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Minutes of Meetings - 2006

Committee Meeting - 25th January, 2006

Present

Richard Avery, Steve Porter, Paul Heneghan, Brett Green, Ben Salcedo, Matthew Powell, Errol Ferris.

Agenda

1. Courts

2. England Squash and ERC Gold Charter status

3. Building Works

4. Coaching

5. Teams

6. Tournaments

7. Subs

8. Juniors

9. Social

10. Sponsorship

Courts

The floors are very dusty - mostly as a result of mud from the car park and corridor being brought into the courts on peoples shoes.  The floors on courts 2 and 3 appear to be very stable.  The floor on court 1 is  obviously loose, but does not need to be replaced yet.

Last year, Steve Porter filled in some small holes in the plaster in front walls.

There is little point in pursuing a court maintenance contract at the present stage.
Action: Steve Porter to talk to John Lythe about a maintenance contract when the building work has finished.

Court 2 has a panel missing from the ceiling which has swallowed up a vast number of squash balls.
Action: Steve Porter and Neil Healey will fix this in the near future.

We really need appropriate scaffolding to enable us to carry out these repairs safely.  The alternative of getting the work done by professionals is prohibitively expensive.  It was thought that some of the cost of the scaffolding could be offset by hiring it out to members.  It is also possible that a members would be able to store the scaffolding.
Action: Richard Avery to ask the Exec for permission to buy scaffolding and investigate where it could be stored.

The long-awaited court heaters are going ahead.  Steve Porter has provided a specification (radiant heaters - 9kW for courts 1 and 2, 12kW for court 3) to Johnny Johnson.  It has been confirmed that the new wiring will be capable of supporting the load.  The contract has gone out, and the heaters will be installed near the end of the building work - probably in April sometime.

The gallery floor still needs attention.  Clearly this will have to wait until we have access to the gallery again.  It was thought that the deal we had with a flooring provider had probably expired by now, so it will probably be done using laminate flooring by a work party of the usual volunteers.

England Squash and ERC Gold Charter status

We are still just short of the requirements to fulfil the England Squash Gold Charter.  The two areas we need to concentrate on are coaches (both male and female), and the running of a graded tournament.

Richard Avery has successfully passed his Level 1 coaching qualification.  Paul Heneghan and Richard Avery will take their Level 2 qualification in a few months time.  Brett Green has volunteered to help with the coaching on some Sundays.

Brian Ireland has agreed to carry on the excellent work he has done in connection with England Squash membership.

Action: Richard Avery and Brian Ireland to move this forward in consultation with England Squash.

Building Works

The building works are moving ahead at pace.  They are running pretty close to schedule, and it is expected that they will be almost finished and certainly usable by the time of the rowing regatta.

Richard Avery had no success asking the Exec for a water dispenser.  The squash committee felt quite strongly about it, particularly as it is becoming commonplace in other clubs, and requested that Richard resubmit the request.  An alternative to the supplied-bottles type would be to get a plumbed-in filtered type; it would make sense to sort out the plumbing during the building works.
Action: Richard Avery to resubmit a request for a bottled, or filtered & chilled mains water dispenser.
Action: Brett Green to ask a contact in the industry for information/prices.

Coaching/Training

With Errol's departure coming up, there is a need to maintain number of qualified coaches at the club.

As mentioned above, Richard Avery has successfully passed his Level 1 coaching qualification.  Paul Heneghan and Richard Avery will take their Level 2 qualification in a few months time.  Brett Green has volunteered to help with the coaching on some Sundays.
Action: Richard Avery and Paul Heneghan to apply for the Level 2 course.

Richard Avery was successful in obtaining permission to recruit a level 4 coach (Keir Worth) to run monthly team training sessions.  At the moment they are on Thursdays, but there was a request from some potential attendees to move it to Wednesdays
Action: Richard Avery to poll team players to find out most suitable night.
Action: Brett Green and Ben Salcedo to put pressure on their team members to respond!

The County Community Coaching Scheme is starting up again.  England Squash are making funds available (which need to be supplemented by funds from the clubs) to provide a coach to recruit children from local schools and provide some afternoon introductory sessions for them.
Action: Richard Avery to liase with Alan Purnell.

Teams

For a variety of reasons, the men's first team nearly pulled out of the Worcestershire League half way through the season.  It was felt that this would be detrimental to the league and the club, and therefore a deal was struck that allowed the first team to play all their matches away for the second half of the season.  Those team members that don't require the use of the club sporting facilities can obtain social membership for this year only on the undertaking that they will guarantee to obtain full membership next year.

Two other conditions were imposed on these players.  As social members, they would not be entitled to use the club's sporting facilities except on payment of a guest fee (this is accompanied by a requirement that this facility only be taken up on an infrequent basis).  Additionally, as social members, they would not be entitled to enter the club tournaments.
Action: Richard Avery to draft a letter and send to the relevant players before the weekend.  Players have to sign and return the letter along with their cheque for social membership before they can be selected to play for the club.

Tournaments

We will run a Handicap Tournament as an opening feature when the building works are complete.

The Club Championship will take place over two weekends in November (from the 10th to the 18th).

From the minutes of the last meeting, we intend to run a Vet's Tournament.

There was also some suggestion of running a team tournament.

Subscriptions

Despite the problems we have been having with the first team, it was unanimously agreed that the new sporting subscription model (that gives membership of all sections) was a good one.

Juniors

We are desperately short of U17 players for our Junior County leagues.  There is no quick fix solution - we just have to wait for the players to feed through.  The good news is that by shifting the junior coaching session from Saturday to Sunday, we appear to have picked up quite a few new younger players.

Online Bookings

We will start the online bookings when the building works finish.
Action: Richard Avery to sort out the server, terminal(s) and broadband connection.
Action: Paul Heneghan to write the software.

Social

We weren't feeling particularly social this month!

Sponsorship

This is still ongoing.

Next Meeting

Wed 12th April.

-------------------------
Paul Heneghan
Squash Secretary
28th January 2006