The delayed 42nd Annual General Meeting took place on Monday 7th March 2022. Below are the minutes of that meeting.

Saturday 21 May 2022

42nd Annual General Meeting

To be held on Zoom, on Monday 7th March 2022 commencing at 7pm.

PRESENT:

Stoolball England Officers: Mr Kelvin Speirs (Chairman, Rules and Umpires), Mrs Anita Broad (Vice-Chair, Research and Education), Mrs Wendy Heal (Secretary), Mrs Genevieve Gordon Thomson (Governance and Legal), Mr Richard Emsley (Membership and DBS), Sophie Dunn (Minute Secretary and Youth Ambassador Sussex), Meg James (Youth Ambassador West Kent), Gwyn Griffith

Life Members: No Life members

Leagues, Associations and Clubs Represented

Surrey Ladies Stoolball Association: Gwyn Griffith, Mo Zeiher

Mid Division (SCSA): Kelvin Spiers, Sophie Dunn

Sussex County Umpires Association: Kelvin Speirs

North Division (SCSA): Anita Broad, Wendy Heal

Chanctonbury: Sally Booker, Geoff Laker

West Division (SCSA): Melissa Mantle

West Kent: Meg James

Sussex County Stoolball Association:

Lewes and Mid Sussex Mixed League:, Rick Mason

Vice Presidents:

  1. Chairman’s Welcome:

Welcome

  1. Apologies for absence:

Georgie Harrison (Treasurer), Lynda Mullins (Welfare), Mrs Kay Price (President), Pauline Hurley (Mid Sussex) and Karen Speirs (Mid Sussex), Gill Hemsley (North Division)

  1. Minutes of the 41st Annual General Meeting (AGM):

The minutes of the 2020 meeting signed and agreed Sophie Dunn signed on behalf of Kelvin Speirs.

  1. Matters arising from those minutes:

  1. Chairman’s Report:

Kelvin presented his report, please see appendix 1.

Rick Mason clarified that for the Lewes and Mid Sussex mixed league was friendlies.

  1. Treasurer’s Report:

Georgie Harrison unable to attend, she has sent across the audited accounts and the end of year Treasurer’s report

Please see appendix 2 – treasurers audited accounts and the End of year report.

Accounts agreed.

  1. Election of Officers:

Positions

Existing Post Holder

President

Kay Price - Proposed: Anita Broad Seconder: Genevieve Gordon.

Chairman

Kelvin Speirs – Not standing for re-election

Gwyn Griffith – Proposed: Kelvin Speirs Seconder: Richard Emsley

Vice Chairman

Anita Broad - Proposed: Sally Booker Seconder: Meg James

Hon. Secretary

Vacant

Minutes Secretary

Sophie Dunn - Proposed: Anita Broad Seconder: Mo Zeiher

Hon. Treasurer

Georgie Harrison – Proposed: Rick Mason Seconder: Meg James

Press and Publicity Officer/ Social Media

Vacant

Interested party: Claire Forely

Officers

Genevieve Gordon **

Sophie Dunn

Megan James

Lynda Mullins – Not Standing for re election

Richard Emsley

Gwyn Griffith

Wendy Heal

Laura Day – Youth Ambassador for Surrey Proposed Kelvin Speirs and Seconder Mo Zeiher

Gwyn Griffith as new Chairperson would like it to be noted that thanks is given to Kelvin Speirs to steadying the ship.

Wendy Heal has agreed to continue doing the secretarial role that she is currently doing until such a time comes that someone comes forward.

Lynda Mullins not standing for re-election however Genevieve Gordon has offered to take on this responsibility.

Richard Emsley is going to continue with DBS.

** Denotes Proposal and Seconder en bloc – proposal: Sophie Dunn Seconder: Mo Zeiher

  1. Election of Vice-Presidents:

Proposal: Wendy Heal and Seconder: Meg James

Gwyn Griffith nominated Kelvin Speirs: Unanimous

  1. Election of Life Members:

Proposer and Seconder no nominations

  1. Appointment of Independent Examiner:

Gallaways Accounting

Proposed:

Awaiting approval from Georgie Harrison to be discussed further.

  1. Open Forum

Stoolball England items to be covered:

  1. Coaching Programme

Anita Broad has reported that the coaching programme has now finished we now have 9 maybe 10 coaches. The second half of the funding was no longer available due to Sport England using this money for Covid Return to Play funding. Phase 2 is now on hold until we can find further funding. We have 1 coach in Horsham Sports Services, who will be running a Horsham Primary Schools tournament. 2 coaches in Mid Sussex Active who will organise all sports for Mid Sussex Primary Schools. 2 coaches in Active Hastings and another in Dorset training university coaching PE staff. Jude Turner in Surrey, Anita, Becci Allen and Alli Yaafe in Sussex. One coach in Worcester is a school sports provider. There is a lot of interest about stoolball in primary schools an approach has been made by the primary school in Lindfield to take part in a weeklong sports festival. The Sussex School Games is not going to be happening in the same way this year, sports finals are being held in various places, but there will be Stoolball Leaders sessions and a stoolball tournament for the North Wealden secondary schools, to be held at Beacon in Crowborough. Weald and Downland Museum are having Sussex day and would like for Stoolball England to host a session where primary school children can attend.

The Uckfield Walking stoolball group will be starting up again in May.

Junior clubs. Anita has lots of session plans available for junior stoolball and offers to help clubs get set up.

Gwyn Griffith welcomed Geoff Laker.

  1. Stoolball England Matches

Unfortunately, Stoolball England matches were unable to be played during the 2021 season due to the lack of divisional and county Stoolball being played. Hopefully they will return in 2023. We hope to maintain the 2nd and 4th Week in July.

Melissa Mantle provided information on Sussex County’s divisional games – 1 day for the divisional final - 3rd 4th Play off as well – 26th June

Championship to take the same format

Condensed seaford and plumpton into one tournament 1st or 2nd weekend in August

Expo – 14th August

Anita – Stoolball England games may not be possible this year however we could do something collectively to support stoolball heritage.

  1. Insurance

Invites have gone out to the 80 clubs who took it out last year.

Money is being sent to Georgie

Sally Booker requested that the Website be updated with the price of insurance

Gwyn Griffith mentioned that Georgie’s address may be changing the correct address should be on it due to Georgie drafting the form.

DBS checks – the same cost per person. DBS all done online and is only for 3 years. There isn’t an expiry date on the DBS check however we like to have them updated every three years.

Sally Booker – asked the question How many players would you recommend having the DBS check?

Gwyn Griffith – As many as possible so that there is one at the games. Anyone who is responsible for U16’s.

Geoff Laker – requested that the website needs updating that CRB needs to be changed to DBS

  1. Young Players

Anita mentioned getting young players involved and getting them involved through coaching. We need clubs to be encouraging young players so that they can progress have an exit route for a club to join. A format needs to be laid out so that counties and clubs can have access and the need to start up.

Kelvin Speirs young players continuing to play in adult stoolball, should be aware of the rules surrounding the young players needs to be of constant focus. And action will be taken against people that do not follow the rules. Over 11’s can play. Restrictions are in place for the different age groups.

Melissa Mantle – raised a matter of interest, that west and coastal wanted to know about insurance cover for indoor stoolball. The leisure Centre insurance cover says that anyone of any age would have been covered by their insurance.

Kelvin Speirs – A lot of public liability insurance stops at 80, however the leisure centre.insurance allows for any age. Kelvin to ask Karen Speirs to check about the insurance.

  1. Rules Review

We would normally have had a rules review in September/ October 2021 however due to covid it has been very difficult. Rule changes are very minor and may be considered moving online. It has been agreed to play a full season of stoolball and then rules review after the season.

F. The role of Stoolball England as a National Governing Body

Gwyn sent a lot of points of what Stoolball England does as a National Governing body and the role it has.

Genevieve Gordon – The whole theme of the governing body is to provide four key functions – to control and regulate the sport, to administer the practices and the participation, to be able to positively influence and support members.

Coaching support

Support of athletes and concept of development of a pathway

The organisation and hosting of competitions

Governance framework that is specific to the sport it is governing

Intrinsic – rules and governance – equality, safeguarding, anti-doping, inclusion

Promote the sport – not only to this sport but to other sporting organisations.

Having a strategy and vision – national, regional and local points within that plan.

The theory is that the governing body has an awful lot to do, in practice we can say that we can tick off a lot of these points however it is something to be had of a timely conversation post covid.

The positives of Stoolball England are sometimes forgotten, we are in a very unique position where the governing body are approachable and participatory, where there is transparency, where clubs can participate and access the committee directly.

The work of a governing body will go unnoticed due to it not directly impacting players. You cannot make a governing body without the support of clubs, divisions, leagues and counties.

Kelvin Speirs – We need to have the buy in from the clubs, counties and divisions to support our vision.

Gwyn Griffith – More support from clubs, county and divisions is required to be able to move forward as a governing body. There is not enough of us on the ground and there are vacancies. We are a minority sport we are closer to the playing members, rather than being aloof and we need to involve them more.

Anita Broad – To get the buy in and get ideas from others to be able to support the growth of teams, clubs and players. Having the support from everyone else, what can we all do to get people involved.

Melissa Mantle – There is a real mismatch between teams and Stoolball England that there is an element of people missing information, due to a lack of communication.

Hierarchal system and its all a bit quirky

Better lines of communication to explain why we are doing things such as England matches - we have got to show pathways for the progression of our players.

Kelvin Speirs – There are different anomalies in the communication structure and there may be a different way round it.

It is important to receive the feedback for a two-way communication between the players and the committee

AOB

Mellissa Mantle – Collate a list of stoolball equipment for the clubs and then delivered by Genevieve or can be collected from her place. And then distributed further. Another point raised was that we could be investing in the indoor league as it keeps clubs together.

Kelvin Speirs – If there is a central place that someone can access equipment as a central location and could be really useful for someone to have this access in West.

Anita Broad – Thank you to Rick for setting up a new Mixed indoor league.

It may be a good idea to invest in indoor stoolball as a committee.

Mo Zeiher – Surrey raised putting results on the Stoolball England website. There is no security and where does the committee stand on GDPR. Genevieve answered the question, you can confirm that they do not want.

Individuals can choose to not have their information on the website.

Privacy policy in the footer of the website

Encouraging the putting on of results, we can show that clubs are playing and where they are playing.

We take these matters seriously.

Richard Emsley – GDPR I wouldn’t want one person to stop the whole team to putting the results on the website.

Gwyn Griffth – Stoolball has been through a very rough couple of years due to covid. We need to consolidate and reestablish stoolball as we know it. Stoolball England need all the support and involvement we can get, and this is down to everyone including the committee and to wish you all the best for the coming season.

Sally Booker – Disappointed with the response from the clubs and county divisions. It may make the committee feel depleted.

Mo Zeiher – Surrey will offer as much support to Gwyn and admiration of her and will be extremely supportive of the committee in future ventures.

Meeting Closed: 20:35