HEATHERCROFT BRIDGE CLUB. Minutes of the Annual General Meeting of Members held on Tuesday 26th July 2011

Transcription

1 Minutes of the Annual General Meeting of Members held on Tuesday 26th July 2011 Present 45 members (see appendix A) including:- President Sue Hardwick Chairman Alan Giblin Secretary Charlie Shepherd Treasurer Norman Sutton Committee David Barrow Liz Bretherton Angela Varley Ruth Coubrough 1. Apologies 34 apologies were received (see appendix B) 2. Minutes of the last A.G.M. It was reported that the minutes of the last AGM had been published on the Club s notice board for a period of 4 weeks for members to query their accuracy. As no comments had been received the minutes were approved by the Committee and signed by the Chairman on 28 th September Chairman s Report The chairman started by noting that we had the usual number of attendees and thanked everyone for coming. He stated that the club membership currently stood at 155 members and that we had lost 10 members who had not renewed their membership. He noted that the table money for the year was down on last year due to the bad weather we had over the winter and having to cancel a number of sessions. He continued by stating that the last year had been a transitional period since the retirement of John Roberts. In that time we had recruited a number of new scorers and directors and he went on to thank them individually by name. He also added his personal thanks to all those other members that helped out in the running of the club. The chairman then went on to address a number of issues that he was aware that some members had. Firstly there was the absence of an AOB item on the AGM agenda. The chairman explained that this was deliberate as members were requested to submit items to the secretary for inclusion at the AGM so that the committee was aware of items beforehand and could give a considered response. Secondly he dealt with the issue of prize money that had stopped being paid in He

2 explained that there was no intension to re-instate prize money as we had broken even for the year and that the money previously paid in prize money had now been absorbed by the P2P costs. Next he dealt with a perceived bias in sit outs, with one direction being favoured over the other. He explained he had looked that at the results since March and in Mitchel movements used where there was a half table there had been 9 N/S sit outs and 13 E/W sit outs. He did not feel that, on this evidence, there was a bias. Finally the chairman explained that we did not want to go down the route of drawing from seats and would continue with our present system of sitting on a first come first served basis. The chairman then moved on to mention that over the years there had been many proposals to merge Heathercroft with Moseley and no doubt would be in the future but at this point in time there was nothing to report. The chairman then thanked the 2 people standing down from the committee (leaving 2 vacancies), Angela Varley and Norman Sutton. And one final thanks from the chairman went to David Barrow who was standing down from collecting table money after 10 years. The chairman presented David with a bottle of wine. 4. Treasurer s Report Income Subscriptions have increased due to all members now paying 10 instead of long standing members paying 5. Table money has shown a decrease of about This is due in part to the bad weather prior to Christmas and a decrease in table numbers. The Parnham event raised 367 and this was rounded up to 500 and was presented to the RNLI. Expenses Hall rental was increased by 25 per month from 1 January and the contribution from Friday night bridge has decreased giving an overall increase in rent of c 720. Catering costs have increased by c 320 as well. The figure includes the cost of the Chairman s evening. P2P has now been in operation for more than a year and the accounts reflect this increased cost over the former master points system. However the club has received a rebate for last year from Warwickshire CBA which has reduced their element of P2P

3 from 7p to 5.25p. This will go into next year s accounts. From 1st April this year the EBU element of P2P has increased by 2p to 31p. Bridge playing costs are c 600 representing the cost of new cards, boards and general stationery such as scorecards, travellers etc. One new cost this year is the 180 spent on training new directors. All the other expenses are broadly in line with last year. Balance sheet The balance sheet shows the cash and bank balances of the club. This year has been transferred into two fixed term deposits. One will yield interest of in July 2011 and the other 225 interest in January This is a significant increase in the interest compared with the deposit account. Both amounts will appear in next year s accounts. Questions were invited from the floor. Anita Reid wanted to know why the playing costs had gone up so much. The response was that under the previous treasurer very little equipment had been replaced and it was felt that a significant amount of the equipment should be replaced. There was a question from the floor as to why we no longer self catered for the Parnham event as this would save money. The response was that we no longer self catered as we could afford to buy in our catering. The floor pointed out that the income from the Parnham was down due to there no longer being a raffle. The floor wanted to know if we could purchase seat cushions. The response was that we use to have seat cushions but had a storage problem but could look into this again. Finally the floor wanted to know why Northfield seemed to be doing better than us with increasing membership while we had a declining membership. After a brief discussion the topic was brought a close as we had moved away from the subject of the accounts, but it was recognized that we needed to revisit the question. The accounts were accepted by the meeting (Proposed: Phil Olive; Seconded: Sheila McDougall). 5. Capital Expenditure Proposal The Secretary outlined the committee s proposals to purchase new technology to improve the playing experience. There were two proposals for new technology, namely Dealing Machine Wireless Scorers Dealing machine The secretary reported that there are currently 2 machines on the market, Duplimate and PlayBridgeDealer. The Duplimate machine, which has been on the market longer uses

4 barcoded cards whilst the PlayBridgeDealer has a camera that can read the face of any card. Both machines are similar in that they are driven by software that deals the cards and can deal a board in about 6 seconds. The advantage would be that there would be fewer flat hands as happens when hand shuffling and dealing is employed, and a printout of the boards of a session can be provided. The cost would be 2,500-3,000. Wireless scorers The secretary reported that there were more wireless scorers to choose from than dealing machines, naming Bridge Mate, BridgePad and BridgeScoring. He explained that instead of filling in a traveller that each table would have a unit to collect the score that wirelessly communicated the results to a base unit. The table units looked like an adapted calculator, although the BridgeScoring units were touch screen, which looked interesting. The advantage would be that the results would be available at the end of the session instead of having to wait for human being to produce them. The cost would depend on how many table units were bought ( and spares would need to be bought just in case any unit broke down) but is likely to be 2,000-2,500. Someone asked if the club would need to purchase a computer to which the answer was yes. When the issue of people having trouble using the new scoring units was raised it was pointed out that it would be no different than moving from silent bidders to bidding boxes. The overwhelming majority of members at the meeting where in favour of the proposals. 6. Election of Committee Members David Barrow, Liz Bretherton and Norman Sutton retired by rotation. David and Liz stood for re-election. Both nominees were re-elected. (Proposed: John Walter; Seconded: Janice Fine) 7. Election of President Sue Harwick was proposed by the committee for a second term and elected by the meeting. (Proposed: Elma Golden; Seconded: Stephanie Scott) 8. Election of an auditor Sandra Squires was elected by the meeting to continue as auditor. (Proposed: Ruth Coubrough; Seconded: Peter Lewis)

5 9. Presentation of Prizes HEATHERCROFT BRIDGE CLUB The President presented the prizes for the winners and runners up of the Club s Special Events. SPECIAL EVENT WINNERS RUNNERS UP The Etta Rudell Philip Colman & Greg Varnom Tony Cowen & Wirender Khorana Norman Sutton & John Walter Janice Fine & Juliana Berck Millennium Teams Val Bettis & Phil Olive Rachel Hardy & Tony Betts Monday Plate Tom Donoghue & Tony Marathas Annabel Hampson & Mike O'Driscoll Dorothy Fullwood Rosebowl Brenda Morris & Philip Colman Nanette McWhirter & Paul Cotterill Cohen Cup Peter & Sheila Lewis Ruth Coubrough & Pat Barrow Parnham Trophy Val Bettis & Phil Olive Ruth Coubrough & Sandra Squires Chairman's Cup Jane Collier & Mike O'Driscoll Nanette McWhirter & Alan Sant Powell Renton Jane Collier & Mike O'Driscoll Alan Giblin & Alan Green The Jeanne Thierry Cup Peter & Sheila Lewis Henry Scott & Sandy MacRae Bill Hughes Sims Pairs Sue King & June Heather Mary & Julian Shingler The meeting closed at 7:30pm.

6 Appendix A: AGM Attendees Mrs. Dagmar Aykroyd Mr. David Barrow Mrs. Barbara Bradbury Mrs. Liz Bretherton Mrs. Jane Collier Mr. Philip Colman Mrs. Ruth Coubrough Mr. Ron Court Mr. John Cullwick Mrs. Pat Cullwick Mrs. Irene Edwards Mrs. Janice Fine Dr. Alan Giblin Mrs. Elma Golden Mrs. Jean Haddleton Mr. Chris Hall Mrs. Sue Hardwick Mrs. June Heather Mrs. Lise Jan Mr. Cliff Kentish Mrs. Valerie Kentish Miss Sue King Mr. Peter Lewis Mrs. Sheila Lewis Mrs. Shirley MacMillan Smith Ms. Ghislaine May Dr. Sheila McDougall Mrs. Joan Mensing Miss Brenda Morris Mr. Pete Nicholds Mr. Mike O Driscoll Mr. Phil Olive Mrs. Hilary Pressdee Mrs. Anita Reid Mrs. Stephanie Scott Mr. Charlie Shepherd Mr. Julian Shingler Mrs. Mary Shingler Mr. Norman Sutton Mrs. Angela Varley Mrs. Betty Verduyn Mrs. Penny Waddington Mr. John Walter Mrs. Shaunagh Wand Mrs. Evelyn Whiteford

7 Appendix B : AGM Apologies Mrs. Pat Barrow Mrs. Juliana Berck Mr. Peter Berck Mr. Tony Betts Mrs. Mary Brown Mrs. Anne Cartwright Mrs. Margaret Cowan Dr. Tony Cowan Mr. Nick Eyre Mr. Ian Follett Mrs. Jane Follett Mrs. Barbara Fox Mr. Bill Fox Mrs. Romola Granger Mrs. Jenny Gray Dr. Alan Green Miss Annabel Hampson Mrs. Rachel Hardy Mr. Tony Marathas Dr. Carmel McCrann Mrs. Nanette McWhirter Mrs. Mary Newbold Dr. Margaret Norcott Mr. Don Pegler Mr. Michael Prosser Mrs. Rosemary Prosser Mr. Les Smith Mrs. Sarah Smith Mr. Malcolm Spencer Mrs. Sheila Spencer Mrs. Sandra Squires Mr. Simon Swift Mr. Harry Tonks Mrs. Carol Warren HEATHERCROFT BRIDGE CLUB