2013 Remnants annual general meeting

The 2013 Remnants CC annual general meeting was held on the evening of Thursday, March 14 at the Fitzwilliam College Cricket Ground bar.

Attendance

Members present: Geoff Hales; Rob Harvey; Paul Jordan; Faruk Kara (although he arrived after the meeting had closed); Daniel Mortlock; Dave Norman; Andy Owen; Richard Rex; Russell Woolf

Apologies: Andy Bell; Rakesh Chandraker; Eli Ellwood; Phil Hastings Nick Johnson Faruk Kara; Phil Watson; Joe White

Minutes of the previous meeting

The minutes of last year's AGM, held on March 14, 2012, were taken as read.

The treasurer's report

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 basic summary is that the club's financial position is solid, but that the pitch fees will be increasing to £60.00 per game. In combination with the likely cost of £8.00 per match ball, it was agreed that visiting teams would be charged £35.00 for games at Fitz.
• There was some talk about trying to make the process of collecting fees in the treasurer's absence more regimented, with forms kept behind the bar. However this was not broadly supported and so the motion was dropped.
• There was a wide-ranging discussion about changing the match fees (which were last increased in 2005) and/or the subscriptions (which were last increased in 2002). After a number of different possibilities were discussed a very simple plan was agreed upon: there will be no subscription but match fees will be £5.00 for adults and £3.00 for under-21s and people who are unemployed. The first payment of a match fee (or a net fee) would be regarded as a subscription, thus ensuring that all Remnants players were covered by the club insurance policy. (By way of comparison, an adult who played 10 games last season would have paid a total of £45.00; an adult who plays 10 games this season will pay £50.00.)
• The annual dinner, which was held at the St John's Chop House and, while the event was a success, the restaurant was regarded as over-priced, and the general verdict was that there are other places which offer comparable food and ambience for less. One particular suggestion was Wildwood on Bridge Street. In addition, the mechanics of having the first round of drinks free didn't work, so the plan next year will be to simply subsidise every attendee's meal by £5.00, which will simply be contributed to the bill at the end of the evening.

Secretary's report

The 2012 season was very much a case of maintaining the status quo from the successful transition from Geoff to Daniel in 2011. On the field this was remarkably true: we had 39 scheduled fixtures (just as in 2011), of which 31 went ahead (just as in 2011). Aside from the 2 internal games (the same number as in 2011), we won 15 (as in 2011), leaving 13 losses and a tie (as compared to 14 losses in 2011). And, despite the horribly wet start to the season, with four wash-outs before the middle of May, matches were cancelled a the rate of just one a month thereafter.

This year's fixture-list is essentially complete. Several new(ish) teams await us: ARM; The Institute of Public Health; and The St Radegund. We do not have fixtures against either Littlehey Prison or Cambridge Granta this year (in part because both were responsible for unjustified cancellations).

The club web-site, which was hosted first by Cambridge University and later Imperial College went off-line in early 2013 as the latter's web-page hosting policy changed. Hence we will have to pay for hosting, and a new domain name will be sorted out before the start of the 2013 season.

Captain's report

As the captain and secretary are the same person, this was essentially "see the above"!

Club welfare officer's report

The only incident of any note here came about when one opposition team members wanted to give his ten-year-old son some adult match experience. While everyone was sympathetic to this idea in principle, the conditions of our insurance - and our status as an ECB club - require not only that we don't field under-age players, but also that we don't allow under-age players in a match on our home ground. It was agreed that we should respect not only the spirit but the letter of this law in the future, so a note will be added to the Remnants web-site making this explicit.

Election of officers

• Daniel Mortlock re-elected unopposed as captain.
• Paul Jordan and Andy Owen were elected unopposed as vice-captains (with the further suggestion, agreed upon by all, that Olly Rex captain some matches with a view to taking up a leadership role in future seasons).
• Geoff Hales remains life president.
• Daniel Mortlock was re-elected unopposed as secretary.
• Dave Williams was re-elected unopposed as treasurer.
• Paul Jordan was re-elected unopposed as club welfare officer.

General business

Daniel will be away for the second half of July, and so people will be needed to organise teams, deal with cancellations, etc. during this time. Richard Rex and Paul Jordan provisionally volunteered to take up this task.

Paul Jordan raised the point that last year the Tuesday and Wednesday sides were generally of very different strengths, and the latter suffered a number of losses in which we really didn't compete at the level that befits us as a club. While most agreed they'd noticed this problem, it was also generally agreed that it was plausibly unlucky coincidence, with many players sticking to one of the two nights more often than is usual. This will be taken into account when sorting out teams (to the degree that it is possible - most teams were determined primarily by availability).