ORPINGTON & NW KENT BADMINTON ASSOCIATION
Minutes for the 10th Annual General Meeting, held on: Wednesday 30th May 2012.
Venue: Hayes B.C. Warman Trust Sports Ground, Barnet Wood Road, Hayes, BR2 7AA.
Present: Robin Wells (Chairman), Janet Boswell (Hon. Treasurer), Chris Adams (Match Secretary),
Jan Upson (Junior Affairs), plus representatives from 15 clubs.
Total present: 21 persons.
1.Apologies for absence: John Cook, Mike O’Keefe, Brian Keegan.
Eltham Green, Kingfishers, Parkside, Park Langley.
2.Minutes of the 9th AGM of the Orpington & NW Kent Badminton Association: The minutes of the 9th
AGM of the Association were agreed as a true record & were signed by the Chairman. The minutes were
proposed for acceptance by Jenny Nash (Cliffe) & seconded by Janet Boswell (TASC).
3.Matters arising from Item 2:
a) Vision system usability had been addressed with BE who were improving the system all the
time.
b) Vision system access for ONWK committee had been resolved. Robin advised that the
league needed to affiliate to BE but could only do so when all clubs had affiliated.
c) Fred Tyler knockout format was addressed under item 8.
d) Ladies divisions strengths had been resolved by Chris prior to the fixtures, assisted by a
couple of stronger teams entering.
4.Secretary’s report: No official report was given. Robin explained that this was due to the secretary
(Gemma Fitch) resigning mid season due to work pressures, and that the secretarial duties had been actioned
by either Robin or Chris. Robin also advised that Gemma had forwarded a lot of paperwork, including club
entry fee cheques, in December via registered mail but it had gone awol in the postal system.
5.Treasurer’s report (including clubs/team entry proposals for 2012/13)
Janet talked through the accounts (see end of the minutes), explaining the relevant points and also the
missing club entry fees that needed to be repaid by selected clubs.
Action...Treasurer.
It was agreed by the meeting that fees would remain the same for season 2012-13.
6.Match Secretary’s report.
Chris reported the following..
Summer 2011:
16 Teams entered which was 1 less than previous year. No incidents reported although a number of games
remained unplayed or unreported despite a fair amount of chasing.
Winter 2011/12:
Overall we had about the same number of teams entered as the previous year although we did welcome 4
new teams: Isis, Crossfire, New Eagles and “The Team”. One major positive this season was no last minute
or mid-season pull-outs which was great. In terms of games, there was still a high rate of games not
played/conceded (>5%) although I did manage to track pretty much all results down quite early this year.
Given the comments about ladies divisions at the last AGM and with 3 new ladies teams we managed to
arrange the league into 3 divisions rather than the usual 2. This seemed to result in much closer matches
across the board and all teams seemed happy with the arrangements. Depending on the number of entries
we will try and do the same next year and will look closely at whether to apply the usual
promotion/relegation rules once we have all the entries.
Issues: As usual a number of complaints were received about late concession of matches (eg on the day),
particularly hurting teams that have to pay for court time. There were also a higher than usual instances of
“fixture mistakes” with teams turning up at the wrong location/date/time etc.
Reminders: Need to let me know when matches are conceded so results can be recorded (email or send a
card). Reminder to send cards on time and use enough stamps when sending in bulk.
Summer 2012:
13 teams, 3 down on last year. Still time for any late entries
7.Tournament Secretary’s report – n/a
8.Fred Tyler Knockout Trophy – this didn’t take place this season as only 7 clubs entered. The format and
event had been discussed by the committee and it was suggested that if numbers permitted the committee
could book a large venue where the first 2 rounds could be played.
The logistics of this proposal and also the format was discussed at length. It was eventually felt that a 3+3
combo format (handicapped on a 5+5 nomination) would be worth trying to see if entry to the competition
improved. Home team in the draw to arrange the fixture and costs to be shared. The region to organise the
finals of the main/plate event.
9.Junior Affairs (inc Kent Junior Inter Regional + Colin Boswell Cup): - Jan reported on the following
topics:a.Junior Club.
Bromley Performance Centre (Park Langley & Orpington Juniors)
Has now been running for 3 years and the initial funding from BE has ceased – to continue the PC
needs to make sure it’s self-sufficient and apply for any other grants that become available.
Orpington Juniors
For 2011/12 membership was 97 juniors with ages ranging from 8 to 18 years.
OJs will be holding their play-in for new members on Saturday 8 September at 3.30 p.m. in the Priory
Sports Hall, Tintagel Road, Orpington. Further details will be put on the Orpington Juniors website or
contact Jan Upson by email on [email protected].
League - Juniors
Juniors again played in the composite divisions for OJs - D3 being where the younger players get their
first introduction to adult league games. The Composite first team and Men’s did have a number of
U23s as well as several Over 23s when required to make up the numbers and ensure a team was
fielded!
b.Kent Junior Inter-Regional
The Junior Inter-regional competition took place at Canterbury University on Sunday 15 April. Teams
were entered in both the U19 and U15 age groups – the U19s came 2nd and the U15s, which was a
young team (one of the girls was only 11 years old) came last.
Thanks to Andrew Martin and Brian Duarte for looking after the U15 team.
c.London Junior League
This was organised by Badminton England and matches were played between November and January
with the play-offs held in March. There were 8 teams in the North Division and 5 in the South. The top
2 from each division went through to the finals. OJs got to the play-offs and finished in fourth place.
The winners were the London Badminton Academy. To date I haven’t heard what arrangements are
being made for next year.
d.London Youth Games
A Bromley team has been put together and the qualifying rounds will be played on Sunday 17th June
(Redbridge). The Finals will take place on 30th June at Crystal Palace.
e.Colin Boswell Cup
A nomination has been identified to receive the Colin Boswell cup. We hope that we can get him to the
quiz night and his parents have been advised.
10.Kent Senior Inter Regional report. This year we entered 2 teams into the event to help make numbers
2 divisions of 4. Julie Russel again managed our Div 1 team, which were runners up to Tunbridge Wells
league this year. Comfortable wins over North and Soth Foreland were soon forgotten after an 8-1 loss to
Tunbridge. The squad comprised Julie Russel, Lydia Henderson-Boyle, Leanne Missing, Kim Steer,
Graham Carson, Luke Penna, James Read, Danni Capon, Paul Freeman.
The 2nd team was intended to give some of the 'younger players' regional representation, and was managed
by Michael Upson, and comprised Sarah Andrews, Harriet Sylvester, Lucy Smethurst, Peter Sutton, Scott
Shand, Adrian Healey, Michael Upson, Anke (from Trinity)
This squad acquited itself well, losing to Ravensbourne and narrowly to Medway 5-4, but beating Rainham.
It is hoped next year we can spread the net a little wider to encompass some more of the talent we have
around the region.
11.Kent Badminton Ltd affairs. Robin reported that there were meetings in October/Feb/May that we
attended. This was the usual mix of BE initiatives and actions that are being undertaken in Kent, KBL news
and reports, plus news from the regions.
A couple of the things that may be of interest to the clubs being......
KBL offered to initially fund regions that wanted to start a pay and pay club, this was trialled by TW who it
seemed put in a lot of effort but had minimal return. We declined to follow this up.
An initiative for clubs that want to play other regions (Kent League ?) has been proposed, the message
should have gone out to all club secretaries.
Tunbridge have looked at financial incentives for clubs that submit match results on time and also attend
their AGM. They are also trialling an on-line result card system that we are taking an interest in.
12.Election of Officers
The current committee were all willing to stand again, there was no objection from the floor. Debbie Laskier
(TASC) volunteered to undertake the role of Honorary Secretary to unanimous approval and applause.
Tournament secretary remained vacant.
13. Any other business
a. Match results.
It was agreed to add results of the matches onto the league tables. Action Match Secretary.
It was confirmed that the committee was mindful of desire for some clubs to use on-line score input and
was looking at options, though was unlikely to be in place for coming season. Action Committee.
b. 2 Pair League.
Matt Cavanagh (Nat West) suggested running of a 2 pair levels league in summer, to compliment the
composite league and provide more doubles play primarily for ladies. This proposal was generally liked
and the Matcgh Secretary agreed to try and arrange with immediate effect. Action Match Secretary.
c. Food.
Graeme Everett (Sedgehill) has asked for the matter of food provision to be raised again in light of some
clubs providing squash only, whilst others providing full teas when not expected. After much discussion
it was agreed nothing would be put in the rules re food, but clubs would be reminded to state their food
provision when making fixtures and also provide details at registration for the web.
Action Committee/Clubs.
d. Promotion rules.
Derek Steer (Christchurch) confirmed that if clubs felt they were not strong enough to be promoted they
could ask the committee to consider keeping them down. Chris explained that it wasn’t in anybody’s
interests to have a great disparity of standards in a division and with clubs entering new teams and teams
withdrawing the committee was often able to accommodate most requests sensibly.
e. Distances.
Angela-Marie Graham (Crofton Arrows), asked if the league had a rule regarding team distance as she
felt travelling to Castlemaine to play ‘The Team’ had been difficult and matches had been cancelled as a
result. Chris said he was not aware of cancellations against this club for this reason. Robin advised that
there used to be more defined borders when the regions were first established but as club numbers have
dwindled regional borders have become a lot more flexible. Robin also confirmed there was no distance
rule, each new club is considered for travel distance, and that clubs on the ‘outskirts’ of the region need to
travel greater distances for all away games whilst their opponents need to do this once. Robin also added
that for clubs on the east side of the region an evening journey to Castelmaine could be 30 minutes
whereas a Saturday/Sunday afternoon match in the Croydon vicinity could ba a 90 minute journey, even
though distances were comparable.
Janet Boswell – reminded all about the Quiz and Presentation evening. Friday June 29th at Hayes.
Ian Edmed would be the quiz master again this year. First question to be at 7:45 prompt and teams
of up to 6 people paying £5/head. Bar would be open, but bring your own nibbles, not drink.
The fixtures meeting for the next winter season will be Monday 10th September at Hayes BC. This
will be combined with the Ravensbourne RBA again.
There being no further business for discussion, Robin Wells thanked everyone for their attendance
and closed the meeting at 21:49pm.
Signed as a true record:
……………………………..
R. Wells, Chairman
Accounts to year April 2012.