Minutes of the AGM held on May 8th 2008 in the Comrades Club
41 members and 3 guests were present. No apologies had been received.
None.
Alan Grunwald wished to obtain the views of the meeting on two main issues i.e. club competitions and, more importantly, the possible installation of a Bridgemate scoring system. The club committee suggests that various club competitions should be run on the first Thursday in each month, provided that they did not clash with simultaneous pairs events. The following programme is suggested:-
January and July Butler scored pairs
February and August Teams of 4
March and September Butler scored pairs
April and October Teams of 4
May and November Butler scored pairs
June and December Handicap teams
The committee hoped that these events would encourage less experienced club players to obtain local points. This programme would be reviewed at the end of this year.
After some discussion a vote was taken (20 for, 4 against, 17 abstentions) so these events would be given a six months trial.
Installation of Bridgemates would be discussed later in the meeting.
Lyn Morton presented her report which showed a small profit of £134 compared with a loss of £241 in 2007/8. In addition £234 had been collected via a quiz and raffle towards the possible purchase of the Bridgemate system.
Alan Parker reported that Thursday club nights had been well supported with normally 9-11 tables in play. The club runs BGB and EBU sims, 2 charity sims plus heats of OBA pairs, national pairs and OBA sims. As an experiment we are running a heat of a worldwide sims on Saturday 7th June this year.
Keith Robbins reported that the A team had finished 4th out of 8 teams in Division 3 of the Wessex League. Lyn Morton said that the B team had finished 4th out of 7 teams in Division 5. In the Ridgeway Cup we were 3rd out of the 6 competing teams.
This system has been discussed in detail at our last 3 committee meetings. Alan Grunwald described the system which simplifies scoring and is rapid, giving final results within about 5 minutes and also encourages players to stay behind awaiting results. Its use is becoming more widespread e.g. Oxford and Blewbury use the system so it appears likely that this is the way forward for progressive bridge clubs.
The cost of the system would be about £1,000 – we already have £234 earmarked for this possible project. Alison and Norman Nicolson have offered to finance the balance via an interest-free loan. It is estimated that if table money were increased by 50p/player i.e. £2 per table this could be repaid within 2 years.
During discussion it was suggested by Gordon Carroll that we might be able to get a grant from the OBA. Alan Parker will investigate this.
The meeting decided unanimously to accept the Nicolson’s offer.
All the current officers and members, apart from Peter Cecil, were prepared to stand again for election. Their re-election was agreed unanimously by the meeting and the following were elected:
Chairman Alan Grunwald
Vice-Chairman Arthur Jones
Treasurer Lyn Morton
Secretary Alan Parker
Senior Director Keith Robbins
Other Members Stan Powell, Avis Roberts and Jonathan Robinson
The club had been invited to send 2 representatives to a joint EBU / OBA meeting in Oxford on May 29th to debate the new EBU proposals for bridge in England. Arthur Jones and Avis Roberts would attend.
Keith Sadler thanked the retiring committee for all their efforts during the past year.
Alan Parker (Hon. Secretary)
10.5.08