Committee meeting 17 January 2016

Present: Eugene, Douglas (chair), Lorraine, Susie, Rosalind, Fiona, Jenni and David

1) Apologies: Gordon, Rick

2) Minutes of last meeting: The minutes were approved as accurate.

3) Matters Arising

Repairs: The gutter and missing slates have been repaired.

Defibrillator: The defibrillator training by the ambulance service was excellent and well received by the 17 who attended. Susie reported that she had received no response from the committee to her suggestions about where to site the defibrillator. She had met with Gareth to work out where best to put it. The conclusion was that the defibrillator should be kept in a kitchen cupboard (well signposted) in the clubhouse in the winter. The defibrillator is adversely affected by low temperatures and should be kept at zero degrees or above. At the start of the tennis and bowling seasons it will be moved outside so that it is easy to access from both clubs. Susie will discuss this more with BERG. Meanwhile it’s in the kitchen.
Action: Susie

Recycling tennis balls: Douglas has a bag for used balls which he will send to Recyclaball once he has 200. Recyclaball give us £25 for the bag and any profits they make are sent to charity.

Measuring Poles: The measuring poles are on the courts. 

4) AGM: Eugene, Gordon and Jenni are all due to retire at this AGM but are happy to stand for re-election. Lorraine needs to be formally elected onto the committee as junior convenor. Susie reminded committee members to be mindful of their collective and supportive role to each other at the AGM. The date for the AGM was set for 6th March in the Bowling Club at 2.30pm. Action: Susie, Eugene and Rick

5) Membership and finance update: As Rick was absent there was only a brief discussion. Rick had intimated that the main point of note was that the recharges to BERG were considerably higher than usual. The amount we pay annually for electricity etc is usually around £2.5 k. However this year, due to additional repair costs the recharges are £4.5k.

6) Teams update - Ccaptaincies: There are big changes ahead as both the overall and men’s captain Jimmy Wood and also Lisa Campbell, ladies captain are stepping down. Jimmy is leaving to play for Merchiston where he coaches. Lisa is just standing down as captain after 8 years but will continue to play for Braid. The committee wanted to express their collective appreciation of both captains for all the (often hidden) hard work that the captaincy involves.

Johnny Short has agreed to be the club overall captain as well as the first team captain. Jenni will cover briefly for the ladies firsts as well as captaining the seconds while awaiting a replacement. The other captains will be-Mens seconds Adrian Moir, thirds Mike Neilson taking over from Eugene and fourths Douglas Foggo.

Ladies team captains: Jenni will remain captain of the seconds, Fiona McVie will become official captain of the thirds and Fiona Wragg captain of the fourths. It was thought that Rick was going to talk to Mhairi and Suzie about the ladies captaincy. Eugene offered to do this if Rick was unable to.
Action: Jenni, Eugene, Rick
Action: Jenni to update the team page on the website

Team Coaching: Both men’s and ladies team captains present expressed the desire to have team coaching from Mhairi prior to the match season. Those present were not sure if Mhairi still had some unused ‘paid for’ coaching hours free to provide this. Last year the men paid her for their coaching.
Action: Rick, Jenni, Eugene, Mhairi

7) Juniors:

• Lorraine reported that there had been a lot of interest in Mhairi’s coaching camp for juniors during the February school break.
• Lorriane reported that she was hoping to enter 3 junior teams competing in the ESLTA ie the U8 Mixed, U9 mixed and U12 boys. There is a shortage of players for the under 8s team and Lorraine was wondering whether to proceed with just 4 players.
• Waverley Junior Tournament. Last year we hosted some of these matches in a good will gesture. Apparently there were a few moans from members as some of the matches spread into the evening. Mhairi has flagged up that she would like to run a tennis camp for the week beginning 4 April. The committee felt strongly that this would take precedent over anything else, so basically it depends when the tournament is and how long the day sessions go on. The committee were not against hosting it in principle.

Action: Rick

8) Courts maintenance: Due to unprecedented levels of precipitation the courts have been flooded on many occasions this winter. It was pointed out that due to climate change this was the future and that we needed to have some strategies in place to cope. There was great concern round the committee table about this as without playable courts we lose our raison d’etre. Constructive suggestions were- purchasing a squeegee to help remove the casual water-getting the courts cleaned prior to the match season-sharing maintenance of the courts-using the bowling clubs wooden bowl collectors to get rid of water. Other clubs have suffered too so we are not alone. That said resolving the problem was felt to be a top priority. Susie will discuss this with Rick.
Action: Susie, Rick

9) BERG: This agenda item was postponed.

10) Wimbledon ballot: Members have not seemed to realise that the LTA require them to opt in again this year for the Wimbledon ballot. Numbers doing so are well down on last year and it is likely that our ticket allocation will be lower than last year. Susie will send another email to members to encourage them.
Action: Susie

11) Bruntsfield sports day demo: This agenda item was postponed

12) Any other business:

• Susie said that she was going to send round order forms for logoed clothing from Redlemon. This was a lot of effort last year so she is going to only put in one order. It was agreed that the beginning of April would be suitable for the match season.
  Action: Susie
• A few members have asked that a few of the floodlight poles are padded. About 4 of them come within range and there have been a few near misses.
  Action: Rick?

13) Date of next meetings: AGM Sunday 6 March 2.30pm, Bowling Club House Sunday 8 May 2016 at 6pm in the Clubhouse