded by Rob Jones, and he was elected unanimously.

Any Other Business 

Liz Perry pointed out to the meeting that there was still a reliance on her to be scorer for F2F events. Now in her 84th year, a new scorer who regularly attends the four events each year is urgently needed.

Nothing else was raised so the meeting was closed at 4.17pm.