CROYDON TABLE TENNIS LEAGUE
(Affiliated to Table Tennis England and Surrey T.T.A.)
Website: www.croydontt.co.uk
President: John Barker
Hon. Treasurer Chairman/Secretary TT365 Administrator
Simon Fisher Chris Harper Graham Hansen
Minutes of Annual General Meeting
held at Eldon Phab on Wednesday 24th August 2022
Present:
John Barker, President
Chris Harper, Chairman
David Fish Committee member
Roger Nichols Committee member
R. Faulkner – Committee member
G. Jaiswal, Graham Baxter – Sanderstead
I. O’Connor – Sparta
G. Mold, R. Thompson – Forresters
C. Posford, J. Wu, Q. Zhou, D. Coker – Eldon
A. Jermyn – Wickham Park
Apologies for absence:
Graham Hansen
Simon Fisher
Mo Istihikhar
The Chairman welcomed all to the meeting.
He said that this year’s AGM’s minutes won’t be as lengthy as before as we are mostly over the Covid pandemic unless there is another wave but hopefully the majority of players have now been vaccinated.
The committee did an excellent job in getting the season up and running but there were the usual problems with teams being short of players, two culprits being South Croydon A and SDA. He emphasised that it is essential that teams register sufficient players at the outset and not rely too much on players from lower teams.
The Rules require clubs to list their players in ranking order but this is not always the case. An example was Wickham Park E whose team in Div 4 comprised of players who were too strong for that division. A problem arose when Sparta played a player up against them who, not for the first time, won his three games. There were faults on both sides and, as a one off, the League decided to award the division to both Sparta D and Wickham E.
We will be looking closely at registrations for next season to ensure that players are in the correct division for their ability, albeit with discretion in certain circumstances.
The Cup competitions had a slightly lower entry than usual, possibly because of Covid, but because South Croydon could not find any free dates the finals were delayed until mid July, which is frankly ridiculous and unacceptable. One of the strong clubs in the semi final was unable to raise a team, which was hardly surprising. I am therefore proposing that the competitions are played to a final and then the finals are played here at Eldon. Chris Posford indicated his approval to make Eldon available. However, credit has to go to Robin Faulkner, who ran the competitions successfully and on his own after the death of John Mullis.
Ian O’Connor and Jeremy Wu said that they preferred the previous system whereby matches were drawn each round and clubs played either home or away. The finals would be played at Eldon.
This met with approval from the whole floor. The Chairman pointed out that by including at least two cup week in the fixtures it is likely that teams will only be required to play each other twice in the season. This met with general approval and accordingly the League will make the necessary arrangements.
Treasurer’s Report
The Chairman said he would give a report on behalf of Simon.
For the past few years we have banked with HSBC, who gave an appalling service, and they started charging us £1 per month for doing nothing and then they increased this to £5 per month. So to use a phrase in common use at the moment we decided that enough was enough and switched our account to NatWest, who do not make a charge. Simon and I aged about 10 years in the process, which was so complex it would have been easier to keep our funds under the President’s mattress.
Nevertheless, we achieved it in the end and everything is running smoothly. You will have noted that we currently have £1655 in out account, which is healthy, although that has been reduced by £600 or so for the trophies.
We have kept our affiliation fee at £40 because the Surrey affiliation fee for next season is £20.
TTE/Surrey
The Chairman informed the meeting that Table Tennis England appointed a new Chief Executive, Adrian Christy, to replace Sarah Sutcliffe, who left to join British Badminton, he believed. He had a chat once with Sutcliffe and was quite impressed but the comments on social media after she left were not favourable.
The new Chief Executive promises to do all sorts of wonderful things but we’ll see. Margot Fraser and he joined a virtual EGM, held because a previous board member told a few home truths, was sacked and threatened to take TTE to a Tribunal.
The comments of the non-executive board members were very condescending and they seemed to know little about table tennis at grass roots level. However, at least one of them has since resigned.
Rule Changes
The Chairman said he had received an email from Mike Bunting that morning concerning rules 29 and 30 but had not had time to consider it. The current rules will therefore pertain for next season.
Election of League Officials
The Chairman said that he asks at every AGM if there are any nominations to join the committee and everyone looks at their feet. The majority of the present committee are now in their 70s or 80s and if there was a sudden loud bang we would be wiped out. It is essential that we have some new blood if the League is to keep going. I had a tentative enquiry from another league about possibly amalgamating and that is the way things are going.
So please think about it and see if there is anyone in your clubs who would be willing to join us. Ideally it would be someone who has recently retired who has a few hours to spare. If you come up with someone, please contact me at my email address.
The election of the current committee was proposed by Chris Posford, seconded by Ian O’Connor and approved by all.
Any other Business
There was no substantial business to discuss.
Presentation of trophies
The President awarded trophies to:
Division 1 Winners – Eldon A
Division 1 Runners Up – Sparta A
Division 2 Winners – Sanderstead
Division 2 Runners Up – Sparta B
Division 3 Winners – Forresters
Division 3 Runners Up – Sparta C
Division 4 Winners – Sparta D and Wickham Park E
John Mullis Open Cup Winners – Sparta A
John Mullis Open Cup Runners Up – Sparta B
John Mullis Handicap Cup Winners – South Croydon A
John Mullis Handicap Cup Runners Up – Sparta D
Open Cup Plate Winners – Sparta C
