The 2012 Remnants CC annual general meeting was held at on the evening of Wednesday, March 14 at the Fitzwilliam College Cricket Ground bar.
Members present: Andy Bell; Geoff Hales; Sally Hales; Rob Harvey; Paul Jordan; Faruk Kara; Daniel Mortlock; Dave Norman; Andy Owen; Richard Rex; Keith Turner; Dave Williams; Joe White.
Apologies: Nick Johnson; Adrian Mellish; Nicky Mellish; Tom Serby.
The minutes of last year's AGM, held on March 1, 2011, were taken as read.
Dave Williams provided a detailed treasurer's report, the most important points of which are summarised here. The treasurer was, once again, thanked for his great efforts on behalf of the club.
The 2011 season was described as a success primarily because the transition from Geoff's long-term stewardship went fairly smoothly. We had full teams for all but one fixture and the Doodle-based selection system has worked well. Of our 39 scheduled fixtures we won 15 and lost 14 (with 2 internal) - a little disappointing, although more frustrating was the cancellation of three fixtures when the opposition failed to field a team on perfectly nice evenings. To combat this seemingly increasing problem, it was decided to adopt a policy of not scheduling fixtures against teams which have failed to provide an eleven twice in any two-year period.
This year's fixture-list is almost complete. The main uncertainty is when to schedule our main internal game as, in particular, we would like to get some of the ex-members who had played during Steve Rawlings's captaincy back for a memorial game. The nominal date of June 12 is problematic as many of Steve's academic friends will be in the middle of exam marking. Other possible dates are May 22 or late June. The afternoon fixtures that were held last year were very popular and we will try to organise at least one more this season. One possibility, to be looked into by Richard Rex, is a Sunday fixture on June 24 against Trinity.
Joe White's captain report focussed on the fact that, for the second year running, Remnants lost more games than it won, in particular asking why this is the case. One plausible explanation is simply that there are fewer genuinely weak teams around and that the overall standard of Cambridge mid-week cricket is far higher than it was a few decades ago when Remnants was comfortably beating all comers. Another issue was the sometimes unbalanced teams that are selected - although the problem is that they generally aren't selected as such, as we usually only have a bare eleven available. His final point was that late arrivals can have an impact, either forcing us to bat or preventing us from choosing our strongest batting order. His proposed solution, which was backed by those present, was to explicitly advocate a 5:45pm arrival time and for the bar to be open up before matches but closed at 6pm. As a further incentive to arrive promptly, we would adopt a blanket policy that any player arriving after 6:15pm could bat no higher than #6. Finally, Joe has recovered from the injuries that curtailed his 2011 season and expects to play more often this year.
We need to know postcodes for all the grounds we play that so that, in the event of an emergency, an ambulance can be directed there efficiently. (The postcode of Fitz is CB4 3PH.)
Daniel will be away for at least two week-long periods during the summer, and so people will be needed to organise teams, deal with cancellations, etc. during these periods. Rob Harvey agreed to do this during late May and Andy Owen agreed to do this during early August; Faruk Kara offered to be back-up during both periods.
In previous seasons Nicky Mellish has done the above duties admirably, but has had to drop out of this (and from Remnants scoring) due to health reasons. She was thanked by the club for her efforts and we all hope her health will improve with rest.
The possibility of pre-emptive cancellation in the event of bad weather was put forward but received little support, and so dropped.
The policy of playing "home rules" (i.e., early retirement and no extra deliveries for wides and no balls) against the technology sides has now been solidified. This will be noted on the team sheets and, in some cases will need to be agreed explicitly as, when both our games against such a team are at Fitz (as is the case for several teams this year).
Last year we tried using pink balls in early- and late-season matches to aid visibility. The feelings about these were far from uniform, although there was more support than dissent for the notion that they improved the quality of the game. However it was agreed that a pink ball could not be introduced mid-way through a match - if used, it should be from the start (at the agreement of the two captains). The other concern was about the quality of the pink balls - Dave will look into this.
Dave and Paul agreed to continue attempting to actively recruit younger players.