Present:
Paul Beard, Dave Flavell, Paul Healy, James McPhail, Dave Shorter, Ray Steele, John Thorp, Colin Turvill, Mark Turvill, Ian Turvill, Frazer Webb.
Apologies:
Darren Anderson, Rick Britton, Bryan Carter, Martin Cole, John Furness, Nej Hassan, Luke Peters, Tony Peters, Chris Turvill, Nigel Warren.
1. Minutes of the previous meeting on the 17th December 2020 were accepted.
John Thorp proposed, Dave Shorter seconded, carried unanimously.
2. Captain's Report - Dave Shorter:
It was another COVID year, but we fulfilled all the fixtures. I want to give my thanks to Ian for all his tireless work on booking the events and re-booking the postponed fixtures. Also want to give thanks to Frazer for all his work before the events, on the day and after the events. We had a good turnout for most events, and thanks to those who have turned up for today despite the appalling weather. It would be lovely if we can continue the society in a similar vein going forward.
3. Treasurer's Report - Chris Turvill:
Expenditure explained
Website is the 3 year hosting cost – deemed too small & administrative to spread over the 3 years
Other – 200th Event Celebration Shirts
Prepayments – 8 of 11 event deposits already paid for 2022
Creditors – those with funds in the “POT!”
Expected loss in 2021 of £685.37, but with over £1500 in the bank we have enough for all deposits for 2022
We will be trying to get everyone’s POT down to nil as keeping track of all these is a lot of unnecessary extra work
4. Handicap Secretary's Report - Chris Turvill:
Any report and discussion on handicaps was deferred to the Handicap topic in AOB.
5. Fixtures Secretary's Report - Ian Turvill:
We are already seeing the prices steeply rising for the events next year. Negotiations are not proving to be possible. We still have money in the bank to help subsidise some of the costs for some events, but we will inevitably see a price increase for all. We are still planning to play decent courses most of the time as we do now.
An interjected comment by an attendee caused unanimous agreement that even with increases Ian manages to get very good value for money compared to many other societies that attendees have experienced.
Ian continued … All 2022 events are booked except for December 2022. Ian is looking for another good draining course for December, and asked if anyone had any ideas. Sunningdale Ladies was suggested.
6. Election of Officers:
Prior to the AGM the Secretary had confirmed with each officer that everyone was willing to continue in their roles for 2021. This was relayed to the attending members, and they were asked if anyone wished to stand against any officer being re-elected. No one did.
The Secretary then announced that for speed and efficiency he would be asking for a proposer, seconder and vote to elect the whole committee in one rather than individually.
Proposed: Dave Flavell
Seconder: Colin Turvill
Vote: Unanimous.
The 2022 committee is therefore:
Captain:
Dave Shorter.
Vice Captain:
Paul Beard.
Chairman:
Frazer Webb.
Secretary:
Frazer Webb.
Fixture Secretary:
Ian Turvill.
Treasurer:
Chris Turvill.
Handicap Secretary:
Chris Turvill.
Reporter:
John Thorp.
Webmaster:
Frazer Webb.
7. Any Other Business:
A. Order Of Merit extension
Should we extend Order of Merit to include more events and do more than best 5 scores? [We currently do best 5 scores out of 9 OOM events (Mar, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct). Adding November would make 10 events. We could do more than 5 best scores.]
A short discussion was had, but there was no desire for any changes. No proposal was made to make any changes.
B. Skill Prizes
Could we replace one of the skill prizes with a “Best Back Nine” score which gives those who’ve had a crappy start to the round something to fight for?
It was noted that Ian always splits the skill prizes so that there are 2 on the front nine and 2 on the back nine.
No one was willing to make a proposal to change anything so by default there is no change.
C. OOM Winner recognition
OOM Winner should be recognised and celebrated more. It currently feels like an after thought, but is a year long achievement.
As the Captain had presented the 2021 OOM winner with his prize, which had not arrived in time for the October event, this was deemed to be nullified and no discussion was held.
D. OOM Trophy
OOM trophy should be replaced. It’s rather old and tatty now.
There was general consensus that the trophy looked old and tired, and that there was little more room for more name badges. However, there was no offers of donations to replace the old trophy and no conclusion on how to fund a new trophy. It was noted that any new trophy would need all the previous winner names transferred and that a new decent trophy would be in the region of £250 to £300.
It was therefore concluded that we should keep the current one for now, but if any amateur wood worker would be willing to attempt to neaten it up a bit then that would be good. A smaller middle name plaque would allow for more room for names.
Frazer reluctantly volunteered to see what he could do, but it wouldn’t be quick.
E. Are we going to start using the World Handicap System?
Frazer sent out some info on what WHS would have done in 2021 results – please make sure you’ve looked at it prior to this topic being discussed. Also see Appendix B of this agenda which contains the current Handicap rules used by the society as well as a very brief summary of WHS.
As expected this drew a lot of discussion on all the rules currently in place in our Handicap system.
Paul Healy noted that the Motor Trades Golf Society he helps run adopted WHS and it has double the amount of work he has to do on handicaps.
It was noted that our handicap system matches each of us in the society very well, and that this would not be the case if we adopted WHS.
It was pointed out that our handicap system is harder to use outside the society, but as was explained we have a WHS style handicap for all displayed on our Handicaps page which is calculated based on the latest set of society results.
It was stated that our handicaps get cut too quickly, and it is very hard to recover handicap even if you don’t play well.
Frazer pointed out that we used to have an end of year handicap review but that this was dropped at a previous AGM.
The first proposal received was to not adopt WHS and instead review our current system.
Vote: Unanimous.
The second proposal was to drop the requirement for members to play on the lower of club or society handicap (rule E4). As this was hardly ever done it was proposed as being irrelevant.
Vote: carried by majority 8, 2 abstainers
The third proposal was to bring back the end of year handicap reviews. A system to be detailed and acceptance vote to be carried out after the AGM.
Vote: Unanimous
The fourth proposal was to raise the maximum male handicap from 28 to 36.
Vote: Carried by majority of 6 vs 3.
The fifth proposal was to drop the rule about blobs counting towards the total points scored. Unfortunately, no one at the meeting could explain why we do this now and whether this ruling was critical to our handicap system or not. As more information was required before a vote could be carried out, and the Handicap Secretary was not in attendance, the Secretary stated that he would gather the information about this rule and that an online vote would be had once the information had been shared.
An online vote of the attending members will happen post AGM on this specific ruling.
Meeting closed at 5.45pm with Mark Turvill thanking all the committee for their hard work over the year – all agreed with this sentiment.
*** The outstanding item(s) related to Blobs being removed from handicap calculations, and end-of-year handicap adjustment system was voted for online by the AGM attendees on 14th January 2022, carried by majority.
