6 November 2013
Held at Brooklands
Present: President D. Hurdwell, Chairman S. Delaney, Secretary R. Kavanagh, Treasurer G. Tonge, and delegates from all teams except Red Lion and SW Manchester CC. Apologies had been received from SW Manchester CC.
The Chairman opened the meeting at 7.30 and welcomed all delegates. He gave a brief account of how he felt the season had gone and congratulated all winners.
The Chairman then announced the passing of Ken Saxton of Bowling Green. The meeting stood in silence for a short while as a mark of respect.
The minutes of the last AGM held on 21 November 2012 had been circulated. They were taken as read and agreed by the meeting to be a true record. There were no matters arising.
The secretary reviewed the season, which had generally run smoothly, with better weather than the year before.
Levenshulme were the champions for the sixth successive year, with Quarry Bank completing a hat-trick of second places. Pickering managed only one season in Division 1 before going back down again.
Division 2 was won by Bowling Green, who join their Chorlton colleagues in the first division. Brooklands also bounce back up after one season.
There were 44 entries for the Merit this year. This compared with 27 in 2012 and 25 in 2011. The secretary wished he knew why the numbers suddenly increased, but hoped it continued. He had had to move quickly and arrange extra qualifying greens, and thanked the clubs that helped out.
The Eric Dale had also shown an increase, to 21 pairs entered. The official rule is that only the first 16 get in, but he thought we ought to review this. It's tricky when the entries are in the range 17 to 32. Potentially the final day will be rather long, but we haven't got quite enough to organise a satisfactory qualifying round. Also he suspected the need to turn up on two dates might put people off.
There were no news of clubs joining or leaving league, so as things stand next year's programme would be like this year.
There was no information about what was going on at Greater Manchester County. The web site now says that the next meeting is on 8 June. That's last June. There should be an AGM in the third week of this month, so we should have the information by now.
The treasurer reported that we had recorded a deficit of about £124. There were reductions in flat payments and registrations, due to the loss of Roebuck. However a principal factor was the reduction in donations. However he recommended no change in team fees.
The secretary reported that one donation of £10 had been paid to the Urmston Vets league, owing to a misunderstanding.
Auditor Ken Brenner congratulated Grahame on the way in which he had managed the League's finances over the season and for presenting the documentation in good order.
The officers concerned left the room. In view of the state of our balances, the meeting agreed to maintain the current payments: £100 each to the secretary, fixture secretary and treasurer. However they recommended that the next AGM consider an increase in league fees to fund an increase in the honoraria.
The following were elected by the member teams for Season 2014:
President: D Hurdwell
Chairman: S Delaney
Secretary: R Kavanagh
Treasurer: G Tonge
Fixture Secretary: R Kavanagh
Management committee: K Humber (one vacancy)
Auditor: K Brenner
However Mr Delaney asserted that this was to be his last year as chairman.
The Levenshulme delegate reported that the club was experiencing financial problems. They intended to continue as members of the league, but there was a strong possibility they would be playing their home matches at South Manchester British Legion.
The Chairman then closed the meeting at 7.50 pm