Knutsford Friday Bowling League

Minutes of meeting held Thursday 23rd January 2014 at Mere Parish Club

The Chairman opened the meeting and welcomed everyone.

1. Apologies for absence John Glover (Equiport) & Mike Grocott (Oughtrington) Equiport were not represented
2. Minutes of previous meeting held 15th August 2013 were read and accepted. Proposed John Leah (Chelford) seconded Geoff Owen (Mere)
3. Matters arising Following the discussion at the last meeting regarding the handicapping for the team knockout the Secretary confirmed that he had done some additional work on this and would open this up for discussion under item 5 proposals for the AGM
4. Officers Reports
   The Chairman & Secretary had nothing to report this being the close season. The Treasurer presented the annual accounts, which showed a balance in the bank of £478.23 down from £609.25 from last year. He said that bowling income and expenditure was in line with previous years, but said that because the attendance on presentation evening was down the evening broke even instead of the usual small profit. To comply with rule 6.3 he said that he would propose a rebate of £11 per team who competed in the league during 2013. He closed his remarks by saying that providing we maintain our 2 divisions of 24 teams he would recommend that green fees were maintained at the present level.
5. Competition Venues
   The Secretary apologized for having forgotten the rota list for the competition venues, but said that he would liaise with the clubs concerned to confirm their agreement to host the events and would advise the dates and venues at the AGM
6. Possible Proposals for the AGM
   1. Cancellation of a match due to insufficient players is not an option. Add to 5.7 a new rule (e) A team who cannot field the required 8 players must play with the number of players available - Suggested by Warford Park Bowling Club A lively discussion ensued without any real consensus. The club suggesting the amendment to rule 5.7 was asked to formally propose it at the AGM for voting.
   2. Rule 5.3 amend to read - League matches to commence at 7pm. All matches in April and from 15th August to commence at 6pm where a green has no lights. -Suggested by Oughtrington Bowling Club.
   3. Rule 12.2 Team Knockout Handicap - At recent committee meetings the general opinion was that there was too narrow a spread in the handicap from the winners of division one to the bottom of division two. The secretary had reworked the results using a 4 & 5 point spread. The overall result was much the same with the same teams progressing but the final results were much closer leaving the lower ranked teams only being defeated by a small margin and leaving them with a "fighting" chance of progressing. The secretary said that he felt that a 5-point spread was a step too far leaving a 115-point margin between the top and bottom and felt that 4 points seemed about right. Geoff Owen (Mere) asked if using a 3-point margin might achieve a good balance. The Secretary agreed to do the calculations and put the four choices to the AGM.
   4. Lack of handicap differentials for division one and division and two players competing in competitions. Add new rule 8.5 © Division two players competing in league competitions should have their handicap reduced by 2 points. - Suggested by League Officers
   5. Introduce an Average winners prize for the best average player in each division using the plus and minus methodology. It was thought that if such an award was given it could result in a strong player trying to beat a weaker opponent to nil, instead of recognizing that the original intention of the league is to promote the sport of bowling to new players. An alternative to this would be to calculate the average using the "strike rate method" however, this could leave many players with a similar average and would need many decimal places to separate them. -Suggested by Bernard Mc. Lenaghan
   6. Fred Taylor (Oughtrington) asked if the handicap reduction for the host team competing in the six-a-side team knockout was sufficient. The Secretary said that the host club had only won the competition once in the 21 years the competition had been running. (A subsequent check of the records he found that it had been won twice by the host club) If the delegates think the handicap should be greater then a proposal to the AGM will determine a revised handicap.
7. Any Other Business
   Jack Stant (High Legh) thought that the reduced attendance on Presentation evening might be down to the venue. A discussion followed when some members felt that the atmosphere and ambiance was much better at Mere. The Treasurer said that this was only the second time that the event had been held at the Victory Hall and numbers on the first occasion had been similar to those at Mere. The Secretary asked if members wanted a change of format as we had used the existing format for some years now.

The chairman reminded the meeting of the AGM to be held on Thursday 27th February at 8pm

The meeting closed at 8.55pm