TEESSIDE
FENCING CLUB AGM MINUTES 28th October 2011
The meeting was held at Paul Maxwell’s
house and was well attended.
Present. Paul
Maxwell Chairman
Steve
O’Neil Club
Captain
Simon
Freer
Simon
Bushaway Welfare
Officer
Dan
Mellor Membership
Secretary
Chris
Taylor General
Factotum
Mike
Raw Armorer
Graham
Hill Health
and Safety officer.
Dominic
Hill Schools
promotion
Ben
Atkinson Schools
promotion
Apologies from Ian
Braithwaite and David Briggs.
Paul Maxwell opened the meeting and the
agenda was started with a run down of the clubs financial position.
Club bank balance £3692. (NOW ££4351 as of 11/11/11)
A picture of the last 3 months showed that
the Skelton venue gross profit was £386 and Acklam £66. The estimate for the next 3 months to
Christmas was income from subs would be £1050, and rent for the period would be
£1170. This is a loss over the
period however we will have no problems with continuing to run.
This gives the club the potential to spend
about £3000
Club Development:
Much discussion related to how the club
should develop. It was agreed that
we needed to encourage more participation in competitive fencing, but also
enable social fencers to not feel alienated. It was suggested that a separate training session could be
set up. This would be focused on
fitness, speed and skill training and sparing. This could be held perhaps at a smaller venue and on a
Saturday/Sunday. Steve and
Paul will look into how this can be achieved and the interest generally.
The club sessions will remain as they do,
with focus on teaching, sparing, and free fencing.
The club will encourage and support members
to regional competitions. We agreed that the Monkton competitions were a great
starting point and should continue to be the entry point to start competitive
fencing. However the emphasis on
BF sanctioned events such as the Leon Paul junior series and regional events
should be the next focus for both juniors and seniors. We agreed that running our own
invitation competition would bridge the gap between Monkton type competitions
and BF events. Paul and Steve will
look into a potential format such as a team event for this.
Venue
The Acklam venue costs £72, quite expensive
for what we are getting. The
floors are both dirty with food spillage and hard rendering fencers to be more
prone to injury. While our
constitution states that we should attempt to stay at a venue and not change
night, it was agreed by the majority to investigate the possibilities of a
move. There are already meetings
being set up at Teesside University, and an offer is on the table from
Southlands Centre. Chris is going
to enquire into the possibility of Schools and other venues. Once we have a few possible venues we
should consider having a Committee meeting to make a majority desision.
Publicity
David Briggs has volunteered to be our publicity
officer.
There is no doubt we need more
membership. Paul made the point
that the big publicity events in the last year (Mela, Guisborough Picnic in the
Park, and Eston sports day) have produced no recruits.
Various alternative ideas were put forward.
- To consider the website
design. It was felt that the
website was ok, but continue to tweak it.
- Update and increase our
facebook profile. David Briggs
previously agreed to do this.
Perhaps all club members should contribute to it in any way they want. Paul has already contacted Tim who may
have the passwords to administer it.
So lets all contribute to it.
- The release of the 3 musketeers
was considered. By doing a demo on
Cini-world steps and possibly getting an advert on screen. We could also all go to the film in
full fencing kit. While we
have missed the premiere however it is still popular film and could be attended. Paul will contact the managers to see
what possibilities are there.
- Other possibilities are through
council schemes such as health initiatives and grass roots. Paul will look into
this.
- Public demo, such as a display
in the town centre. This could
happen with the Olympic events proposed next year. Can we do anything else? We considered that taster events might not be worth doing,
as we have not had any members join through this form of publicity. Ian while not present said that the
hospital might be able to hold a demo in the main area of the hospital.
- Ben and Dominic develop schools
links and publicity in the school.
Equipment:
The club is well equipped with both
training, and electric equipment.
However the electric foils and body wires are suffering from unintended
abuse and/or overuse. There were
various suggestions as to how we could avoid this. Such as doing nothing and just
dealing with repairs, to lending scheme.
Mike has kindly volunteered to be club
armorer so hopefully repairs will be quicker and more robust.
Club foils are also fatigued so we
discussed the merits in replacing blades with higher quality blades. The point
being was there a cost advantage of having higher quality blades that lasted
longer, or stick to the current blades.
We agreed that we would stick to the current quality but trial 2 better
quality blades.
Skelton Venue has a shortage of equipment. Partly
because there has been funding from Middlesbrough Council and therefore is ring
fenced for Acklam use. It was
generally agreed more funds are to be directed to Skelton, where there had been
a higher contribution by subs to the club coffers.
A budget of £2500 has been set for
equipment
Requests were put in for the following
equipment:
Epee scoring / training aid
Foil scoring / training aid Search
for
Replacement blades 10
Target pads Free
(Paul will get some made)
Target practice pads (possibly
electronic)
Body Wires 5+
Spare parts. Various
Welfare:
Simon Bushaway is our new welfare
officer. Previously some work as
been done on this area. The
results of which are now on the club website. Paul Maxwell highlighted the point that all committee
members should familiarize themselves with our policies so that should we have
a disclosure you know what to do. Please look at our website for those
details. The point was also made
about 1st Aid procedures.
These will be more prominently posted on our equipment cages. There is also a new a new club
“club code of conduct” for members to adhere to. These also will be posted on the cages.
It would be a good to get more senior
members to a “Safeguarding and Protecting Children” Course. This would be in line with
recommendations. Enquires are
already out on this. There is a course at Eston LC in mid December
Coaching
Paul highlighted the lack of coaches and
that the club would benefit by having some Level 1 coaches. 4 members have agreed to do this
although we need to check on the age limit with regard to Dominic. Paul will offer some Level 1 lessons to
help build an understanding of what is required. We will look at getting on fast track courses in the near
future.
We hope to be able to offer some club funds
to enable those to do the course for free. If we can get funding this would be
great, so I will look into this.
Course costs (approx
£180 per person)
Level 1s
Safeguarding and protecting children. (Usually
£30 per person)
OTHER
ITEMS
Free subs for 2 weeks for beginners
Ben suggested that we could have a nominal
fee to enable potential new members to come along and have a taster
lesson. This was agreed by
everyone as a good idea provoking some additional ideas. All potential new fencers now can have
2 taster lessons for free. The
idea being to not concentrate on a proper lesson, but to give them a chance to
come and see the club and fencing generally. Plus have a go without a lesson with a few club
members. Members will need to
embrace the idea and make new fencers welcome.
Tracksuits
Simon has had a quote of about £45 for a
rather nice design. Simon will publicize how to order in due course. Make sure you measure your waist, leg
length etc.
I CANNOT REMEMBER THE DETAILS OF THE
FOLLOWING SO LET ME KNOW
More spend on Skelton
Professional coaching… Malcolm Tooley Not
discussed this meeting
Next
Committee meeting.
Jobs Delegated.
Chris Venues
such as schools
Paul Cinema
Managers
Council
publicity
Level
1 coaching…set up some lessons and syllabus.
Level
1 exam and training courses (email enquires sent re funding)
Club
code of conducts and first aid procedures.
Dan Mellor Membership
Secretary
Simon B Safeguarding
and Protecting Children etc courses
David Briggs Facebook. And Big Screen
Ian Hospital
demo
Mike Armourer
supply broken body wires. Arrange
a meeting with Tony
Steve Assess
competitions for juniors. Extra
training sessions
Graham Hill Health
and Safety
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TEESSIDE FENCING CLUB
Committee meeting 08th November 2010
Present: Paul Maxwell
Sue Cole
Chris Taylor
Ian Braithwaite
Marie Hutchinson
Absent Tim
CLUB ACCOUNTS
The total club funds are: £3709.52
Grass routs equipment £658.14 ring fenced for equipment and coaching
There are ring fenced funds £315 (for Middlesbrough residents ½ course fees)
Total £4682.66
There is rent due £1336
Leaving a total balance of £2373 To be finalised
We have taken the decision that TFC should keep a positive balance of £400. This is to keep the club sustainable for 2 months should there be a severe drop in membership fees.
We have funds ring fenced for courses. The issuing bodies have given the club an extension on the time we can spend this money. However it would seem that we are still unable to attract new fencers that would qualify for the funding. We have decided that the remaining money would be offered back, however if they leave us the option to continue holding the funds we would keep them.
Paul Maxwell raised the issue that we need to investigate the use of an accounting package for the club accounts to be recorded in. The committee agreed that we should look at on line packages so that if accountants changed or the committee required, they could log on to the system. Chris Taylor has offered to investigate the possibilities.
BANK ACCOUNT
Paul Maxwell has proposed we change our bank. Currently we seem to be unable to get bank account names changed, and a credit card facility. It would seem that our current bank Nat West are not too interested club accounts. The committee have agreed to switch to a new bank.
FUNDING APPLICATIONS
We questioned if we should continue applying for grants, bearing in mind the time and work involved, and also that the club is virtually sustainable on memberships.
We decided that we would continue with appropriate applications, especially where Skelton was involved.
MEMBERSHIP FEES
Paul Maxwell addressed the issue of a fee change, because it was in a previous constitution that we should review a reduction when we can afford to.
The committee discussed this and it was decided that fees were reasonable in comparison to other clubs. That it was good value with a potential of up to 5 hours fencing for £6.00 for adults.
Proposal is that there be no change in fees.
We have also discussed the collection of fees at Skelton needed to be more apparent.
We are going to start a spreadsheet (list) of names and a tick list so show who has paid and on what dates.
MEMEBERSHIP FORMS: Sue Cole has highlighted the need to check who are members and establish who have not filled in membership forms, especially at Skelton.
We need to also establish members who may have a medical condition that we are unaware of i.e. Asthma. We also need an emergency contact number for each member.
All membership forms will be made available to Chris Taylor to cross check against the members attending. This may be the time to get all members to fill in a new form.
NEW ENQUIRES LIST
Paul Maxwell suggested that we could be loosing potential enquires as we do not have a concise list of enquires, their ages, and their ability etc. New enquires need to be entered onto a list with sub groups i.e. under 10s, under 14s Adults, beginners or previous experience.
We considered that an alteration to the website where these categories would be filed in on line, such as names, addresses, email addresses, telephone numbers etc are taken. Then these would be entered onto our database for future communication.
We propose Tim could alter this if possible.
We need to make sure that the list is maintained for future marketing and communication of upcoming courses and events.
CLUB DEVELOPMENT: Medium to long term strategy
Paul Maxwell raised the issue that while the club has surpassed many of its goals we needed to make plans for the future development of the club. Much emphasis has been to get new members into the club, introducing them to fencing and become regular attendees. These might be called “foundation level” fencers. Many of our fencers now are progressing to “participation level”. This is more competitive fencing within the club, but also starting to venture into regional competitions. We feel that if we do not concentrate on this group they will get stale and potentially stop. We need to address this now to ensure members continue to improve individually setting goals and competing.
The participation level fencer is very important. Our proposals to address this are:
• To structure the sessions more so that there are specific times for training this group.
• The training will be more focused in relation to skills, tactics, speed, co-ordination, fitness, etc etc.
• Buy in extra coaching to target this group.
• Introduce exam levels for members to obtain certificates. I.e. grade 1
• That some of our own members take a coaching role within their capabilities to look after fencers in the foundation level while the other coaches can look after the participation level. This is very much a helping role, where the more experienced can put back a little into the club. One should not forget the benefits of coaching to improve ones own fencing.
• The current coach (Paul Maxwell) will establish the ability/level required for less experienced fencers to take level 1 coaching courses.
• There will be a greater emphasis on encouraging members to enter regional novice and open competitions.
• Forge links with the local universities and colleges.
PERFORMANCE LEVEL…this level is not quite achievable for the club that is so new, however we need to keep this in mind for the future. With the club expanding and becoming more known we may get new but experienced members joining that want to be in this level and so be encouraged to do so. The NE section also has the capabilities to develop fencers with promise through the centre of excellence at Durham.
Performance Level fencing should be addressed in the next year.
COACHING
Paul Maxwell opened discussion on the requirement of bringing in coaches.
The points made we:
• That having only one coach made it difficult to offer everyone something and your time was diluted.
• That more experienced coached would be beneficial to all.
• That while we have funding ring fenced for coaching we need to consider what to do after the funding is used up.
The consensus was that the additional coaching was welcome, that everyone felt that Mr Tooley was an asset to the club, and that we should continue to use him after the funding runs out if the club could afford to do so.
EQUIPMENT
TFC has had massive funding for equipment and that by a large we were now well equipped with training and electric equipment.
We decided that ladies chest protectors were in short supply. These have currently being transported back and forth from Skelton. We decided that we would order 5 chest protectors.
Storage: Cages have been successful in protecting the equipment.
Insurance: The equipment is approximately to the value of £10 to 14 k. We will look at what insurance may be available through British Fencing, Leon Paul and our bank.
There is a combination lock in the Acklam cage. This need to be used and the number given to all club officials and the Acklam management.
The clubs first aid box
VENUES
Skelton De Brus:
Those present felt the venue was good. Access was ok once aware of it.
The main worry is that with the current austerity, whether or not the venue will continue to remain open during school holidays. Paul will investigate this and also has feelers out all ready. We know that Redcar and Cleveland need to show that the centre is being used so hopefully it should be available through the school holidays.
Acklam Acorn Centre:
The recent move to the school dining room has given us cheaper rents, and also enabled us to run a junior class from 7.00 pm.
We all generally felt that this room was inferior to the sports hall because the floor was very hard (un-sprung), and that there has been occasions when the floor has had food and liquid on it. One problem of moving was that the netball club use the facility till 8pm, therefore doing earlier sessions in the hall were not possible. An alternative room for that session might be possible. We agreed that if possible we should go back to the main sports hall. The sports centre manager will be contacted about this.
MARKETING
Website: the website is getting a good hit rate, is being used by the club to inform members of changes, competitions, and news relating to the TFC. We hope to update the enquires section to get people to leave names numbers and age when making enquires. We are going to look at adding more meta-tags to draw more attention to it.
Posters: These have proved good in the past. The task of getting them distributed is very labour intensive. We will issue posters to all members so that they can do their bit to promote the club. We may offer a reward for the most members from a poster. Members must take a more active roll in the club running and promotion.
Universities and Colleges: There have been discussions with Teesside University, and it is clear that they want to develop their own club. We need to make links to the universities and colleges, as this will inevitably be beneficial to the club. By helping them we will benefit too. Ian I believe had offered to look into this from a student union perspective. We agreed that we would help out with “taster” events. No decision was made regarding reduced membership fees for student sports members, however we should review this.
Paul questioned the benefit of fairs and promotional events stating that to his knowledge we have not had a single member from doing them. He believes we should consider each event on its likely benefits to the club in getting members or increasing our profile.
NEW COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Fortunately there are no resignations.
We also are looking foreword to Ian joining the committee.
We also touched on job roles within the committee. The roles are not clearly defined at the moment with cross over of roles. We propose a clear definition of roles for each committee member in the near future.
We desperately need more club officials and volunteers and therefore ask members to consider getting involved with the running of the club. The more that do the easier and less onerous to the few that are doing it now
The meeting was closed at 11.30pm.
OTHER BUSINESS:
The other business not discusses is as follows:
Equipment breakages, and abuse.
Putting equipment away and helping put equipment away neatly.
Club Armourer
Club Volunteers
Review of health and safety forms
T-shirts…Only a suggestion to make money. Paul Maxwell is concerned that putting club money into a stock of T-shirts or hoody tops, will tie up funds if they do not sell. This still could be done by taking an order and pre-payment, or someone putting the money up front and selling on. One Laurence Jackson student mentioned that they had a student business doing hoodies with names etc. I will ask him to lodge our interest.
TEESSIDE FENCING CLUB
AGM MINUTES 17th January 2010
Executive Summary
§ Volunteers are needed to assist with the running of the club evening.
§ Two more committee members are required, so volunteers please.
§ The start time to be changed to 8 pm. (at the Acorn centre)
§ The collection of subscriptions is paramount. Everyone should actively attempt to pay the subs before the session.
§ The bank balance is positive but only just.
§ More structured lessons within club time.
§ We hope to encourage more competitive fencing by:
Organizing an inter-club handicap competition.
Organizing friendly sessions/competitions with other clubs.
Encouraging members to regional competitions.
§ Review the value of continuing at Skelton, although now numbers are picking up.
§ There is no change of evening or venue proposed.
Meeting Logisti
Attended:
Paul Maxwell, Chairman
Sue Cole, Secretary
Agenda:
1 Financial Position
2 The Acorn Centre
3 Skelton De Brus Centre
4 Funding Applications
5 Memberships
6 Resignations
7 Club Development
8 Members Proposals
Opening Remarks:
The original meeting had been set for November however it was postponed because very few were able to attend. Due to the lack of numbers we considered this meeting could be postponed however owing to the fact that any other dates were likely to be the same then the meeting all be it with 2 present should go ahead so that the state of the club could be submitted to British Fencing.
1 Financial Position
The clubs financial position as of November 23rd.
Income from subs was £1884.07.
We received three grants, 2 of which represented funding for reduced rate membership for 12 weeks and are limited to Middlesbrough residents.
The other grant was £3472 from Middlesbrough Council to pay for the clubs first equipment. This has now been purchased.
expenditure to date is mostly on hall rental £508, and on club equipment £324.04.
The club has been lucky to have secured vastly reduced rents from our original quotes, thereby remaining secure.
We have to take into account that the easy access fund and community fund have boosted our balance and cannot be spent until we have the appropriate fencers allocated it. So far there are 5 out of 10 juniors proportioned to the community easy access fund, so this is worth £137, and only one adult for the community chest fund worth £30. Total £167. Since the report there will be more outstanding rent to pay. And there are some more subs to be entered.
Suffice to say the club is only just remaining in the black, and that it is imperative that we stringently collect subs.
SUMMARY
The club has managed to keep a positive balance over the period. We have had luck in reduced rental, and we have to consider that the community Chest and Easy access grants have not been spent and account for £1086 of our funds. The outstanding rent to date is £180
If we take these grants and savings out of the equation and account for the outstanding rent to date, our real balance would be £4.00 as of 23/11/09.
2 The Acorn Centre
After initial skepticism of its potential success the Acorn centre has achieved more than expected and seems to be the main focus of the club at the moment.
The hours of 8.15 to 10.15 are limiting to younger members however there are no earlier sessions available. In September there will be a new gym/hall that we have been promised. This will hopefully enable the club to start earlier and promote fencing to younger age groups.
3 Skelton De Brus Centre
The Skelton venue conversely has shown a distinct drop in numbers We feel may be due to a number of reasons: -
§ The night has been changed twice, and so alienated some members that are unable to attend different nights.
§ There seems to be less interest in this region, with fewer enquires.
§ Having smaller numbers has therefore created less interest for those that have attended.
As a club we do have to seriously consider continuing at Skelton and consider channeling our efforts into something else.
4 Funding Applications
The club has been relatively successful in acquiring funds. We have been unsuccessful on some of our applications namely the “sports unlimited” funding application. Paul Maxwell and Sue Cole both feel that making applications is very time consuming and in some cases not particularly rewarding all told. However the equipment fund has been extremely successful but also the most needed considering the clubs lack of equipment.
Paul Maxwell feels that in all future applications careful consideration needs to be made of the value of some of the funds against the workload to apply and the follow up audits that have to be maintained to justify the fund. It is not so simple as receiving and then spending it. He also feels that this role could be maintained by one volunteer to accept this role.
5 Memberships
Recently there has been a small increase in membership, however to sustain the club this needs to dramatically increase. It has been noted by the council that they consider our membership fees are high and that the junior fees are disproportionate in comparison to seniors. Paul Maxwell who was at that meeting agreed with this however points out that without these fees the club is not going to survive. It was pointed out that the rental of potentially £60 per night would require 10 members paying £6. Many weeks we are not achieving this. Paul Maxwell however does agree that in the future these fees should be reduced when the club membership fees income surpasses the rent and equipment expenses.
The key is increasing the number of membership.
6 Resignations
Jane Rodgers has resigned as Treasurer.
7 Club Developments
The club development and promotion has been in varied.
§ Website
This we feel is going to be the most productive way of promotion. Tim Sharp recently developed the website and we thank him for that and the anticipated maintenance of it. Any future promotion should direct people to the website.
§ Poster campaign
This was the main form of promotion until the website went live. Posters have been displayed in many fast food outlets and shops in the Teesside and East Cleveland area. All future posters should highlight the website prominently. Sue Cole has been very active in getting the posters out and points out that this is very time consuming. Her proposal is that all members should be encouraged to take and display posters in the more unusual places that Sue and Paul have not been able to get to. The more everyone does it the easier it is.
§ Newspapers.
Over the last year there has been some articles and this does help promote. As a club we need to find ways to gain a story. The last was the equipment funding and we look forward to the anticipated new enquires as a result. It is free too.
§ Displays
There have been a few demonstrations, and taster sessions. This is an avenue to explore more, although there are a number of requests in the pipeline to do taster sessions in schools. If there are going to be any displays we need help and call on all members to find the time to help out at such events.
8 Members Proposals
Paul Maxwell
1/Proposes that much of the clubs work is supported by 2 people. That the club should be looking for volunteers within the ranks to support club duties, such as collecting subs / membership, armoror and equipment, promotion, funding applications. Acorn centre notice board, Child protection. Etc.
We should note that Tim Sharpe seems to have adopted the website master role, and we hope will continue with this.
Sue Cole agreed with this and that for any club to survive we do need the volunteers for various roles. Volunteers should consider what they might be good at, and or find the time for, to help out with club activities. This point should be brought up at the next few sessions to see volunteers. It may be that volunteers can be found outside of the club from volunteer organizations, and sports colleges.
2/ Reform the committee and seek members / parents who would take some of the roles. The club should have at least 4 members on the committee.
We agreed that renewed efforts to inform the membership that volunteers were needed and could they consider a role ether in the club generally or on the committee.
3/ More structured sessions; the sessions would have better value to fencers if there were more lessons and groups were split by ability more; that there should be a proper warm up, then group lessons or training, then free fencing. One problem being the admin at the beginning of the session is taking up a lot of time. Earlier start time for arrival may help to reduce this time.
Agreed.
4/ The committee needs to revise the club constitution as the current constitution is temporary, and not drown up by a full committee / quorum of members.
It was agreed that when the club had at least 4 active committee members the constitution could be revised.
5/ The 8.15 time should be publicized as 8 pm.
Sue Cole agreed that this might help get some of the signing in and fee collection out of the way so that the session can start quickly.
6/ That the club website news/ notice board should be the place all members can look to for announcements. Maybe we need to change the name of the page or add another page. Also we should publicize the page to the membership
Discussion: Agreed. We shall ask Tim to consider amending the website.
Sue Cole
Proposed: - Posters should be distributed by all members, as this is very time consuming and would give a wider spread.
Paul Maxwell agreed that we should distribute posters to all members for them to post up in their schools work place, and neighborhood.
Roy Wharton
Proposed that we look into changing the Tuesday night to another night and or venue as this might be more popular and he would be more able to attend.
Discussion: Paul Maxwell agrees that this is an option, although it has it problems. As he is the only coach and is tied up Wed and Thursday then we would be only left with Monday and Friday. Mondays are ok although bank holidays and personal holidays cause problems. Friday night has potential although a lot of people see Friday as a wind down for the weekend and go out or away. He does not see Friday as an option at all for these reasons. Finding alternative venues is possible although from experience this has been very difficult. Skelton currently have reduced their charge to just £10 per night making it sustainable in the short term but also very hard to beat on price. If anyone can beat this price for size bring it to our attention.