Committee Meeting Minutes 09/11/2006

Wimbledon Ancient Golf Society
Minutes of Meeting of the Committee at the Rose & Crown, Wimbledon
Thursday November 9th 2006

Present Gerry Robinson (GR) (Chairman), Rhod James (RJ), Chris Bunning (CB), John Stembridge (JS), Mike Beament (MB), Richard Latham (RL), Gerry McGuffie (GM), Steve Stoner (SS)

1. Minutes of last Meeting
The Minutes of the meeting on 24th August, and that of the AGM on 27th September were produced and approved. There were no specific points arising from either set of Minutes

2. Finance
CB reported in relation to the current financial position. Society funds currently amount to Ł13,666. Of this, Ł1,996 is in current account and Ł11,670 is on deposit.
The Ł13,666 figure is divided between

Members' funds of Ł2,057 (of which Ł496 is the hole in one fund).
Ł5,937 represents net Spain deposits (after taking in account what we have paid to Blue Bay Golf Holidays)
There is then a Society balance of Ł5,672, of which Ł4,000 is currently allocated to the Spanish Tour fund.

There was a discussion about membership fees. It was agreed to increase these to Ł80 for the 2007 season. There will be 8 "home" (i.e. non-tour) fixtures in 2007. Allowing for the usual Ł10 deposit per fixture, payable in advance, the 2007 subs will therefore be Ł160 (i.e. Ł80 plus Ł80), for a member with no credit carried forward in his account. For those with a credit balance, the usual arrangement will apply in that the credit balance will be offset against the Ł160 figure.
There was some debate as to whether to increase the joining fee for new members, which is currently Ł10. It was agreed for the moment to leave this as it is.

3. Fixtures
RL outlined the fixture list for 2007 which is as follows:-

March - West Byfleet (now renamed the Trinnick Trinket to replace the Phillips Pholly).
April - Spanish Tour - 25th to 29th of the month
May - back to Lingfield, which will be on a Wednesday
June - Worplesdon (the Dearden Decanter)
July - Seaford Head
August - Richmond (in the new format which will be 18 holes followed by a "large lunch"). It was also suggested that lunch should be followed by a (drunken) putting competition.
September - Cornwall tour. This is currently booked for the first weekend of Cornwall. Various Committee members suggested this date would be difficult. RL will explore the possibility of moving the tour back to the following weekend, of the 14th.
Also in September will be the AGM event, this year at Wimbledon Park.
October - Bushey Hall
November - Pine Ridge

RL explained there will be a December Turkey Trot. This will be a Burhill. SS and MB have already put in one team with Simon Johnson and a guest. Anyone else wanting to enter a team should contact SS. The event is on Friday 8th December. (note added later: TT was subsequently found to be fully booked)

4. Handicaps
The debate about handicaps which started at the AGM was continued. It was recognised, again, that there are many different ways of doing a handicap system. It was agreed that MB, GM and Fred Berring (as Captain) would review the whole issue of Society handicaps prior to next season and come back to the Committee with a recommendation. MB will still in addition carry out the one off pre-season review to ensure that we think everyone is starting the year on a realistic handicap.
The Committee was reminded of the decision taken at the AGM, that a new member cannot win the VL in his first year as a member. By way of clarification, the Committee agreed that this should mean the first full calendar year of membership.

5. Other Committee Business
GM reported no changes to the membership, which therefore still stands at 42 UK members, 10 overseas members and 8 junior members. The figure of 42 includes the newest arrivals in Eric Warburton and John Upton-Prowse.
SS reported about merchandise. The 2007 item will be another shirt. There will also be hat upgrades as appropriate together with new hats for juniors.
There was some preliminary discussion about what the merchandise would be for the Spanish Tour. RJ said no decision had been made as yet. It was agreed in principle however that we could make the item of merchandise for 2007 a Spanish Tour shirt, which everyone would then receive, even if not actually on the tour.

RDFJ
12.11.2006