Present: Messrs. Caswell, Holt, Scowcroft, Scowcroft, Wheeldon, & Mrs Scowcroft
Apologies for absence: Messrs. Bertrand, Berry & Mrs Smart
Minutes of the last meeting: These had been circulated and were agreed.
Matters Arising: Heaton had specially requested that their ‘G’ team be in the lowest division. Irlam Steel had been approached and were very happy to change places.
Correspondence: An email from the secretary of St. Catherine’s C was read which explained the circumstances regarding the fact that the team had been withdrawn. He also requested to be allowed to sign for another team as a reserve. It was decided that under the circumstances this would be allowed as long as the team was at least division 1 standard. However, such an application could not be considered fully until the proposed team was named. In the meantime he would still be assigned to St Catherine’s. It would be left to the Match & General Secretary’s discretion.
General Secretary’s Report: None
Match Secretary’s Report: Matches outstanding; Premier - 4; Div 1 - 3; Div 2 - 4; Div 3 - 4; Div 4 – 0.
The Warburton Cup results were discussed under the new system. There were some good close results and it appeared to be working well at present.
Treasurer’s Report: None
Inter-league Secretary’s Report: The Secretary was absent but it was reported that everything was running well.
Tournament Secretary’s Report: The Individual Championships had a good entry this year with 18 from Div 2 and 20 from Div 4.
Matthew Fields was the surprise winner of Div 2 and Jake Shaw followed up his Closed Championships title by winning the Premier Division.
The disappointing feature of the Championships was the non-appearance of 14 entrants, the majority of who did not notify me beforehand. In Div 2 there should have been 6 groups of 4 but with 6 people missing, leaving some groups with only 2 or 3 players, 2 groups had to be cancelled and 2 five groups formed which resulted in some delay.
Before the AGM perhaps we should consider introducing a rule whereby people who fail to advise the Tournament Secretary that they will not be attending, should be barred from entering the next 2 Tournaments i.e. Closed or Individual? The only downside that I can see to this rule is that Division 4 entries include a large number of juniors who in many cases are probably entered by their coaches, (4 were missing this year), and we don't want to discourage them by refusing entry to a tournament.
AOB: The present web site has had numerous problems and was constantly out of date. The Match Secretary had wished that the web site was run more on the lines of the Bury web site. The Bury web master had agreed to help out and our current web master had agreed to hand over the current site. It was requested that we write to thank the current web master for all he has done in the past and we looked forward to his continued contribution with the spreadsheet system.
Date and venue of next meeting: 7.30pm on Friday 5th February at Ramsbottom Cricket Club