Buckinghamshire Lady Captains Golfing Society Founded 1983 Minutes of the Thirty Forth Annual General Meeting Held at Burnham Beeches Golf Club on Wednesday 24th February 2016-2.30pm Present: The Captain Vice Captain Honorary Secretary Honorary Treasurer Diane Davies Carol Isaac Sally Harborne Christine Bishop The Captain opened the meeting by welcoming everyone to the 34th Annual General Meeting of the Society with a special warm welcome to Teddy Bevan, President of the Buckinghamshire County Ladies Golf Association; Phillipa Cook County Captain of the Buckinghamshire County Ladies Golf Association;, Burnham Beeches Ladies Captain Edie Robinson, to 6 of our all-important Founder Members; 5 Social Members, 1 New Member to the society and of course all the members present. Diane requested a moments silence to remember one of our members who had died during the year Pat Smythie Woburn. Sally Harborne - Honorary Secretary:- Notice is hereby given that the 34th Annual General meeting of the Buckinghamshire Lady Captains Golfing Society will be held at Burnham Beeches Golf Club, Today, Wednesday 24th February 2016 at 2.30pm for the purpose of transacting the business as specified in the agenda which has been available for you to download from the Society web site since January. Apologies Received from 24 members 53 Members attended the luncheon 4 further Members joined the AGM meeting 1. The minutes from the Thirty third Annual General Meeting, which had been available to member on the Society Web Site., were taken as read, approved and signed accordingly. The minutes were proposed by Xandra Morley ( Hazlemere) and seconded by Joan Crooks (Flackwell Heath) 2. Matters arising. None 3. Captain s Report for the 2015 Season I was more than a little nervous taking over the helm from Pat s very capable hands last year and I would like to thank all of the ladies who have participated in the meetings and matches for your support over the last twelve months.
The 2015 season started with a glorious Spring Day at Denham Golf Club, where we were very well looked after by the staff, the course looked lovely and I thought the food was delicious. The winners on the day were Maggie Way of Iver Heath and Olivia Mundy of Thorney Park. Runners up were Maureen Smith of Oakland Park and Mary Coleman from Beaconsfield. It was also good to welcome two new members to the meeting, Maria Brennan and Carol Grant from Wexham Park who also featured in the prizes, coming third on the day and only missing out on second place on countback. Our next event was the mixed match with the Bucks Men s Captains at the beginning of June. This year the match was organised by the men and we had a change of venue, playing the match here at my home club, Burnham Beeches. The change of venue obviously worked in my favour, as the winners were the Men s Captain Doug Ebdon and myself, closely followed in second place by Lois Shoosmith and the men s section secretary Peter Short. It was just one of those perfect days when the golf went really well and the company was most entertaining. Our next event was the Summer Meeting at Sandy Lodge Golf Club. Yet again the weather was kind and we were warmly welcomed by the host club. The meeting was very well supported by 81 playing ladies and I would like to offer special thanks to Pat Elwell, Janet Allen and Jenny Masterton-Smith who stepped in to help with the organising on the day. The winner of the Founders Plate was Maureen Smith of Oakland Park with a magnificent 39 stableford points. The winners of the 3 ball Alliance competition were Penny Mannerings, Susan Jackson and Julie Brumby of Flackwell Heath, with 79 points, winning on count back from Sue Ashworth, Clare Fulton and Mary Arthur of Woburn. Also in June we played against Berkshire at Reading Golf Club, a lovely venue but sadly the team lost 6-2. At least that let me off the hook from trying to match the unbeaten record of previous captains! In July we played Bedfordshire at Burnham Beeches where we had a good result, winning 6½ - 1½, swiftly followed by a match against the Oxfordshire Lady Captains also at Burnham Beeches, where the result was an honourable and very friendly draw. Our final match of the season was against Hertfordshire in September, also at Burnham Beeches, where we were the perfect hosts, letting our visitors win 6-2. The Autumn Meeting was held at Chartridge Park this year, where we were greeted with splendid Danish pastries and coffee on arrival, golf on a maturing course and a lovely lunch, all at a very competitive price. Special thanks to Jayne Denham for introducing me to the manager and also to her husband for ball spotting on the course for us. The winners were a team from Chartridge Park, Sue Clutterbuck, Eve Mandry and Jayne Denham. My charity, Hearing Dogs for the Deaf received a cheque for 1,133.25 from us which is amazing thank you so much for your support. The donation will help in supporting the work done by this life changing charity. I would like to thank our raffle ticket sellers today, Carol Wilson & Judith Swain and also all of you who have purchased raffle tickets today. The winners will be pre drawn, so please remember to check your tickets. I would like to thank your committee, Carol, Sally and Christine for all their hard work this year. Christine has dragged us into the 21 st Century by setting up our own web site this year, where details of meetings and matches are now easily available. If anyone has not yet done so, please let me know if you would like to play in any of the matches and I will include you in the selection process. The committee are a pleasure to work with. We will be very sorry to see Sally stepping down this year after three years as secretary of the society. She has worked tirelessly on your behalf, has
overseen the transition from postal communication to mainly email and provided many fabulous personal touches for the meetings and prize tables, which I have thoroughly appreciated. Another big thank you must go to BBGC for giving us courtesy of the course for our home matches this year and also to our caterers, Merryl and Dean for providing us with such a lovely meal today. Finally I am very much looking forward to the 2016 season and to meeting many of you at the meetings and matches. Let s hope for good golf and an end to this wet weather! 4. Presentations of Founders Plate and BLCGS Cheque for the County Juniors The Founders Plate was won by Maureen Smith Oakland Park. Presentation of a cheque for 200 from our society to Teddy Bevan, County President, for the County Juniors. Teddy Bevan thanked the Society for inviting her to attend the lunch, and told us how much our donation to the County Juniors is appreciated. She advised the Society that our donation from the previous year had been put towards Bag Tags and Waterproof Bag covers for the Junior Teams representing the County in Matches. Phillipa Cook then addressed the meeting and told us about Girls Golf Rocks and asked us to look on the County Web site for more details. 5. Secretary s Report for 2015 In 2015 we had 213 members in the Society made up as follows :- 7 Founders 177 Playing members 9 Social Members 20 new members have joined This year so far we have 184 members made up as follows :- 8 Founder Members 148 Playing Members 8 Social Members 20 New Members We continue to contact the current Ladies Captains in October. This year they were sent a personal letter to each Buckinghamshire club inviting them to join us at the end of their term of office. Past Captains in their Club who are not aware of our Society are also asked to join. I am sure we will have more new members later in the year as several Captains do not finish their term of office until the Spring. Perhaps all of you could go back to your clubs and talk about this society and encourage those Past Lady Captains who have never heard about us to join. As we all know personal recommendation is the best form of advertising. We have again used e-mail for communication with members. This year we asked you to look on our new web site for the forms and information for the 2016 season and only a few of you were unable to down load what you needed and had to ask for them to be sent on to you via e-mails. I only sent 30 notifications of the AGM by post which has cut the Society costs considerably. I would like to record out thanks to Phillipa Cook, who has once again kindly put all our forms on the Buckinghamshire County Ladies Golf Association website, under the Past Captains section for easy access. As I mention we do have our own web site now and I hope many of you have taken the time to look at what we have been up to over the last 12 months
Our Spring Meeting is being held at Oakland Park this year. Many of you have already sent your forms to Jenny Masterton-Smith and she does have a waiting list. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time as Secretary of the Society and have made many new friendships. May I take this opportunity to wish you well for the future. I know I leave you in the very capable hands of my friend from Whiteleaf Golf Club, Jenny Masterton-Smith. 6. Treasurers Report I present to you the Accounts of the Society. We maintain a healthy bank balance at a little over 1,500 which is the amount the Committee considers sufficient to cover any unexpected expenses whilst conducting its business throughout the year. A few years ago the Society had a considerable surplus and there was a determined effort to reduce this to a reasonable level by subsidising some of the meetings. The surplus has now been utilised and this year I have had to keep a careful eye on expenditure to ensure as small a deficit as possible and this is just under half of the previous year. The Annual Subscription Fee has remained at 7.00 for nine years and I recommended to the Committee that this be increased to 10 with no distinction to new membership or renewals. This recommendation was agreed and the increase in fees will enable the Society to run at breakeven. There will still be 1 per member donation to the County Juniors and no change to Social Membership at 3. The new rate will be effective from 2017. The Income received is a little under that of the previous year and this is mainly due to a lower attendance at the AGM. Postage and Stationery is a little higher this year and this is mainly due to extra stationery items rather than postage. We made a very small profit on the match with Bucks Men. It was their turn to organise the prizes and I paid them what they asked for. The Society keeps a stock of clothing which we do not show in the accounts. We show the annual sales and purchases only and we sell all our items at cost price. There is no pattern or predictability to either the Income or Expenditure of clothing. There are a couple of lines in the Income and Expenditure report that will disappear next year. These are Captains and Secs Expenses as we no longer pay these as we award Honorariums and Refunds as these are offset against their event. A new item has appeared and this is Website costs which will be ongoing as the Society now has its own website. The ongoing costs should be around 25 per annum. Sundry items are a present for the outgoing captain and engraving costs. Online banking has proved successful with many members paying their subscriptions and entry fees directly into our bank account. We have also introduced Debit Cards for each Committee member which have also proved popular. Are there any questions? Proposer & Seconder. Appointment of independent checker. Finally, 2016 will be the 3 rd year of my three year term of office and the Society will need a new Treasurer. I thoroughly enjoyed my first year on the Committee with Pat as Captain and equally my second with Di at the helm. We have a dedicated and hardworking Committee who are a pleasure to
work with and if any of you are interested in taking over the role of Treasurer, please make yourself known to myself or any member of the Committee. Christine then requested a Proposer and a Seconder for the accounts Proposed by Caroline Ringsell (Chesham & Ley Hill) Seconded by Gill Redman (Hazlemere) 7. Appointment of an independent Checker. We would now like to propose Robert Proctor to be appointed as the Independent Checker going forwards. Proposed by Wendy Saunders (Harewood Downs) and seconded Pat Elwell (Harleyford) 8. Election of Officers Lady Captain Diane Davies Burnham Beeches Vice Captain Carol Isaac Beaconsfield Honorary Treasurer Christine Bishop Magnolia Honorary Secretary Jenny Masterton-Smith Club: Whiteleaf Proposer Carol Isaac Club: Beaconsfield Seconder Jane Rigby-Fielder Club: Whiteleaf All duly elected by a show of hands 9. Presentations The Captain then presented the retiring Hon Secretary with a gift from the society in recognition of the work she has done over the past three years. 10. Any Other Business: - None this year. Raffle Mrs Di Davies announced that 237 had been raised today for her charity, Hearing dogs for the Deaf from the raffle and sale of Hearing Dogs merchandise. She also thanked the two raffle ticket sellers Carol Wilson and Judith Swain It then only remained for her to thank everyone very much for coming and to wish them good golf in 2016 and a safe journey home. 11. Date of next meeting Wednesday, 22nd February 2017 venue Burnham Beeches Golf Club. The meeting was closed at 3.08pm 12. Vote of thanks Beatrice Hall Burnham Beeches Golf Club Sally Harborne Honorary Secretary Signed on 22 nd February 2017