ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
Wednesday 23rd November 2016
at 7.30 p.m.
In the Clubhouse, Willen Road.
1. Apologies
Apologies from: Loren & Mary, Pam, Suzanne, Anne
Present: Darren, Barrie, Sid, Darryl, Andy, Marie, Tom G, Armaan, Gavin, Nigel
2. Minutes Approval (2015)
Agreed.
3. Chairman’s Report
Firstly I would like to say welcome and thank you for attending the Club
AGM. As guidance for how this meeting will work the meeting is closed to
questions and comments until after election of officers where the meeting is
open to questions and comments. Therefore if you do have any questions regarding any of the reports make a mental note of it and you will get an opportunity to raise it later in the meeting.
To my report.
Competition (which ultimately we are a tennis club) we have had success
with the Bucks 3 pair team finishing 2nd in their division and likely to be promoted to the primer division. Mixed B won their division and promotion to the
top division and both mixed A and B teams have maintained their in the top
division of MK league in summer giving two top division teams in both summer and winter. Further down the leagues both Mens B and Ladies B finished third in their divisions.
We have faced challenges our membership numbers have declined to 100
and the size of our committee is smaller than we would like.
The club is still stable financially although income has decreased due to reduced membership numbers.
Despite this the club have implemented a new online membership renewal
and court booking system. On the membership Loren and Marie have started
compiling ideas together that will be looked into over the winter to reinvigorate the club.
Again I would like to thank the committee for their hard work not only for fulfilling the committee role or multiple roles volunteered for but on many occasions going above and beyond this improving the experience for our members.
I would particularly like to thank the volunteers for junior club night without
them the friday junior social tennis session will not run.
The new committee will face challenges in 2017 with suggested priorities
looking to improve the membership numbers and the social tennis experience for the members.
As we currently have no membership secretary our membership numbers
are as follows. We currently have 100 members 49 Adults and 51 Juniors.
This compares with 129 last year at a 50 Adults and 79 Junior split.
4. Treasurer’s Report
1. Financial info handed out at beginning of meeting, club in stable position
~£2500 profit, >£20,000 in accounts
2. Have looked at how to increase value of savings, moved to savings account
but not gained too much.
3. Need suggestions of how to invest the money – to make it work harder for the
club
4. Total income down 16% due to income via membership dropping (~2/3 income) – main revenue stream.
5. Expenditure lowest in years but courts need doing again soon with a cycle of
spend and re-earn.
6. Fellow player at near club suggested jet-washing if moss on courts although
discussion that ineffective unless removed immediately.
7. Energy bills due to change of supplier.
8. Thanks to Darren as he does a lot of the work through the year
9. Sufficient funds to sustain club for a few years as is.
5. Match Secretary’s Report & Marketing
Marketing report
1. Loren and I have continued to use email (mailchimp), facebook and the
website supported by clubhouse notices but have also recognised that
there is no replacement for talking directly to members to promote
events, membership and to understand member’s needs.
2. Areas for improvement: Improving usage of noticeboard (honours
boards, photos, framed info etc) and key event news on whiteboard
PLUS new and direct marketing drive for new membership via local
business and organisations for 2017 being planned for big renewal activities around March/ Spring 2017
3. Twitter still largely under-used due to having to prioritise time on key
channels that reach all members – is included in future plans – dependent upon support available from members/ captains etc…
4. Issues with emails from mailchimp and clubspark (new online membership application system) dropping into spam which is not under our control. A poster has been up in/ on clubhouse for a while asking people to
check their spam folders and we ask all members in this as it’s the most
efficient way to communicate with our members and we cannot stop
emails going to spam from our end.
5. Leave discussions of clubspark membership renewal to Darren but to
note that the court booking system appears to be well used and valued
by members organising their own play sessions to guarantee their slot
and clear booking strategies with Middleton Pool having protected hours
appears to work very smoothly now. Members of the public have increased hours of access via Middleton Pool in the week so we have increased our accessibility – usage to be informed by Middleton Pool.
From registration to booking now seems to work well.
a. It has also worked well with captains booking courts for home
matches and there has been, to my knowledge, no clashes.
6. Articles to be posted in Phonebox and Tiebreaker and local press been
on hold awaiting confirmation of Bucks Shield men’s promotion to premier but I have had it confirmed this week that they cannot confirm this
until all new entries are in for the summer 2017 season so will celebrate
their success anyway and not wait longer.
7. Call for captains and players and parents continues for pictures and
news to promote and celebrate.
8. Website has been tweaked in light of new and improved public booking
and court booking and online renewal options so there should be a clear
path to follow online and we maintain paper application too for those
preferring offline methods.
9. Further work to neaten up the website – thoughts about approaching IT
students to help us with tasks on this.
10. To ensure accurate communications the database must be maintained
between membership and mailchimp which we’ve been doing ad hoc
between us but concern that people will be missed as no system in
place to ensure this is regularly updated.
11. Have recently visited junior clubnight and chatting to parents of nonmembers informative and valuable to discuss membership value and
gain contact details as they were keen to receive club news – now
added to mailchimp.
a. Need segmented database to be tidied up.
12. Marketing events – GBTW afternoon attracted a few new members
which then extended to their friends and family – incentivised initially by
the discounted membership offer. Recent winter membership has also
helped to convert a few and we must ensure their needs are met to ensure renewal in spring 2017.
13. Again ad hoc – but reaching out to ensure new members have all the
info they need and extend invitations to them to attend sessions and ensure they feel welcome and happy with the tennis they receive at NPTC
is very important. Another task membership secretary was previously
doing which could be standardised but we need to keep track to ensure
renewing/ new members are communicated with to ensure they are
happy.
Match secretary report November 23rd 2016
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Since last year’s AGM we’ve had two successful seasons with teams developing their pairs and success but more importantly enjoying their tennis. Mixed B again attended the MK presentation evening in Sept where
we collected trophies for Mx B winning their division – congrats to the
team for winning two consecutive years.
➔ Thanks as always to the captains for getting the teams organised, sorting
match fees and opponents and ensuring the opportunities for competitive
match play for members continues at the club. It is usually a fairly
straight-forward task but it does require organising the teams so I’m grateful to all the captains to supporting the match play for all of those taking
part and supporting the club in this way.
➔ Interest in adding a fourth mixed team next summer for the MK league
from improving/ developing players so that’s great that the interest builds
and more can enjoy their tennis in additional ways.
➔ Results round up:
Winter season 2015/16
MK
1. Mixed A finished 3rd div 1 (2nd year in a row)
2. Mixed B won div 2 for promotion (2nd year running) to div 1 this winter
3. Mixed C followed their promotion to div 5 to stay safe in the division.
Bucks
1. Ladies SuperVets (60s) enjoyed tennis last winter across bucks where
core of 4 teams, play each other twice. Challenging!
2. Mens WSM team 1 league 2 – finished top so earnt promotion to div 1
this winter.
3. Mens WSM team 2 league 2 stayed in div 2 managing half the fixtures.
Good luck to the teams this winter!
Summer season 2016 – 10 adult teams this summer competing in 3 leagues
across MK and Bucks! Busy summer!
MK
1. Mixed A, B both in div 1 finishing very strong in 2nd and 5th respectively,
Mx C tough time in div 3 this summer looking at div 4 next summer.
2. Mens A (finished mid-table div1), B (finished top half div4)
3. Ladies A accepted defeat and in relegation zone to div 2 next summer.
Ladies B better summer than last managing all their fixtures and finishing a strong third having switched to a Thursday home fixture night in
consultation it seems to have helped some players.
Bucks
1. Men’s 3 pair – another very strong season, finishing second in division 1
– following promotion from div 2 last year they are again due for promotion a second year on the run to premier Bucks pending numbers in
each division for 2017 – huge congratulations to all the players and captain Darryl!
2. Mixed medley – strong second season, some results still pending but
we are third potentially second with results to be entered/ clarified.
Aegon
• Mens team (Chris capt) following promotion to div 1 last year – finished
div 1 in 4th place (of 5 teams). Small divisions so may stay tbc
Winter season 2016/17
Now underway:
• MK Mixed Medley x 3 teams – strong start already with Mx A and Mx B
both in div 1 this year – great performance for our little club!
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Bucks Ladies SV - not yet played
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Bucks 2 x new men’s Winter Singles teams continue having enjoyed
last year and WSM 1 earned promotion last year - offers an opportunity
for singles and doubles captained by Darren and Brian (thanks for entering into the captaincy ring Brian).
Summer season 2017
• Going forward: I have received entry forms for Bucks Summer 2016 already and plan to enter the same teams of Men’s Bucks 3 pair and
Mixed medley again unless strong objections for more/ less?
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Additional work for clubs as leagues push tasks out to local clubs to reduce central workload – eg setting fixtures, entering on to online system
in addition to our own calendar/ court booking so again, grateful for any
help and support from those being captain.
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All detailed results are on the links on team page on our club website
and are always available for anyone to check on the progress of our
teams throughout the season.
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Related to match balls and equipment: a reminder that John Skinner is
handling stringing and equipment requirements - John’s details are
available on the website and in the clubhouse.
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The club champs was held again through the summer with more entries
in certain categories and better attendance on the one concentrated
celebration day as greater participation although still felt to be lacking
for a wider range of members. Some attending to eat, relax, spectate
and play in the protected sessions for non-finalists but further work to
build participation and extend the relevance of the day to the wider
membership in 2017. Equality achieved with the first time running a Ladies Plate competition with the final played out on the day.
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Congratulations to all the participants, winners and runners up and
thanks to the organisers Photos and results on website and facebook
and noticeboard.
6. Coaching Report
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Coaching programme numbers 10 grps 57 players – 12 months 10
groups 62 players = 5 up on last year, a few up on last year in the summer. Spring and summer overall poor so offered discounted options
which brought a few more but surprisingly few took advantage of it.
Only two people took up the offer of lessons at £3. Constant battle to
find new players. Tough with schools, Portfields support, high support
at after school clubs but little transfer to the club. Parents happy to be
coached at school but not motivated to take to a club. Massive challenge going forward. No support from Tickfords, cedars and green park
and a little bit now at Ousedale but still low numbers – low numbers and
free!
Ran the tennis4kids course via davis cup legacy – 6 weeks – 6 places
sold for free tennis – no one took up the 50% discount offer
Holiday camps 5 easter, May none, 83 in the summer, October – offered BOGOF and got 22 children.
Real challenge to continually attract new players
Committed players with 1-1, hard to retain the peripheral on coaching
and reflects the membership. Lacking the 20 new players – to allow the
turnover of players. Very difficult to find players.
Ran junior club and adult tournament
Ran junior club challenges – now motivating towards festivals versus
competitive. Trying to increase numbers by participation rather than
competition until age 12. Were losing too many kids out of tennis. Performance players tend to put off the recreational/ social players.
Junior Parent Liaison/Marketing Report
Junior Grand Slams
Continuing on from last year, we held a number of mini Grand Slam events alongside the
adult versions. These were particularly aimed a juniors who do not play competitively outside
the club and were perhaps doing their first ever ‘event’.
As with last year, we decided it was too cold for the youngsters to play a Australian open so
we planned events for the French Open, Wimbledon and US open. The French Open and
Wimbledon were well attended, but the US open had to be cancelled due to low numbers. We
saw a similar issue last year and believe that in part, its down to the timing (straight after
school holidays, back to school etc.).
Many thanks to Gavin for running these events for us. Like last year, we had trophies for the
winners and everyone that took part had a prize (sweets or racket dampener etc.) so the reward was for participation rather than how well you did.
I think these events are great for our young players and perhaps we need more in the calendar. Mini-red had a fairly low attendance, which may need an alternative format. More later.
Quorn Family Tennis event
After a successful event last year, we ran the Quorn Family Tennis Event again in May. It was
a mini-red event for children aged 10 and under playing with an adult. We had a fantastic
number of entries and some very competitive play! The overall winner (Kyla Garner) won the
chance to compete in a regional event in Nottingham during the WTA tour in June. I believe
that it will be run again next year but yet to confirm.
Junior Club Championships
The 2016 Junior Club championships were extremely well attended in mini-orange and minigreen. Mini-red numbers were so low we couldn’t actually run the championship event this
year, which is a real shame as we have quite a number of mini-red members. Still a little light
on mini-yellow players but we still had enough to run a boys 12U event. In the 18U, there
were just 2 players.
Junior Clubnight (coffee shop)
The coffee shop was run again at both junior club night and other events during the year
(such as club champs and junior festivals). Some of the additional funds have helped pay for
trophies for all the junior events and the rest has been credited to club funds. Whilst Lucy
Hopcraft wasn’t able to assist much this year, I’ve had some great help from junior parents,
Kate Henderson and Jo Bailey towards the end of this season and I’m hoping that they will
continue to support the coffee shop next year.
Mini-Red players - matchplay
We’ve had feedback from parents that since a lot of the mini-red players are so young (6 and
under), the prospect of a tournament like the club championships is a bit scary. Whilst we’d
still like to offer a tournament format, we’d like to look at an alternative format for our youngest players – one that is based more on the kind of activities that they do at junior club night –
where the emphasis is not on winning at a tennis match. Instead, we’ll look to run activities
and prizes for the fun/games side of it (such as ‘ghosts’ which they all love! Or team based
activities). Nigel ran a particularly successful tennis festival in the spring that involved participants getting a sticker each time they took part. The children were excited to fill up their card
and get every sticker. The key here being the focus on participation. Nigel, Gavin, Darryl and
Darren are the most knowledgeable here so I’ll be discussing with them how we can make
the mini-red events more aligned to something like this.
Yellow ball juniors
We have a similar concern with our yellow-ball juniors. Not a huge number but younger ones
are coming through from green ball. Currently, there are no specific events during the year for
this group and although officially, they could take part in the adult tournaments, I’m not convinced this would appeal for them. Therefore, for 2017, we need to look at how we can provide competitive tennis for this age group.
Other things I’ve been involved in through the year;
New membership renewal system
Our new membership system was launched in March last year. On the whole, it was okay but
had a lot of teething problems. It was new to the LTA too so a few issues were not to be unexpected.
Members are still not completing their contact details (i.e. registering). Whilst this means that
they cannot book a court, it also means that we don’t officially have their email address in order to contact them. We currently have to export email addresses into Mailchimp so we can
send our newsletters and other important information. How do we get members to register?
Now that our members are ‘in the system’, renewing for 2017 will be a much easier and more
streamlined activity.
Spring Working Party
This was run again in March. Far fewer members helped out this time but we still got the clubhouse clean and tidy and ready for the summer season. It would be great to get some more
participation for 2017 from our members.
Membership initiatives for 2017
I’ve been working with Marie to put together a list of initiatives during the winter of 2017 in order to improve current member experience and to promote and increase membership from
April onwards. Focus is on visibility externally, member/visitor experience.
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Social Secretary
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Started with Tom and I continued from there with a challenge to take over
with Anne handing over to me but we ran all events with no weather disruption.
Experimented with new format and scoring but mixed reviews and reverted to
American format as worked and people were happy with that.
About 10 ish attending each tournament. Usual core and then some social
players but more unpredictable whether the social players attend.Feedback
has been that social players would like their own fun tournaments.
Re club champs: tried new format with all finals on one day – for the finalists
it was good on one day, positive feedback but mindful of those purely spectating and fine-tuning required to improve again. As with change it needs it
needs tweaking to further improve rather than go back to old format. à See
additional club champs comments in Marketing report.
Evening events very successful – 20+ always in attendance at curry nights,
thanks to Armaan for organising and helps mixing on a social basis on these
events. We know this is one of the attractions to the club that people enjoy
the social side and we’re a sociable club and it helps to mix off courts to integrate players.
Sunday club mornings now much more successful – 4 weeks of toast in the
mornings – with some commitment from cttee members to get it up and running so it’s great up to 13 ppl attending in four weeks from zero.
Xmas do – 25 attending which is great. Last requests and food orders due in
and last few spaces left.
Quiz some interest might support promoting but time heavy event to plan –
discussion about taking a team to an event elsewhere just as a social event
and not for club fundraising. .
Apologies to Darryl for not organising bowling yet this year.
Heard people joining NPTC as a social bunch at the club.
I’ve done the best I can and happy to keep going but I’m not strong on organising and would welcome other support from social side. Some names mentioned that may help in future.
10 Maintenance Officer/Council Liaison
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Town Council have agreed to do the courts at a cost £23,500 and we have
to do painting and supply spacers ~£4,900 + VAT.
o Hope to know more after meeting on Monday – contract to Tennis
Court Services based near Whipsnade zoo
Courts will be drilled for drainage and resurface on top ~10mm
hence the need for the spacers.
o We will find out more at the next meeting. But important that we
liaise with them but we would push for summer holidays or Sept.
o Coaching programme need time to plan how to move sessions/ relocate venue. Move around with Olney club for example, use indoor venues.
o Replacing like for like courts take about 3-4 weeks.
o Supposed to be cleaned each year, Sid said every 3 for cleaning,
and 6 years for painted. Courts have lasted 16 years.
o Discussion about colour.
Still problems with the shed door being left open and toilet light being left
on which comes on to our bill – needs addressing.
Yellow lines been done which council said they wouldn’t do which is
good.
Have mentioned to Sean O’Connor about the litter and will mention again
as it mounts up over the weekend. Does not seem to get collected.
Do get odour from pumping station
Clubhouse a bit tatty so could do with painting inside and out maybe next
summer and some of the fence posts are broken.
Have new straps for court but now double cost ~£14 but better as won’t
wear the nets out.
Darren also to make application for Sport MK for funding for it.
When books returned from auditor and he kindly doesn’t want anything
for it so we will thank him.
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Tom thanks all ctte and Gavin and Nigel for slogging away and Andy for
taking on social activities as Tom. Thanks to Sebella for the men’s teas.
• Thanks to Tom for the thanks.
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11 Election of Officers
N.B. Proposers and seconders on full form.
Chair Darren
Treasurer - Darryl
Social sec –Andy
Membership secretary – Armaan
Darren named as Acting Club secretary in interim.
Match sec – Marie
Junior rep – Loren
Committee member – Tom
Committee member – Sara Wragg
Vice Chair – Armaan Ahmed
12 Subscriptions & proposed changes- all agreed/ accepted.
13 Any Other Business
1. Discussions about subscriptions. Drastically reduced fees. Unlikely to
bring in the same revenue.
2. Retention and stickers with participation
3. Member experience important for retention.
4. Suggestion to look to Work with football club and sport-oriented.
5. Suggestion to look to work better with Middleton Pool.
6. Parking issues made worse for refreshment van for football.
7. Quiz night – suggestion from Armaan to go to another quiz session
held elsewhere.
8. Constitution changes – all agreed.
9. Question of what disposable income is available to spend –
a. Trustee fund may need boosting
b. Possibly £19,000 – 5500 for courts.
c. Need £1000 minimum running balance
d. May have £10,000 budget available
i. What do we want on the wishlist?
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Discussion about spacing courts out more but little land available and not worth cost to pursue.
11.
Question about bulbs being changed to improve the light quality
but belief that it’s the position that’s the problem.
12.
Older juniors – add 14u/ teens grand slam tourno.
• Includes Comments from Karen Stevenson re older juniors (older
teens) – Friday session is key – they’re not ready to transfer to adults
and do need structure. We lose Alex next year so need a replacement
on court for the session to continue.
13.
Mailchimp – Tiscali problem - check with Armaan and Loren
14.
Use of golden ticket motivates some but challenge converting
children to club from schools.
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Visibility is poor – signage lacking, get out in to community
more.
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Next cttee meeting Wednesday 11th Jan 2017
APPENDIX
Club champs results:
Results: Men’s Singles –Darren Brown
Boy’s President’s Cup – Played at juniors
Ladies singles: Winner Marie Walters, Runner Up: Sarah Carter
Ladies Plate: Winner Sara Wragg, Runner Up: Loren Nally
Men’s Plate Winner Tom Garry, Runner Up: Brian Cave
Men’s Vets Winner: not played
Ladies Doubles Winners: Melissa Cavill and Marie Walters, Runners
Up Mary Hartley and Anne Saunders,
Men’s Doubles Winners: Darren Brown and Armaan Ahmed. Runners Up: Chris Miller and
Darryl Lucas
Mixed Doubles: not played