AGM 2006 (22 August 06)

Minutes of the 2006 AGM

The 2006 Oxford Softball AGM was held on August 22nd 2006 at Rover Sports and Social Club. The meeting was quorate with well over forty attendees. No apologies were received. The Chair and Treasurer were absent. However, the Secretary, Vice Chair and previous players rep.s were in attendance. These minutes were taken by Mark Norman.

Actions

Treasurer and Executive Officers – to become signatories to the OSA account as soon as possible.
Chair – clarify what has been done regarding the ‘development grant’ and compensation for lack of payment by the Croughton team in 2004.
All at next AGM/EGM – formally adopt the changes to the constitution.
Exec. officers – to investigate the ‘Hall of Fame’ idea.
Exec. officers – to look into options for hosting an umpiring course (roll our own or buy in BSUK?).
Exec. officers – Change all branding to “Oxford Softball” as per last year’s agreement.
Exec. officers – Need a recruitment plan, and advertising for next year (and try to co-opt someone to do this).
Exec. officers – Need to prioritise a Mens team for the nationals next year
Secretary – look into the use of ‘announce’ email lists to send out news.
Exec. officers – To look into a Level 2 coaching course from BSUK at Oxford.

1. Minutes of the previous AGM

There were no minutes of the previous year’s AGM which was held on August 30th 2005 at Rover Sports and Social Club.

2. Executive committee reports

Unfortunately with the absence of the previous chair and treasurer, these reports were quite brief. We need a proper budget and any issues known only to Dave Warren and Jane Silverwood to be passed on to the new Exec. committee as soon as possible.

Roger Farrell made a brief report of activities from the previous year and examined a balance sheet supplied by the treasurer. The starting balance (in January 2006) was £306.75 and the projected balance for October 2006 was £287.54.

It is possible that there may be some incoming BSUK money in the form of a development grant and this may help in tackling any deficit arising from the non-payment of OSA league fees in 2004 by the Croughton team. The application for a development grant is not minuted in any recent meeting and the new committee will need information regarding this.

3. Elections

The old executive committee stood down and a new executive committee was appointed. No voting was necessary as there was no competition for any of the posts.

The new committee is:

Chair	Stella Bradshaw (Harriers)
Vice Chair	Roger Farrell (Devils)
Treasurer	Jen Edis (Angels)
Secretary	Mark Norman (Oddsox
Players rep.	Nicky Green (Greensox)

We briefly discussed how the executive committee should work and how it relates to the full committee (also known as the League Committee or the Captains Committee).

How the executive works

This was clarified a little. The executive isn't "the League Committee". The Committee (with the power) is the Exec plus captains (as outlined in the constitution). The exec. is just there to try to avoid long, extremely tedious captains meetings. However, we need to have captains meetings (proper League Committee meetings) regularly as well. The Exec. is for housekeeping duties and to discuss things to propose to The Committee. Any executive member can say "I'm not happy with this decision" and it will be deferred to The Committee.

Over the next year the Exec. will meet a few times over the winter and will call a full Committee meeting before the season starts. For the sake of good communications, we will attempt to have short Exec. meetings once per month over the season and also full Committee meetings, about a third of the way into the season, plus one towards the end. We also hope that things like the use of this wiki and some email lists may help improve communication a little too.

Matters for the new executive

There was some discussion regarding issues to be taken on as matters of urgency by the new executive. These included:

Rover liaison
Celia (from the Beavers) volunteered to help out and get us more involved with Rover and BMW. We may co-opt Celia as an extra committee member (without voting rights) and invite her to some Exec. meetings. This will be a great help in promoting us within the Rover club, and help with getting a weekend for a summer tournament or cup day etc. (and with line marking early in the season). Chris Dore also said he could help out with Rover liaison etc. Thanks very much to both!!

Other co-opted posts
These (again possibly without voting rights) could include:

• Mens nationals team organiser
• Womens nationals team organiser
• Open days organiser/promoter
• Cup/tournament day organiser
• End of season celebration organiser

A further list is given in the constitution.

4. Budget for 2007

See notes under ‘Executive committee reports’ above. The new Treasurer – Jen – will endeavour to meet with Jane (previous Treasurer) to get up to speed.

5. Constitutional amendments

There were a few, but very minor:

• the players rep. being part of the executive should be added to the constitution
• also that the rep. should be taken from the opposite division from which the majority of the other executive posts come (e.g. if most exec. members are from Div1, then we get a players rep. from Div2).

These changes were voted upon and passed unanimously.

These have been added to the constitution. However, some unapproved changes have also been made to that document for clarifications (e.g. the “Executive Officers” were not previously defined). The text regarding co-opted members of the committee was also amended slightly, purely for clarification purposes. All changes are highlighted in the current copy of the constitution and should be formally adopted at the next AGM or EGM. Those documents are on the OSA web site at:

• 2006 constitution (original)
• draft 2007 constitution (2006 copy with proposed amendments - some approved, some unapproved)
  

6. Softball league rules changes

There was clarification that any rule changes are likely to be first debated by the Executive Officers and then proposed to the full Committee (where they could be debated further). Rule changes are to be agreed by the full Committee.

7. Any other Business

Unfortunately, there was some…

Hall of fame idea

Chris Dore suggested that some kind of ‘Hall of Fame’ should be established, either at the Rover club, and/or on the web site. This could be especially to celebrate players who have recently left Oxford (or retired!?!). The Exec. agreed to look into the idea.

Stats and awards for best fielder

There was a little debate about what to do if the 'best fielder' resulted in a tie. The decision was to allow the Exec. to decide (possibly with the input of captains at a full committee meeting, if necessary). Or we could simply give 2 awards.

Umpiring

The exec is to look into various options for running umpiring courses before the start of next season. We should expect at least two people from each team to attend. We could ask BSUK to run a course here in Oxford, or we may be able to run our own.

“Oxford Softball”

Apparently, we changed our name to “Oxford Softball” in 2005 to be more attractive and funky sounding. We need to change this on all our branding (web site, logos etc. etc.).

Recruitment

The exec. committee must come up with a plan for good recruitment of players via open days and other means, for next season. All agreed that this was a priority.

Mens team for nationals

The exec. committee must try hard to make sure that this is properly organized for next season.

Getting news to players

We need to try to find a way to send out news a bit more as captains are failing to pass on news emails (or players are failing to read them!). This will be an item for discussion. We will look into ‘no reply’ or ‘announce’ email lists (but these are difficult to maintain). One option is to see if we can do this via the BSUK web site.

Coaching training

We need to look into the interest for, and viability of, getting a BSUK level 2 coaching course at Oxford.

Announcements

• Deadline for game stats submissions was to be midnight on the day of the meeting, but has now been extended until midnight on Thursday 24 August
• Indoor softball begins on Tuesday 12th September - more details to be announced, but it will take place in the Oxford Community School (top of Glanville Road) gym.
• Scratch games will be played up to 5 September at Oatlands Park, beginning at 6.30pm. Come along - but don't be late!!
• Deadline for ticket sales for the End of Season Bash was extended to Tuesday 29th August. If we have not sold 45 tickets by then, the event will be cancelled. (We're not too far off, though - but please buy your tickets right now!!)

Very urgent things for the Exec. committee

• Purchase trophies for awards
• Select awards

• Liaise with BSUK - need to send a rep. to the league heads forum or BSUK AGM.