25 members present. An apology had been received from Peter Allan.

Matters arising from the previous AGM held on 18.5.06. None.

Alan Grunwald spoke about bridge clubs in the Cambridge area in which he had played. Some of them concentrated on the standard of bridge and others emphasised the ‘social side’ of their clubs.

He raised the possibility of arranging a bridge weekend in Wiltshire (cost £150-£180 per head) for 16-20 people. However this suggestion was not greeted with much enthusiasm.

He also suggested various possibilities for increasing the scope of the club e.g. hold an individual competition, hold a competition over 2 consecutive Thursdays, run a team event each month instead of the bi-monthly event held currently or a mixed pairs. These suggestions would be considered by the newly elected committee at their next meeting.

Alan thanked Ken Eaton, who has been Treasurer for ten years, for all his hard work during this period.

Ken Eaton presented the audited accounts for 2006/7 which showed a loss of £240. The loss was caused mainly by the increase in the hire fee for the hall (£25 instead of £17.50 per session), increased expenditure on the Christmas party and cost of duplimate boards. While the loss was not great, steps should be taken to eliminate it. He suggested the following:-

• increase the annual subscription from £7.50 to £10
• increase table money for visitors from £2 to £2.50 per session
• trim back expenditure on the Christmas party
• hold back any charitable donations for the present and
• try to increase the number of players since table money was our main source of income

Acceptance of the accounts and remedial measures was proposed by Arthur Jones and seconded by Harry Freeman. This was carried (20 Yes, 2 No, 3 Abstained).

Keith Robbins said that the ‘A’ team had a good season finishing top of the 4^th division of the Wessex League, thus gaining promotion to the 3^rd division. The club has also entered the Summer Ridgeway Cup and we hope to do better than last season.

Lyn Morton reported that the ‘B’ team finished last in their division of the Wessex League. One problem had been the difficulty of having a settled team since she had to use 16 players during the season. She suggested that the ‘B’ team should be regarded as a training ground for improving players who wished to play in less stressful

matches.

The committee believed that we should create the post of senior director as an additional officer of the club, to organise a rota of appropriately trained directors, to ensure consistency of rulings and to keep abreast of changes in EBU regulations.

Arthur Jones had been working on a revision of the club’s constitution to accommodate this while not increasing the total size of the committee i.e. reducing the number of committee members from 5 to4.

The committee further proposed to revise the constitution to allow the greater use of emails rather than rely on the post.

The proposed alterations were agreed unanimously. The revised constitution would be put on the club website.

The following were elected unanimously for the coming year:-

Chairman Alan Grunwald

Vice Chairman Arthur Jones

Treasurer Lyn Morton

Secretary Alan Parker

Senior Director Keith Robbins

Committee members (4) Peter Cecil, Stan Powell, Avis Roberts, Jonathan Robinson

It was agreed that the list of club members with postal and email addresses would be kept up-to-date by Lyn Morton in future. (The list would indicated whether annual subscriptions had been paid).

Arthur and Virginia Jones were thanked for all their efforts in the past.

Alan Parker (Hon. Secretary)

These minutes were amended on 13.5.07