Present Alan Grunwald, Arthur Jones, Lyn Morton, Alan Parker, Peter Cecil,

Stan Powell, Avis Roberts, Jonathan Robinson

Apologies Keith Robbins

A visitors guest book has now been provided. This must be signed whenever we have non-members visiting the club.

The handicap teams event held on 6.12.07 was a success. This event will be repeated in 2008 plus a handicap pairs event. It was hoped that Keith Robbins will organise these, together with a pairs event using Butler scoring. Two-tier club competitions were also a possibility.

Lyn Morton reported that we were £409 in credit so far this year. Subs are due in April.

We have collected £234 so far towards our target of £1500. The following ideas were suggested for fundraising:

• contact Andrew Kambites for a talk at the club
• organise a supervised play event
• increase table money by 50p per player

Avis Roberts suggested that we might hire the Loyd Lindsay room in Ardington for an event requiring more than 12 tables.

It was agreed that Alan Parker would organise the Ridgeway Cup for a fourth year but it is uncertain whether six clubs - a convenient number - would be interested. If necessary

Wantage could provide two teams.

Alan Parker would contact the EBU for details including cost. Could we run a course at Wantage?

Keith Robbins would issue information for directors to help minimise slow play.

There had been problems with ensuring that each Thursday session was covered. This would be discussed at our next meeting in April 2008.

Guidance on this was contained in the EBU rule book (section 147). Alan Parker would contact the EBU since it was likely that this document would be updated soon.

We have had complaints about the numbers of cars parked on Thursday evenings by our members. We would ask them to share cars whenever possible.

The club will not make a donation to this charity.

During a discussion of this issue it was agreed that the standard of play had improved greatly and that use of the Comrades Club was very acceptable, although we were limited to 12 – 13 tables. The difficulty of finding an alternative venue in the Grove / Wantage area was acknowledged. Our objective must be to make Wantage the best run club in the area.

The Secretary was asked to place a list of committee members on the club notice board together with a list of cup and prize winners in 2007.

Stan Powell will discuss with Alison Nicolson the running of an improver’s class.

A further reminder that convention cards should be shown by pairs who are not playing basic Acol will be made.

Listing of members’ EBU numbers might be useful.

Alan Parker (Hon. Secretary)