AGM Minutes Martin House (Treasurer) MH

Transcription

1 AGM Minutes 2018 Thursday, 15 th November, 2018 Venue: Slough C.C. Management Committee: Raj Patel (Chairman) RP Matthew Stevenson (Secretary) MS Martin House (Treasurer) MH John Goodman (Fixture Secretary) JG Rob Bartlett RB Vic Devers VD Rod Dye RD Richard Thomas RT Simon Webb SW Martin Wilson MJW Phil Wise PW Mike Woodwards MW Full Member Clubs (58): Amersham Aldershot Bagshot Beaconsfield Binfield Boyne Hill Bracknell Bradfield Burnham Chalfont St. Peter Chenies & Latimer Chesham Chiswick & Whitton Cookham Dean Cove Datchet Eversley Falkland Farnham Common Farnham Royal Finchampstead Fleet Gerrards Cross Harefield Hayes Henley High Wycombe Hillingdon Manor Hurst Ickenham Kew Kidmore End Maidenhead & Bray Marlow Newbury North Maidenhead NPL Old Merchant Taylors Princes Risborough Purley-on-Thames Reading Royal Ascot Ruislip Slough Sonning Stoke Green Sulhamstead & Ufton Taplow Thatcham Town Theale & Tilehurst Tring Park Wargrave White Waltham Windsor Wokingham Wooburn Narkovians Wraysbury Yateley Associate Member Clubs (5): Barnes Chalfont St. Giles Eastcote Marlow Park Uxbridge Present o Neil Doody, League President (ND). o Philip Newfield, Vice President (PN). o All members of the management committee except PW. o All full member clubs except Reading, Sulhamstead & Ufton and Theale & Tilehurst. o All associate member clubs except Uxbridge. The meeting opened at 8.15pm (delayed because of traffic problems on the M4). 1. Apologies for absence: PW, John Bushby, Peter Towndrow, Reading. 2. Minutes of the 2017 AGM: RP advised that the minutes of the last AGM had been distributed with this year s notice. They were approved without amendment and duly signed by RP. TVCL AGM Minutes 2018.docx Page 1 of 7 League Website:

2 3. Matters Arising from 2017 AGM: There were no matters arising. 4. Chairman s Report: RP read out his final report as chairman. He touched on the problems with forfeitures and shortage of umpires, and also highlighted the conflict that sometimes exists between the wider good of the game and the interests of individual member clubs. He reflected on his ten years on the mancom and wished everyone all the best for the future. 5. Secretary s Report: RP advised that the secretary s report (see below) had been distributed with this year s AGM notice. It was proposed by Chesham and seconded by Beaconsfield and adopted 6. Treasurer s Report: MH submitted accounts for the 2017/18 financial year (see attached), which showed a surplus of 601 compared to a surplus of 7937 last year. MH commented that main reasons for this were refund of membership subscriptions and extension of Fair Play award part of mancom s policy of trying to refund some of balance sheet surplus to clubs. Balance sheet value at end of financial year was 32,245. Accounts proposed by Hurst and seconded by Amersham, and approved Handbooks for 2019: MH asked clubs if they had enough last season. Response was that yes, they did so MH proposed no change for Number of balls for 2019: MH advised clubs to notify him by 18 th December latest if they wanted more or fewer balls for next season (default is 18 per team). Quality of balls: cost for next year will be 14.40p per ball. Some clubs not happy with quality or value for money. MH advised that HCPCL ball would cost 20.95p per ball. Amersham (Nick Piper, HCPCL umpire) commended quality of this ball and suggested that clubs in higher levels might want to pay extra for it. Beaconsfield said this would be inappropriate extra expense in lower levels. Chiswick & Whitton said that spare ball supplies would be a problem if we had different quality balls in each level. MH proposed level-based electronic vote agreed. Subscription rate for 2019: MH then confirmed that the annual subscription rate would remain unchanged at 25 per team. 7. Rules and Match Conditions: MJW introduced this year s rule change proposals. Club proposals for changes to Match Rules A1: Scrap the old ball rule Proposed by Kidmore End, seconded by Boyne Hill. {In favour 46, against 9, abstentions 0 passed} TVCL AGM Minutes 2018.docx Page 2 of 7 League Website:

3 A2: Revert to 25/20 points for win in traditional format Proposed by Kidmore End, seconded by Boyne Hill. Stoke Green saw no benefit. Boyne Hill purpose is to further encourage teams to bat first. Henley would have preferred to see team batting second get 25 for a win if they lost toss. {In favour 23, against 32, abstentions 0 not passed} Management proposals for changes to Match Rules A3: Amendment to rules re supplying umpires Beaconsfield were worried about captains colluding to say they had umpires in lower levels. Beaconsfield said nothing in proposal to prevent clubs removing their umpires from panel match to officiate in lower level club match. Bagshot and Beaconsfield asked whether a team would still get an extra point in a L4 match if they supplied an umpire to the panel but did not provide a club umpire to said L4 match. MJW said that the vote was on the proposal as written but promised that this issue would be addressed in an EGM vote in the spring (see below). Chiswick asked whether clubs who supply umpires to panel would still get priority in umpire appointments? RB said yes, as set out in rationale. NPL asked if they would they get extra point if player in match was also a TVCL registered umpire. MJW said no the roles of player and umpire in same match are mutually exclusive. NPL then asked following on from above whether said player be able to insist on standing at striker s end, i.e. not going from square leg to square leg, if other team had a registered TVCL umpire who was standing at both ends. MJW said no again - this would be at discretion of other umpire. Chesham asked whether there would be a published list of TVCL registered umpires. MCS said yes, intention is to publish list on TVCL16 website. Beaconsfield asked how many matches would umpire have to stand in to count as a panel umpire? MJW said that this would be clarified in detailed proposal to follow (EGM in spring). Beaconsfield then asked for clarification on latter process. MJW said that vote tonight was on high level proposal set out in rationale. If proposal is adopted, then it would need to be fine-tuned, which would require further consultation with clubs followed by EGM vote. {In favour 43, against 12, abstentions 0 passed} A4: Strengthening of rule re cancelled (forfeited) matches Aldershot asked whether any team automatically defaulted from competition by this proposed new rule would have to re-apply for the next season. MJW said yes he explained that this is presently the case and this proposal is just to raise the barrier further. {In favour 55 passed unanimously} A5: Clarification re procedure at the toss {In favour 55 passed unanimously} TVCL AGM Minutes 2018.docx Page 3 of 7 League Website:

4 A6: Clarification re procedure when league balls not supplied Beaconsfield asked what the procedure was if clubs ran out of spare TVCL balls? MJW noted the point but said that this was a clarification tidy up which only applied to new balls at the start of a match. {In favour 54, against 1, abstentions 0 passed} A7: Confirmation of 10 over individual bowler restriction MJW clarified that a vote in favour of this proposal was to keep the 10 over maximum per bowler and not revert to the standard 20% of overs in the innings {In favour 49, against 5, abstentions 1 passed} A8: Clarification of wide ball rule (L1-4 only) Stoke Green said that the rationale for this proposal made some confusing references to reverse hits and speculated that what was meant was switch hits. MJW thanked Stoke Green for bringing this to his attention and clarified that this proposal only related to when a batsman changes his/her feet position. Slough asked whether this proposal applied to win/lose format only? MJW confirmed that this was indeed the case. {In favour 53, against 1, abstentions 1 passed} A9: Cut-off time for first innings (L3-9 only) Slough asked what the point of this proposal was. MJW replied that it was to help ensure that win/lose matches finish as close to the scheduled end time as possible. {In favour 45, against 8, abstentions 2 passed} Changes to Player Eligibility B1: Reduce player transfer window to 15 days {For 49, against 2, abstentions 4 passed} Changes to Constitution C1: New method for collecting fines NPL asked if fine notifications could be copied to league treasurers. MJW said that this would hopefully be possible. {In favour 55 passed unanimously} C2: Fine for not collecting balls to be increased to 50 MCS explained that clubs could buddy up and collect each other s allocations of balls and handbooks if they so wished all the management committee wants to do on the collection evening is to get rid of all the stock! {For 54, against 1, abstentions 0 passed} 8. Election of Vice Presidents ND introduced the nomination by the mancom of RP as a vice president. He noted his outstanding ten years service on mancom, first as secretary and more recently as chairman. The nomination was seconded by Henley and passed TVCL AGM Minutes 2018.docx Page 4 of 7 League Website:

5 9. Election of Officers RP reminded meeting that he was standing down as chairman and nominated RT as his successor. He asked if there were any other nominations from the floor for chairman or any of the other officer positions there were not. Chairman: RT was nominated by Hurst, seconded by Henley and elected Secretary: MS was nominated by Royal Ascot, seconded by Amersham and re-elected Treasurer: MH was nominated by Newbury, seconded by Slough and re-elected Fixture Secretary: JG was nominated by Farnham Common, seconded by Fleet and reelected 10. Election of Officials Management committee members: RP explained that all of last year s mancom with the exception of Arun Oram were prepared to stand for re-election. He explained that one new mancom member was being proposed - Benn Langdon of Tring Park. The above were nominated by White Waltham, seconded by OMT and elected 11. Election of Honorary Independent Examiner Honorary independent examiner for 2018/19: Ray Wood was nominated by Bracknell, seconded by Stoke Green and re-elected 12. Any Other Business: Stoke Green 4 ground appeal: Mark Ward from Stoke Green said they wanted to enter a 4 th into the TVCL competition in 2019 but did not presently have anywhere to play. He asked any member clubs who could help to contact him as a matter of urgency. Stage 1 umpiring courses: Nick Piper (Amersham but wearing his Buckinghamshire ACO hat) said that he had the details of the above courses if anyone was interested. MS said that he would publish on Twitter and the TVCL16 website. The meeting closed at 9.32pm. Signed: Date: TVCL AGM Minutes 2018.docx Page 5 of 7 League Website:

6 Hon. Secretary s Report The 2018 summer was long and hot, and very few matches were lost to the weather. This was great from a cricketing perspective, but of course presented significant challenges for all our groundsmen. Cookham Dean were our champions for 2018, repeating their success of three years ago, and we wish them every success in the Home Counties Premier League next season. Our other divisional champions were Hayes (2a), High Wycombe 2 (2b), High Wycombe 3 (3a), Ickenham (3b), Binfield (4a), Wraysbury (4b), Ickenham 2 (5a), Wokingham 3 (5b), Wraysbury 2 (6a), Taplow 2 (6b), Fleet 2 (7a), High Wycombe 4 (7b), Hayes 3 (8a), Stoke Green 3 (8b), Wokingham 5 (9a) and High Wycombe 5 (9b). High Wycombe had an outstanding season with all four of their teams winning their respective divisions. Ickenham did almost as well in their first season back in the TVCL, with two of their teams winning their division and the third achieving promotion. The other clubs who joined the TVCL in the 2018 expansion also did very well. Both of Wraysbury s teams won their respective divisions, and Binfield and Taplow also did very well, each securing a championship and a promotion. Congratulations to all our divisional champions, and to the other teams who also gained promotion, and bad luck to those who just missed out or got relegated there is always next season! The expansion process added extra depth and quality to our competition and all of the new clubs seemed to be pleased that they had made the move. I also think that our existing clubs enjoyed going to some new grounds. Next season our new team-based promotion/relegation arrangement with the Mid- Bucks, Chilterns and Berkshire League will see their 2018 champions, Chalfont St. Giles 1 st XI, enter the TVCL competition at Level 4. We wish them every success in our competition. I discussed the problem of clubs withdrawing teams after the fixtures have been announced in my report last year. Sadly, this problem continued apace during the 2018 pre-season. Chenies & Latimer withdrew from Division 3b in February. In response, the management committee reorganised all the divisions and fixtures from 3b downwards. Then, less than two weeks before the start of the 2018 season, Yateley withdrew from Division 2b. This time it was too late to reorganise the divisions and fixtures. The management committee then asked all the clubs without a fixture in Division 2b to not strengthen their lower XIs unreasonably, but this request for the most part fell on deaf ears. There are no silver bullet solutions to this problem. It is easy to criticise the clubs who withdraw teams after the fixtures have been announced but, with the decline in club loyalty shown by the modern player, they often do not know that they are in trouble until pre-season nets or even later. The management committee could refuse to allow clubs to withdraw teams after a specified cut-off date, but this does not solve the problem: if a team is forced to play without the appropriate player strength and gets thrashed every week, then sooner rather than later it will not be able to find enough players to fulfil the fixture, and given that the TVCL does not allow clubs to forfeit matches by higher XIs while fielding lower XIs, this would lead to the club being forced to resign from the TVCL (which is arguably an even worse outcome than the single XI being allowed to withdraw in the first place). Finally, while the management committee was disappointed and frustrated by the team strengthening, and considered proposing tougher rules on this matter in the second half of the season, we were also acutely aware that we had failed to provide cricket for a team of Division 2b players on every week of the season. TVCL AGM Minutes 2018.docx Page 6 of 7 League Website:

7 There has been some discussion about leaving the finalising of the divisional structure and the fixtures until later during the close season, and this idea has some merit. However, it would introduce other problems, such as to the fixtures process re external ground hire and liaison with other leagues. It should also be noted that doing this would not have prevented the Yateley situation in 2018 because, clearly, we cannot leave this task until two weeks before the season starts! To reiterate, there are no silver bullet solutions to this problem. The format changes which were introduced last season were well received. This year we are addressing in our AGM proposals the issue of umpire shortages. The member clubs cannot bury their hands in the sand on this issue indefinitely, and while nobody likes leagues being won off the pitch, the management committee has now concluded that points incentives are required to encourage clubs to work harder to find umpires. The Representative XI reached the semi-final of the Sovereign Trophy for the third time in four seasons. We did not play our annual match against the Cherwell League but did send a team to Purley-on- Thames to celebrate their 50th anniversary. Finally, you will be aware that Raj Patel is stepping down as league chairman after four years in the role, having previously served as secretary for six years as well. He has made an outstanding contribution to our competition and will be sorely missed. Matthew Stevenson TVCL AGM Minutes 2018.docx Page 7 of 7 League Website: