LEATHERHEAD LAWN TENNIS CLUB
Minutes of the Annual General Meeting held in the Clubhouse on
Sunday 29th January 2006 at 3PM
Attendance 42 members, including 7 committee members.
Beryll Eisenegger, Sheila Pomfret, Ros Anwyl, Maria Evans, Julia Pennel.
Item 4a) A donation of £50 has been received on behalf of Betty
Fuller for the clubhouse fund.
Item 4b) The approach road to the clubhouse has been repaired, but
now deteriorating again.
Item 5) Gift Aid forms were sent out with subscription packs.
Now on the subscription forms members are able to make
a specific donation to the clubhouse fund.
We are looking at getting charitable status but are waiting
the outcome at Banstead Downs.
Item 7) We did not gain extra funds through mini tennis
accreditation.
Item 10) Negotiated a better deal with PWP re tennis balls.
The minutes of the last meeting were proposed for approval to be an accurate record of events by Tony Collet and seconded by Christine Jones.
This report was sent out by the Chairman with the information notifying members of the AGM.
Copies of the accounts were given to members and if there were any queries they should get in touch with Gail. Points highlighted were:-
o Subscriptions were up. Numbers of adult members being slightly up, juniors down.
o Insurance costs had risen.
o The cost of balls has risen, partly due to an increase in price and more balls being put out.
o The major expense was for the roof and new cladding, £6305.
o The building fund consisting of donations made holds £1190.
o We made a profit of £4607 this year.
o The sinking fund is there to help running costs and unforeseen expenditure.
o No professional fees were paid out this year.
o The loan that was taken out for the new courts and guaranteed by members is being paid off at a rate of £3000 a year
a) The accounts were approved unanimously.
b) Subscription Rates for 2006
Adults from £160 pa to £170 pa.
Joining fee remaining at £40 pa.
Junior fees remaining at £50 pa.
A 10% discount is to be offered to members who pay before 31st March. The subscription renewal packs will be out in February. After 1st May if a member has not renewed their subscription they will be deemed a lapsed member and subject to the joining fee. If you are not sure about rejoining as a full member, you could join as a social member, and at a later date become a full member again without having to pay the joining fee again.
It was requested that joining fees be shown separately from subscriptions in the accounts next time.
The changes to the subscription rates were proposed for approval
by David Christie and seconded by Bernard Burbidge.
Membership
· The year started badly with a significant drop in membership from 165 to 110 juniors, a reflection of the increased subscription and coaching fees.
· It has to be recognised that the cost of tennis for a keen junior includes at least £300 a year in coaching fees and twice that for the keener players.
· With alternative activities available a number for whom tennis was secondary decided that membership was no longer justified.
· We propose no increase to subscriptions this year and coaching fees are constantly under review
Friday Nights
Girls—our success story for 2005— in 2004 we relied on 2 girls to cover our teams, there were no girls’ events in the Open Week for the second year running.
Tournaments
CLOSED
· 46 entrants (down 20 on 2004) totalling 100 entries competing in 11 events
· The U10’s had the highest entry ever following a decision as part of our target to increase the number of younger members to make it an open event to include some of Paul’s pupils. Unfortunately none of them subsequently has joined the club but we did see the best U10 final in my time here with Charlotte Wardle narrowly losing to Chris Rawson.
· The tournament itself broke even and then generated some income from the BBQ.
· This year we are going to bring the tournament forward to begin in April.
OPEN
· 100 entries, drawn from around 10 local clubs was completed over 5 days
· 10 events of which 7 involved girls.
· Billed as a recreational tournament Leatherhead’s best had been encouraged to enter tournaments elsewhere and we only saw two Leatherhead players as winners—Jessica Collins (U12 girls) and Ellie Mackay (Mini’s)
· The event is now well established on the local map.
TEAM Tennis
· 2005 saw an increase in the number of teams that we fielded to 10 in an attempt to include more of our members.
· We entered our “Performance Players” in 4 teams in the National Junior Club League, 3 mixed teams in the Local leagues and fielded 3 boys teams in the Dorking and Leatherhead League and were able to involve some 45 players in teams.
· We also saw 7 of our boys representing the club in senior teams though not as regularly as they would like.
· Tom and Alex Webb, Chris Vibert, Sam Bayman, Simon Grabaskey, Robbie Trewinnard & Ollie Wayne
· In the National League
o U16 National Boys finished 2nd to Shirley Park in their Division.
o U14 Girls came top and are promoted.
o U14 boys failed to complete their matches.
o U12 Girls came top and are promoted.
· In the St Georges Mixed
o U16’s lost all their matches in the summer but had great fun and in the Winter season (under new management and with new players) are fairing better.
o U13’s struggled in the Summer season but have notched up a few wins in the Winter season and are hopeful of promotion
· In Dorking and Leatherhead we fielded teams in 4 of the 7 leagues
o U16 Boys finished Top
o U14 Boys, U12 Boys and U14 Mixed all finished mid table
· Overall a successful year.
· In 2006 we will be entering an U18 team in Dorking and Leatherhead.
Other happenings
· We were well represented again in the Surrey Youth Games.
· Many juniors entered the Individual Postal tournaments and faired well.
· Charlotte Wardle had some success at Green level winning at Reigate and David Lloyd Raynes Park.
· We held our annual Parent Child competition which saw Tom and Blake Bowden take the trophy.
· Open day was a success in terms of attendance with some 70 attendees but did little to increase membership.
A BIG THANK YOU to the 30 odd volunteers who helped in 2005>> the team organisers , those that have supervised Friday nights, Paul for his past support, Sarah for food and drink on Fridays, Judi and friends for our BBQ.
Targets for this coming year
1. To re-establish Friday Night
2. Recover some of the fall in membership
3. Encourage and increase membership at the younger end
Lastly
· There have been a few complaints about junior behaviour – more recently than at any time since we first started to actively encourage juniors and increased our membership from 65 to 150 plus.
· Maybe this has something to do with the disruption caused by Paul’s departure and the early end to Friday Night sessions, lack of table tennis balls.
· Historically it has been found that most of the criticism to be valid but some has proved to be simple intolerance and poor handling of the youth of today.
· Whatever the circumstances Peter addressed each incident individually once having established the facts and culprits and will continue to do so.
· Juniors can be silly and a nuisance at times but they are worth the effort and even the difficult ones can become valued members of the club if we are tolerant and correct their behaviour sensitively — we would be a much poorer place without them.
· Juniors are the future of tennis and at Leatherhead they provide some £4/£5000 TOP SLICE income (even at a lowly 110 membership and ignoring the adult parental members who join simply to play with their offspring)
· Without this income we would be in continual deficit and they use passed down balls (zero cost) and keep our coaching staff interested in the club (massive benefit to all)
· If we could return to a membership of 165 we would have a further £4000 to £5000 surplus
· We must continue to make our juniors welcome, be tolerant of their individuality, youthfulness and the mess they sometimes leave behind
· We should offer them every encouragement and opportunity to develop into good tennis club members.
The two new coaches Steve Savage an Andrew Te introduced themselves and outlined their plans.
o Started in coaching in December
o Have started an outreach programme, going into schools to coach. From there the idea is to encourage individuals then to come down to the club for more coaching. Eventually encouraging the child to join and possibly the parent too. Outreach work is also favourable if wanting to obtain grants from the Council.
o Propose to start Mini Tennis, operating a red level group for 4 year olds.
o A portacabin has been installed for the coaches’ use and there should be a coach down at the club most of the time. They are looking at getting a telephone line to the portacabin.
o There will be sessions on Monday nights for the men’s and ladies’ teams. Also plan to develop improvers and beginners courses.
o An Open Day is planned for 25th March, for juniors and family.
o Andrew Te has made an introductory offer to members of a first coaching session for £10.
o Suggested that we need to look at different categories of membership for Mini tennis.
Information on what the coaches are/plan to do would be useful to go on the website. Flyers on what they are doing in the subscription packs would also be useful to inform the membership.
Committee
a) Joe Crawley and Keith Linford are standing down from the committee. Dan Carpenter is also standing down but will carry on his duties until a replacement has been found.
All other committee members will stand for re-election. There have been no new nominations.
David Christie proposed that the committee should be re- elected and it was seconded by Margaret Burbidge. All voted in favour.
b) Team Captains
D&L League
Mens 1 James Greenhead Ladies 1 Lindsay Iftikhar
Mens 2 Richard Jordan Ladies 2 Ros Anwyl
Mens 3 Peter Grabaskey Ladies 3 TBC
Mens 4 Kevin White
Mixed
Vets Mixed 1 Bert Jones
Ladies Mid week Sheila Promfret
Surrey League
Mens 1 Daniel Carpenter
Ladies 1 Jackie Gawne/ Maggie Christie
Chaucer League
Mens 1 Ross Hunt
It was suggested that a 2nd Vets Mixed team should be entered. This would need looking into quickly as entries for the Leagues had to be in very soon.
c) Auditors
Roger Jarvis to audit the accounts.
9) Presentation of Trophies
Trophies were presented to the winners and runners up of events from the summer Adult Tournament.
10) Any Other Business
a) Tony Collett thanked the Social Secretary and all those involved, for all the activities organised over the past year.
b) The Social Secretary gave a quick run down on the activities organised for this next year:-
o Bowling and curry, 18th March, Guildford.
o Evening walk in May, starting and ending at a pub.
o BBQ in June.
o Quiz night in November.
o Dinner Dance in December.
o February 2007, Bridge evening.
o Some time in the summer there will be a tennis event and BBQ.
c) A request was made to use hard court tennis balls. This matter will be looked into.
d) Wimbledon Tickets – It was asked if the procedure for allocation of Wimbledon tickets for members in the draw would be the same as last years. Members were assured it would.
Concerning the number of tickets allocated to the club, if the number of tickets is considerably down on previous years a formal representation should be made by the club on receipt of tickets.
Meeting closed at 4.30pm.