Annual General Meeting 2019

Lytham St. Annes Chess Club

Notes of the Annual General Meeting held on 29th August 2019

Present: John Cooper (Chairman), John Regan (Treasurer), John Cox (Secretary), Darren Pickering,Simon Dale, Rob Gallagher, Keith Sansom, Colin Wilks, Graham Taylor, Dave Aspinall,Bob Tinton, Pat Coleman, Phil Raynor, Dennis Davies, Peter Wilson

Apologies: Apology for absence was received from Paul Evans

Minutes of Last AGM on 30th August 2018

The Minutes of the meeting were accepted.

Action 1 - John Cooper has provided a copy of the report from Bill O'Rourke explaining the arbitration decision in the dispute over the Ineligible player that Preston fielded. The report will be available from John Cox on request.

Action 2 - John Cooper reported that a cheque for £250 had been given to Booths to contribute to the Blue Skies Charity.

Action 3 - John Regan has sent copies of his original press reports to the Club Librarian.

Action 4 - Pat Coleman was asked to continue as Captain of the 3rd Team in the absence of any volunteers and duly did so.

Action 5 - John Cooper confirmed that the Club would continue to select teams in the same League Division on the basis of tiered strengths.

Action 6 - Roy Ellames proposal for a graded Club Rapidplay (30 minutes) Competition had been agreed but nobody had taken it up.

Action 7 - John Regan had procured a Player of the Year Trophy and had it engraved/

Chairman's Report

Our success as a club depends to a very large extent on the availability of our excellent venue here at Booths in St Annes, which must be the envy of other clubs. We have now completed our 3rd full season here and our relationship with Booths remains very good but we have had a few issues to resolve. First was the insistence by Booths that we had to clear the premises by their 10 pm closing- time. To accommodate this, home matches both here and at Poulton have had to be scheduled in the fixture list as starting at 6.50 pm. This is pretty early for some people but it has caused no major problems and will be maintained in the foreseeable future. The second issue has been financial. Booths have never actually charged us for the use of the café but nevertheless made it clear that they expected us to make a contribution to a charity of their choice, currently Blue Skies which supports the provision of equipment for Blackpool Victoria Hospital. At our last AGM we decided to offer to pay Booths a lump sum of £250, the equivalent of £10 for each evening when there was a match. A cheque for this amount was paid to Booths for Blue Skies on 22 October. We had already asked Booths to supply us with coffee, hot water for tea, milk and cups and mugs on match evenings and they continue to make these available, although we can also obtain coffee free of charge from the machine on production of a Booths loyalty card and reusable mug. We will need to budget for a similar lump sum payment for the coming season. The 3rd issue crucially relates to the availability of our venue on Thursday evenings. Booths new Store Manager, Simon Pickering, phoned me unexpectedly last March saying that wanted to start a Wine club in the café on Thursday evenings and to move us onto Mondays to accommodate this! Having expressed our dismay and strong opposition to Simon’s plans, we were given an ultimatum and this has resulted in the present regime where we lose the 3rd Thursday in the month and meet on the preceding Monday. This change was not introduced until after the League season ended in May and has been manageable in the summer months but will have an important bearing on our fixtures next season. The club has continued to meet during the summer as usual, thanks largely to the Summer Tournament run by John Regan. Our membership has continued to thrive and John has been active in promoting this by welcoming newcomers and arranging games for them and trying to retain them. This is important because we will be losing some of our established members next season. My thanks go to John Cox for his excellent secretarial work and maintenance of the club website. Hearty congratulations must go to Phil Raynor and his Lytham 2 team in winning Division B despite a strong challenge from Morecambe I am sorry to have to report that, because of pressure of work, Paul Evans will not be able to run the Club Championship next season. He has served us well for many years with his unique brand of enthusiasm and good humour when reporting on games, a hard act to follow, and has maintained his hold on the title of club champion which he won outright last year after sharing first place with Roy Ellames. Last, but in no way least, I must thank and congratulate Roy for his success as first team captain in retaining our share of the League title which we had won jointly with Preston 1 last season. Roy was able to assemble the strongest team this club has ever produced and to share the title once again, this time with Preston 2, after the closest of finishes.

Secretary's Report:

Confirmation has been received from Malcolm Peacock that he can manage to arrange home fixtures to avoid the third week in the month when we have to move to Monday night. He pointed out that this may cause a congestion of matches for our Club, requiring two teams to play on the same night. A discussion at the meeting agreed that we did not want to hold League natches on the Monday night meetings.
The website has been kept reasonably up to date but there is an ongoing problem with the Members' Details page where the password is blocked on Microsoft Word and on Android devices.

Treasurer's Report:

This report is based on the period 1st August 2018 to 10th August 2019.

We began the year with £1168.74p in the bank and £61.44p in the cash tin. We ended the year with £1245.74 om the bank and £73.40 in cash

Income includes the monthly £5.00 donation from Dennis Lane up to the end of July.

John went on to describe in detail his system for managing the cash and bank accounts. The account records are available from John Regan or John Cox if you would like to see them.

He continued: "While there is a healthy balance in the bank, I would propose that we keep the £20.00 membership fee for the coming year. I do so because of a number of factors:-

a) We have lost 6 members from last year (£120.00), reducing our membership down from 27 to 21. Hopefully we will engage other new members and Peter Martin will be/has been registered already as No. 1/2020.

b) Booths manager is in a mind to charge us £10.00 per evening in future. This date is not yet confirmed but clearly a full year charge would be in the order of £520.00, which would wipe out our membership fees.

c) Upgrading equipment.

d) Currently I do not charge the club for the engraving of the Summer trophy."

Following the presentation of the report, there was a discussion. John's proposal to maintain the fees at £20 was not opposed and it was agreed to use the reserves if necessary.
John Cooper suggested that the Club should invest in some new electronic clocks. This was generally supported. Bob Tinton said that Leyland had recently bought some new clocks and were looking to sell four old ones which are a better standard than our blue ones. Bob is to show one to John Cooper for evaluation.

Librarian's Report (Peter Wilson):

All items continue to be stored indoors marked as the property of LCC.
The spreadsheet is up to date.
I hope in the future the library can be displayed at our home but while this is not possible I am content to store the books for next year.
Of course if anyone else would like a turn I will stand down. Meeting Note: There were no volunteers In response to a question he said that nobody had taken a book out of the library. A full list of books is available through the Club website (lythamchess.org/pages/club-documents.html)

Team Captains' Reports

First Team Report

Roy Ellames has resigned from the Club so John Cooper has reluctantly resumed the Captaincy. He reported that the first team had won the Division A of the League jointly with Preston 2. They achieved 3 wins, 1 draw and 2 losses. Tom Leah won 3 of his four matches.

Second Team Report (Phil Raynor)

The second Team won Division B by one point from Morecambe with 6 wins, 1 draw and 2 losses. The last match of the season against Bispham was crucial and we won by 2.5 - 1.5. Credits go to Dave Aspinal, Bob Tinton, Graham Taylor and Rob Gallagher.

Third Team Report (Pat Coleman):

Lytham 3 had a good season, finishing 2nd. Eight matches were played which resulted in 5 wins, 1 draw and 2 losses. One of the losses was against Lytham 4. I would like to thank all players that contributed to the team's effort, with everyone putting in good performances Third team debuts were given to both Shaun Clarkson and Darren Pickering with each player giving winning performances. John Regan also took 5 points out of 7 and myself 6 out of 8.

Fourth Team Report (Keith Sansom):

The change back to 3 divisions gave the 4th team a better chance to compete. We finished third in Division C with 3 wins, 1 draw and 4 losses and a 7 point total score. We even managed a win against our 3rd team! The overall game scores were 11 wins, 7 draws and 14 losses. Colin Wilkes played in all 8 fixrures and was our best player with 5 wins and 1 draw.

League Challenge Cup (John Cooper):

We lost to a strong Poulton Team by the narrow margin of 3.5 - 4.5 in the opening round.

Club Championship Report (John Cooper for Paul Evans):

Paul Evans again won the trophy with four wins and a draw in his five matches, but this time he shares the trophy with Roy Ellames who managed the same score.

Rapidplay Cup (John Cooper):

My Lytham 1 team only drew with Bispham in the first round and therefore lost on handicap. Pat Coleman’s Lytham 2 team lost 2-6 to Poulton 2 at the same stage. Both teams therefore progressed to the Plate Competition where Lytham 1 enjoyed a convincing 6-2 win against Preston in the first round. Lytham 2 were given a bye into the final and had to play Lytham 1 Lytham 1 won 6½--1½ and, having beaten Lytham 2 in the final of the main event last season, had the consolation of winning the Plate this time

Summer Competition (John Regan):

16 players started in the Summer Tournament but two had to drop out in the course of the Tourmament. Five rounds were completed and Peter Wilson and Dave Aspinall both attained 4.5 points. The winner was decided on the basis of their opponents results and Peter won by 22 - 19.

Election of Officials:

Committee:

Chairman – John Cooper; Treasurer – John Regan and Secretary – John Cox were re-elected unopposed

Team Captains:

1st Team – John Cooper re-assumed the Captaincy of the 1st Team, replacing Roy Ellames who is leaving the district. Dave Aspinall has agreed to serve as Vice-Captain, deputising for John if and when necessary.
2nd Team - Phil Raynor had expressed his willingness to continue in this role and this was accepted.
3rd Team - Pat Coleman agreed to continue as Captain of the 3rd Team, as there no volunteers to take over the role. 4th Team – Keith Sansom also expressed his willingness to continue in this role and this was accepted.

Rapidplay

John Cooper and Pat Coleman will comtinue as 1st and 2nd Team Captains respectively

Challenge Cup

John Cooper will continue as Captain

League AGM

The League AGM is to be held at Preston on Wednesday 4th September. Phil Raynor stated that it had been a much more peaceful year than the previous year. Several changes to the League Officials will take place and all Clubs will be represented on the Committee. The only notable change is that the Accounts Auditor will be replaced by an "Examiner" in line with the current common practice for small clubs. The meeting confirmed that we would enter four teams with a preference that the teams would be in the same divisions as this year. It will also enter two teams in the Rapidplay and one team in the Challenge Cup.

Silver Queen

The Silver Queen competition is proposed to be held at Preston Club on Wednesday 18th September at 7:30pm. Malcolm Peacock will be running the Competition this year.

Presentation of club Trophies

Club Championship - Neither Paul Evans nor Roy Ellames were at the meeting so it could not be presented.
Len Gibbins Cup for services to the Club – John Regan and Dave Aspinall were nominated. John Cox was also nominated but withdrew his nomination. After a close vote, John Regan was presented with the Cup by John Cooper.
Player of the Year – Nominations were received for John Cooper, Bob Tinton, David Aspinall and Dennis Davies. John Cooper withdrew his nomination and a vote was held on the remaining three candidates. The vote was extremely close between all three candidates but Dave Aspinall was elected by one vote. John Cooper presented Dave with the new trophy.

Any other Business

Pat Coleman raised a problem that had arisen in a Division C match between Poulton 2 and Poulton 3. Poulton 3 were unable to field more than 2 players and so defaulted on two boards. This gave Poulton 2 two points before the match started and they won 3 - 1. Fortunately the result did not affect the final League position which Poulton 2 won by 3 points but it raises a question of the League Managemene's view should be if a similar situation arises again. John Cox asked whether the new Championship Manager would change the way in which opponents were selected in the opening round as he was tired of being beaten by Phil Raynor who he inevitably met based on the rigid system based on grading. John Regan agreed to use a eandom selection process.

John Cox
Secretary