At the AGM this year (30th Jan 7:30pm @ Ab.Utd FC) we will also be seeing several Committee members stand down. Last year we had the Secretary Graham Brown and Trophy Curator Terry Downes step away after 38 and 28 years service respectively on the Committee. That caused a near crisis when no-one came forward to take on the responsibilities of running the League and the League nearly folded. An extended AGM was called to allow some volunteers to step forward.
Chairman James Barguss was re-elected to continue another year on the understanding that Reg Couch, newly elected as Vice Chairman could take over in due course.
Paul Stone who keeps the website and social media (facebook/twitter) running took it upon himself with help from Scott Humphries and James Barguss to keep the league running for 2016. Both Paul and Scott are going to step down from the full workload of running the league. John Simmons is also stepping down from the Committee having served for several decades. Keith Clarke who volunteered as Treasurer has also stepped down.
Once again we need to have people with appropriate skills step up and come the aid of the League. Or it will have to fold. It doesn’t run itself.
We have all noticed the reduction in the number of venues/teams that have been taking part in the summer. This is in some parts representative of the number of pubs/venues that have closed but many others have dropped putting a team or two in. Getting venues to get teams together is one thing – having the volunteer effort to run the League at all is another.
This year we had 62 teams and formed a G section for 5 teams. This was a mistake. Of the 5 teams with a 20 week fixture with 4 byes giving 16 complete games no single team entered a complete 16 games. Several teams skipped games.
We had additional players signed on well into the season. Some 67 players – enough for another 6 teams. Why?
We need to strengthen the number of venues/teams that take part in the League and we need to have people with appropriate skills to take on some of the work and a publicity drive January-March to get venues to sign up.
We need:-
Treasurer – preferably an accounting/bookkeeping professional to keep tabs on the income/expenditure – this totals a few transactions a year so no massive workload but preparation of the end of year balance sheet is essential for transparency.
League Secretary – ideally someone who isn’t computer-phobic and has an attention to detail and methodical approach to check team entries and averages. Also on registration night check forms and collect subscriptions. Prepare programmes for presentation night from League and competition results etc (print by self or get printed). Ensure fixture lists and cards are printed and packed for start of season. Deliver or pass on fixture packs to teams.
Dolly Recorder – again a methodical individual who can make sure games are recorded and all cards are present and correct each week. This role also sends in the results to the papers which involves getting the information from the online scoring system (instructions provided).
Competition Secretary – record the competition entries, set venues for each competition fairly, run the venue or nominate an official from the committee, record results to ensure website updated/records kept.
Webmaster – help with setting up the teams/players in the scoring system, run various reports (over 14s) etc and publish on the site for email newsletters. Ensure twitter and facebook feeds are maintained/active as required. Upload photos/videos as needed – finals/pres night.
Website enhancements have been done by the webmaster or by us paying a third party. If anyone knows a web designer that could spend a short amount of time converting our ideas into practice with php and mySQL scripts they would be a godsend.
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