Minutes of the BTTL AGM held at 7.30pm at the Hilton Centre on Thursday 21st June 2019
All clubs were represented apart from Albany, Heaton CC, Polonia Club & St Paul’s Peel.
Minutes of the last meeting: These had been available online and were agreed.
Matters arising: None
Chairman’s Report: It had been a reasonably good season. Although we take complaints seriously which we read and acknowledge, with some people, we seem to get involved in email/text ping-pong. This is time-consuming. Officials are unpaid volunteers and also have lives of their own to lead. If an item is urgent we will convene a meeting or have one online after which a team may appeal to Lancashire if they feel the Committee has not followed the rules.
Treasurer’s Report: Copies had been circulated by email and copies handed out at the meeting. As last year we had made a slight gain.
Normally with player fees for those who do not pay Table Tennis England direct, players pay the General Secretary and he does an immediate BACs transfer to the Table Tennis Account. However, the three for Little Lever on the 30th November should not have been paid by the General Secretary as £48 had been paid directly to the Table Tennis Account on the 3rd September by a Little Lever player. The General Secretary went on to pay them again as if the money had been paid to him. By repaying him the £48 we then have 21 players at £336 on both sides of the income and expenditure. This then makes it correct.
Multicopy were incorrectly invoiced for their half page advert. They didn’t notice and paid it. The General Secretary went round to see them with the aim of doing a bank transfer but they told us to keep it.
Historically, there had been an arrangement where they printed the match cards at a reduced price, in lieu of their advert and so were never charged.
We have now come to the same arrangement with them as we have with Readeys, that they will charge the full amount for the books, match cards and stationary and then knock the price of the advert off at the end, so all is fully accountable.
Two teams by some miracle managed to pay their team fees into Roger Bertrand’s (ex-treasurer) own personal PayPal account. Roger transferred this by BACs less the PayPal fees.
AGM pasties were paid for by attendees on the night, but in the end, the firm donated them due to their own mix-up. This has been put down as refreshments under income.
This year postage was added at 60p to all PayPal transactions to offset PayPal fees.
Rule Proposals: Discussion and voting took place. The two proposals were passed unanimously. A long discussion took place re a request to reform Divisions Two and Three into three eight-team divisions. They would then play each other three times. This was an attempt to make them more competitive. How the divisions are set up has to be invested in the Committee otherwise their hands would be tied and unforeseen circumstances in team application numbers could have unintended consequences. The General Secretary said that he did not think Division Two, which had been shown to be the most competitive of the lot would like the idea. There is also the added complication of back to backing, which is relatively easy for divisions of equal numbers. Division Three had been unusually large this year, but Irlam and Walkden Methodists had now withdrawn. It could be a useful idea for one bottom division if numbers were low.
Table Tennis England Proposal: There had been a proposal to reduce the £16 fee to £9 to compensate for Table Tennis 365 becoming independent requiring a £7 fee. After a long discussion of the pros and cons it was agreed by a substantial majority that we would vote against it.
Election of Officers and Committee: The existing officials were re-elected en-bloc. The existing Committee members were then elected en-bloc.
AOB: The Match Secretary thanked all those who entered their match cards online saving him time to concentrate on the other aspects of the job.
The Chairman gave a vote of thanks to the General Secretary, Match Secretary and Treasurer for all the work done during the season.
The meeting closed at 8.30pm.
Footnote: At the start of the meeting, all outstanding fines were paid and those paid but not recorded as such identified.
