Farnham Tri Club AGM Minutes

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "Farnham Tri Club AGM Minutes"

Christopher Burns
5 years ago
Views:

1 Farnham Tri Club AGM Minutes 16 th November 2008 Apologies Ali Wigg Fiona Bosher Nick Holmes Ian Howard Philippa May Shelna Banasiewicz Richard Brooke Allie Richardson Martin Allen Helen Kennedy Minutes of last AGM meeting Agreed and accepted. Chairmans report Let me start by saying that I certainly did not expect to be delivering this report. Ty s decision to resign from the Committee took us all by surprise, and my first task must be to thank him for the considerable input that he has made to this club, which has really benefited from his application and experience over the years. Indeed, as a relative newcomer to the club I am only too well aware that we have a real depth of talent and experience within our ranks. We are very fortunate to have an active and dynamic committee to turn actions and ideas into reality. Farnham Tri members continue to excel and represent the club all over the globe. This year we have a colossal 14 members completing full Ironman triathlons - maintaining the popularity of long distance racing- (1 in the USA, 1 in Roth, 1 in Austria, 1 in Switzerland, 1 in France, 1 in Lanzarote, 2 in New Zealand, and 6 in the UK). A special mention must go to Nick Holmes who came 2 nd in his age group in France and qualified for Hawaii. More members are trying their hand at the middle or half-ironman distance a total of 31 members this season, and Ali Wigg won the female over 55 BTF National Middle Distance Championship at the Vitruvian Triathlon. We had 9 club members at the ITU World Age Group Championships in Vancouver- it turned out to be an experience none of us were expecting, but it was really good to get club representation on an international stage. I am particularly pleased with our representation at the National Club Relays at Nottingham in August. An entry of 10 teams put us firmly back on the map, which, with our distinctive kit, gets us recognised with a higher profile and improved coverage. Newspaper coverage has been excellent this season (- thank you Nick) and enhances our profile again on a local basis. I am very keen to build on this year of competition and get Farnham Triathlon Club punching above its weight in terms of results and the standard of its athletes. We have an excellent coaching team in house, which has been delivering 6 coached sessions per week for some time now a fantastic achievement for a club of our membership size (218 adults and 22 youth). We are making good progress with the reorganisation of the Saturday rides to make them more specific in terms of training value, safer, and more open to novice triathletes. Whilst trying to boost our level of competitiveness nationally, it is important to remember that we are a club for all. I think that we have excellent ways of receiving and integrating new and novice triathletes into the club and plan to do more, in the way of taster and fun events for beginners. The Club training camp is now in its second year and we are looking forward to another successful time in Lanzarote. This year 25 members will fly out for a warm weather training start to their year.

2 Once again the Farnham Tri Youth race was a resounding success with thanks to Karen, Cathy and Sue. There were some shaky moments in the lead-up, due to circumstances beyond their control, but the planning and execution were top-notch. Club events have again proved remarkably popular, with a span of events from aquathlon to duathlon, sprint tri, Olympic distance, up to the Ironman weekend. We continue to make progress with the development plan especially in the area of coach development. There are a few problem areas however: Rising costs, particularly in the swim section, are worrying. Poor attendance at some sessions. High attendance at other sessions. The need for more coaches, to spread the coaching load. The need for more club members to contribute to the running of the club to ease the load on the Committee and coaches by helping out with the running and timing of club races, Saturday rides etc. A hard core of volunteers made Hart Tri a success again, along with the Youth Inter regional Championships at Aldershot, but more volunteers are needed! The demands of the youth section are not yet being fully met in terms of sessions or coaching, but we have been addressing this and will see developments in the near future. I am only going to briefly mention Clubmark, as that is now an ongoing system, which we monitor as part of our compliance procedure. More good news: Finally, Farnham Tri have been nominated for Club of the Year 2008, to be voted on by the Board of Triathlon England announced at next week s BTF Annual Award Dinner. For those going up to Loughborough, even if your dinners not hot, Farnham Tri are! Christian Vaughan -- FTC Chair Note the following were nominated for awards FTC for Club of the Year, Hart Tri for Event of the Year and Chris Roberts for Coach of the Year unfortunately none won. Treasurers report. As with last year 2008, has seen a continued increase in the turnover of our club funds, but this year it is more than 25%. This turnover increase can be explained in the main by our balanced receipt and expenditure on the Lanzarote training camps for which the club acts as the middleman for gathering individual deposits and payments and then settling the group invoice with Club La Santa. I would like to thank Christian for his work in arranging these camps, and certainly his billing to the members makes my job much easier. Looking at the figures for last year in more detail, it is clear that we have again reduced our net balance, this time by 425 down to a closing figure of This year s accruals which amount to some 600 have been added in to the correct expenditure lines on the balance sheet. These are coming about due to a shift in billing policy from Aspire who appear to raise invoices in arrears for both the Garrison pool and the track sessions, which was not the original policy of Sodexho. This year on the income side the positives are that we have continued to increase the membership levels where the fees are up 144 this year even though we have moved the club year by 3 months. Swimming fees have improved by 1700 (back to 2006 levels) whilst BTF licences have jumped a massive 1947 reflecting our now near 50% membership level. This year s youth race has shown an increased level of entries and thus a gain of 585 partly offset by a 1 increase in the entry fee.

3 Sticking with income but on the not so positive side, turbo sessions whilst still in profit continue to show a reduced income year on year. Track sessions even with the reduced cost are still not breaking even (- 67). There seems to be less interest in the club dinner and this is reflected in a 452 reduction in income and expenditure. On the expenditure front, swimming costs continue to increase and are now 800 more than last year and more worryingly are continuing to rise. BTF licences paid increased by 2272 meaning the club subsidised this by 475. Coaching costs have increased by 1000 as a result of funding a level 1 and 3 course. A cost for last years youth race suddenly materialised quite unexpectedly of 388. Areas of concern this year are firstly the old favourite swimming sessions as whilst we may have got the costs covered during 2008 the main problem is the lack of attendance by members of this club for whom these sessions exist, at the most expensive sessions each week namely Thursday and Friday evenings. These two sessions cost the club about 110 per week and we are probably covering under half of it. Trophies have become an issue, last year I understood the 1000 cost was due to our need to replace trophies, well this year we paid out 1123 when we replaced nothing. In simple terms to continue to cover this level of cost we need 75 member annual fees. This is a poor return/use of the fees from over a third of our current membership. Continuing on from the concern about the cost of trophies is the declining interest in the club dinner, which is the vessel for handing out the awards. The current format/timing must be wrong as the cost has dropped by over 50% in the past 2 years? Clearly this is something we need to address. Whilst having seen a dramatic rise in the level of Triathlon England membership we should be trying to push this higher even though this will increase the level of subsidy paid by the club. This situation needs to be repeated on the events front with targeting subsidised team entries in a wider range of races if we want to significantly further enhance the profile & standing of our club. Finally on a positive note this year s youth event we held back in July managed to show an overall gain of 637. This I hope ends up as a real gain and no so called generosity costs suddenly appear in the next set of accounts unlike the 388 that removed last years small gain. Ian Wilson Treasurer Questions from the floor regarding reports Treasurer s report Ian advised that the unexpected cost at the Youth event was the hire of the pool which originally it was thought to be free. It was suggested that a sponsor be secured for the event. Pool costs following the increase in hire costs, Ian confirmed that no reduction had been offered despite the reduction in fuel costs. BTF membership Ian advised that there was a discrepancy between the numbers of members listed on the BTF website and the club s own records it appears there are a number of people who are still claiming membership of the club despite not renewing their membership. He confirmed that the increase in membership was welcome but that the club would continue to promote membership of BTF in line with the South East Region s aim of 65 to 70%. Increase in trophies cost was due to members now in the super vet category and the addition of the aquathlon series.

4 Election of the new Committee Proposals a. Chair Christian Vaughan (Proposed Cathy Roberts, Seconded Sue Tiplady) b. Secretary - Cathy Roberts (proposed Christian Vaughan, Seconded John Bennison) c. Treasurer - Ian Wilson (Proposed John Bennison, Seconded David Tiplady) Election of Officers Chairman Christian Vaughan elected unopposed Secretary -Cathy Roberts elected unopposed Treasurer - Ian Wilson elected unopposed Proposals for committee members all proposed by Christian Vaughan and seconded by John Bennison Committee member Nick Holmes website to be confirmed Committee member - Alison Richardson Committee member - Claudia Shand Committee member Sue Tiplady - membership Committee member David Tiplady Committee member Chris Waters Election of committee members All committee members were elected unopposed Senior Coach s report We have continued with the 5 steps in the coaching development plans as reported at last year s AGM: 1 Sessions to be provided in all disciplines and entities of the sport Still covering all three disciplines but still slightly short on running sessions. Overall it is a very comprehensive schedule with between 10 and 12 sessions per week depending on the time of year. We are not yet covering specific sessions for nutrition and transition for example but are now planning to do these. Club nights would be a good place to cover them but we need people to organise them. We have speakers and coaches to deliver but they need publishing and touting around. 2 Club for all including developing youth coaching Falling short during the year on youth and this can be seen in the results of the races. None of our athletes were selected for SE Regional finals. We now have sessions in place but we need to be consistent, again more coaches are needed to support this. Dave Wyatt is now managing the youth his remit is to connect with the club so the link is now in place, many thanks to him for taking this on. 3 Grow membership We will finish with more members this year again, we had 260 members last year. This is the fastest growing sport in the UK and the South East represents a large part of that growth.

5 4 Grow the coaching team This is happening well, we have two more coaches qualified this year - David Anderson and Haydn Jones. 3 more are ready for the February intake of coaching courses. We plan to do a taster session for future coaches to see if that helps with take up. Chris Roberts is now the coach coordinator for the SE Region so he will link with other clubs for joint Continuing Professional Development and sharing coaches if possible. 5 Coaching for individual athletes We need more Level 3 coaches in order to deliver this - Christian is doing his Level 3 course and Ty is planning to do it in the next 2 years. Like many things this is something that takes time and that is something that more coaches can bring to the club to facilitate this. Looking forward: We would like to have more members winning, with podium finishes, a better structured youth section and better results in the summer. As a final point, many people have helped with the organisation and supporting the coaching this year. Thanks for all their assistance and support it is invaluable for us to work as a large and progressive club. Finally a huge thanks to the coaching team who give up their time and are committed to making the club successful. This is a great club which is still growing and which has a strong profile which is noted by Triathlon England and the SE Region. Chris Roberts Head Coach AOB Christian Vaughan advised that the committee would like to expand access to the membership details to all the committee in order to contact members directly about events and volunteering there would be an additional tick box on the membership renewal form for opt out of this. The meeting agreed with this proposal. Ian Wilson proposed that No person shall hold or stand for any key position in the club whom does not regularly attend club sessions..it was agreed that this would be a change to the constitution and therefore the whole membership needed information on this prior to approval. It was agreed the new committee would formulate a proposal for distribution. John Bennison thanked the Chairman, committee and coaches for all their hard work over the past year. Linda Elleker thanked the committee for provision of cakes and coffee and requested that the committee set the race calendar for Meeting closed at 10:25am

6 List of attendees Cathy Roberts Chris Roberts Ty Elleker Linda Elleker Ian Wilson Elaine Wilson Claudia Shand Christian Vaughan Steve George Haydn Jones John Timmins David Wyatt John Bennison Matt Bennison Simon Vaughan Nic Vaughan Paul Smith Steve Wallace Tim Ansell Sue Tiplady David Tiplady Fiona Love Nic Harker

RSPBA North West England Branch

RSPBA North West England Branch AGM 8 th December 2013 at Padgate Community Centre. A quorum was attained within one half hour after the 13:00 (1PM) start time of the meeting {rule 14.1 Five Band Representatives