Sale and Urmston Bowling Association

Annual General Meeting held at 7.30pm on Wednesday 10 January 2024 at Flixton Ex-Servicemen’s Club

Present:
Secretary R Kavanagh, Treasurer G Price, and delegates from all clubs except Sale Excelsior
Chairman’s address
The chairman was not in attendance. The meeting agreed that the secretary should act as chairman.
Obituaries
Delegates stood for a few moments in memory of bowlers who had passed away. These included Jack Barratt of Brooklands, Albert Braithwaite of Davyhulem Social, Mike Carr of Flixton Ex-servicemens, Terry O'Connor of Partington, and Peter Howell, Frank Myles and David Partridge of Humphrey Park.
Apologies for absence
Auditor Ken Brenner
Minutes of the rules revision meeting held on 28 November 2023
The minutes from the previous meeting were on the website and copies were available. . One error was pointed out: in section 3.4 it was the Monday Merit, not the Wednesday Merit that had only one entry. With this amendment the minutes were accepted.
Secretary’s report
In the Monday league, Roebuck had resigned (they intended to continue on Wednesdays). There was also a possibility that Flixton Cricket would enter only one team. That would leave us with nine or ten teams, and an 18-week league season (it was 22 weeks last year).
To get maximum use of daylight, we would start on 22 April and finish on 19 August. But we now had an opportunity to play at least one of the competitions on a Monday evening. So the secretary suggested starting the league on 15 April (when sunset is at 20:11), playing a competition on 27 May (a bank holiday), and finishing the league on 19 August. The knock-out competition would follow, starting on bank holiday 26 August and with a final on Sunday 15 September.
On Wednesday there was no news of resignations. SW Manchester CC had applied to enter a second team. There was a tie for second place in Division 2 last year, so any arrangement that promotes three teams avoided a tricky dilemma. That meant relegating Legh Arms and Goldenhill, and promoting three promotions (Davyhulme Social, Oughtrington and SW Manchester A).
There would be two divisions of eleven teams, running from 3 April to 28 August.
The knock-out competitions would run from 4 to 18 September with the finals on Sunday 22 September.
Competitions
These were poorly attended last year:
Monday Merit 1
Monday Pairs 7
Wednesday Merit 13
Wednesday Pairs 6
It had often been said that having these competitions at the weekend reduces interest. On Mondays we had the opportunity to use at least one Monday.
However, we should ask ourselves if it’s worth running all four competitions. The league merit ought to be the premier competition and. The secretary considered the pairs competition is a bit of an extra. The entries we get nowadays meant that mostly we don’t need qualifying rounds any more. Also did we really need separate competitions for each league?
So his proposal was:
There was discussion on these ideas. Delegates generally favoured the principle of two competitions. However there was a problem of no-shows. Some suggested that charging a fee would reduce this. But that would mean making two changes at once. If there was an improvement we wouldn’t know which changes mattered. With a limited entry, any who had been too late should be offered places, either before the event if a player withdrew, or on the day in the case of no-shows.
Treasurer’s report
The accounts summary had been circulated, and further copies were available. The treasurer summarised the main points. The overall balance had increased by about £460. This was largely because we had been able to sell one of the trophies inherited from the predecessor leagues. This was made of silver and raised £326. Registrations were down – a continuing trend. We had been able to increase the prize money by about 15%.
Auditor’s report
The auditor was unable to attend, but had supplied his report:
“I met up with our Treasurer Graham Price on the 4th January. All invoices, bank statements and income fees from clubs were presented with no exclusions. Having cross checked the spreadsheets, everything I found all to be correct. It would seem that all the seasons finances run smoothly and a small profit was achieved. Graham has done a splendid job for us with due diligence and I wish to record a personal vote of thanks to him in his first year of office for his work.
“I will be pleased to continue as Auditor for 2024 should our members be in agreement.”
Honorariums
The meeting agreed to continue honorariums at the current level: secretary £200 and treasurer £100.
Proposal from Partington BC:
Away teams travelling to a fixture should be given 30 minutes grace as long as the home team captain is informed prior to the actual start of the fixture. As for the dark nights this could be managed on an ongoing basis by increasing the amount of blocks from 4 to 5.
The Partington delegate reported that this stemmed from a disagreement when some of their players were delayed by road works. The general view was that changing the rules might open up scope for abuse. Allowances should be made in exceptional circumstances, with the aim of plating the games in a friendly and co-operative manner.
There was no seconder, and no vote was taken.
Election of officers
President: Frank Warburton had resigned owing to ill-health. Brian Brooks was elected
Chairman: Geoff Dixon
Secretary: Ross Kavanagh
Treasurer: Graham Price
Committee:
Monday: Mel Fry
Wed D1: Grahame Tonge
Wed D2: Peter Thompson
Other matters
Delegates asked if contact telephone numbers could be supplied to clubs, either on the fixtures cards or as a separate sheet.
Delegates passed a vote of thanks to the secretary.

The meeting closed at 8.25pm.