MINUTES OF THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF THE NOTTINGHAMSHIRE ORIENTEERING CLUB HELD ON TUESDAY 6th NOVEMBER 2001 at 7.45pm AT Rushcliffe Leisure Centre, Boundary Road, West Bridgford, NOTTINGHAM

MEMBERS PRESENT

Tony Donaldson John Dalton John Palmer Hilary Palmer
Pauline Olivant David Olivant Tony Buckland Janet Evans
Paul Beverley Helen O'Neil Ray Barnes Michael Napier
Mick Lucking Steve Hodkinson Bert Bradshaw Jad Dziadosz
Keith Streb
Juniors members present but not entitled to vote: Jennifer Beverley, Alison O'Neil

1. APOLOGIES

Apologies were received from the following members:
Alan Gould Jim Clarke Ros Bourne Peter Bourne
Mike O'Neil Catherine Hughes Bob Alderson Steve Wright (sen)
Gill Hatfield Bob Hatfield John Woodall Hilary Hodkinson

2. MINUTES OF THE 2000 AGM

The minutes of the 2000 AGM were accepted.

3. MATTERS ARISING FROM THE MINUTES

None arose

4. CHAIRMAN'S REPORT (Tony Donaldson)

Thank you for coming along tonight. This will be brief I promise.

It has been a difficult year for orienteering as the foot and mouth outbreak has severely curtailed the orienteering programme for this year with most of the major events due to be held after February this year cancelled or postponed. This has resulted in a loss of revenue for many clubs who will be obliged to redouble their efforts over the following years to make up the shortfall. It's not all gloom and doom however as despite the difficulties this year NOC have managed to host some 14 events comprising badge, short races, colour coded and summer league events all of which have been generally well attended. This has maintained interest in the sport over the past few months and hopefully avoided too many people giving up the sport for good.

The next year promises to be a busy one as we and many other clubs attempt to host plenty of events that were postponed from this year as well as newly programmed events.

I've decided to make this brief in the respect that my time is now up and I'd like to therefore thank everyone who has assisted me over the last few years. As some of you may know, I became Chair of the Club without previous experience on the committee although this has not been a serious handicap due to the huge amount of knowledge and input into the running of the club from all the members of the committee. The job of Chair is made relatively easy by having a good committee.

Membership Secretary's Report (Helen O'Neil)

Current membership is static at at 263 individuals and 2 group members (this does not include juniors who are members of NOC by attending Notts Schools who belong to BSOA).

50 members did not renew in 2001

This is composed of 13 juniors, 12 adults, 8 families (constituted of 16 seniors and 9 juniors)

but we gained 50 new members (6 families, 12 seniors and 6 juniors)

I sent out 36 enquiry replies in 2000/2001

It is worth noting that although our membership numbers have remained steady in the past 12 months, we suffered a loss in membership of approx 90 since 1996 when club membership stood at 365. This refelects the national trend with BOF membership.

Team Manager's Report (Catherine Hughes)

The Foot and Mouth epidemic has meant that the usual team manager tasks have been largely irrelevant this year as none of the major team events have taken place. Nevertheless, the response to the early request for runners the initial Compassport cup round and the JK relays was very encouraging and demonstrates that we remain a club keen on winning team as well as individual tropies. The only remaining event of this year is the rearranged Compassport cup final to be held at Eccleshall Woods in Sheffield this Sunday. Thanks to all the people who have agreed to run for the club.

This brings to an end my time as Team Manager and I would like to thank all the people within the Club who have assisted and offered advice during my time in this position. Mick Lucking will be taking over the role of Team Manager and I wish him every success over the coming seasons.

Fixtures Secretary Report (Ray Barnes)

For comparison 

In the year November 1999-2000 NOC held
One   level 2 event   (BSSC00)
Four  level 4 events (C4 x 3, O4 x 1)
Fourteen level 5 events (C5 x 3, O5 x 8, N5 x 1, R5 x 1, X5 x 1) totalling 19 events


In the year November 2000-2001 NOC held
One Level 3 event   (C3  Badge)
Five level  4 events  (C4 )
Fifteen level 5 events (O5 x 2, N5 x 1, and C5 x 12) total 21 events

F&M denied us two C4's, a Summer League, The Little John Relays and perhaps a Night event.
Instead we've learnt how to put on a new format of little event on Saturday or Sunday mornings which has been very popular with the recreational and schools side of our members and non-members.
So all in all I think we're stronger and the F&M didn't damage. I think we should SMILE more often.
Next year's programme will be back to normal - but should the Summer League be run on Saturdays and Sundays in June and July I muse?

Mapping Report (David Olivant)

Just to note that we used Laser printing for the recent small scale events held at Bulwell Hall Park and the University of Nottingham, using Simon Elliott's laser printer. This has enabled us to make small events cost effective. I would like to thank Simon. This seems to be the way forward for small events in small areas in order to make them ecenomically viable.

Junior Rep's report (Jennifer Beverley)

There is a new Junior NOC website which I have created and is linked to the NOC website, which has NOC junior news and pictures.

We held a junior's social event in February during halfterm when we went bowling nad followed up with a pizza which was much enjoyed by those juniors attending.

The juniors have again had a very successful this year, having again won the Peter Palmer Relays (for the 4th year consecutively), and the Yvette Baker Trophy (for the 3rd time). The Harvester junior Relay trophy was unfortunately not contested this year as the event was cancelled due to Foot and Mouth.

Individual juniors have again been very successful with many individual NOC juniors selected for the GB Start squad, Summer tours, Interland, and the Junior Home Internationals.

Alison O'Neil is going to take over as junior rep for the next 12 months

(A thankyou to Jennifer from the Chair, who commented that she had been a superb junior rep during her year in office)

Coaching Report (Hilary Palmer)

Unfortunately due to Foot and Mouth the National coaching day in which NOC had planned to participate was cancelled due to Foot and Mouth. However 10 of our NOC juniors have been selected for various training camps, and out of those 9 have been selecetd for the World Class Start programme. We also have juniors who have been selected for the GB squad and to represent the Home countries at International level (we have club juniors selected to represent both England and Wales).

There is ongoing junior and Schools development work by both Hilary Palmer and Pauline Olivant and this is beginning to bear fruit. Orienteering was included in the Nottinghamshire Youth Games for the first time this year. After a series of District competitions the Nottinghamshire County final was held at Berry Hill this year on 22nd June 2001. We are hoping to again have orienteering included for 2002.

5. TREASURER'S REPORT (John Dalton)

The treasurer presented the accounts and his report which included a graph of Reserves and event income from 1993 to 2001.
The club made a small profit for the year of £260.
There was a discussion about the level of reserves in the Club accounts, which includes approximately £4500 in the Permanent Courses fund. There was discussion about the status of this fund, which was started originally with Sports council funding. The monies could be used for other orienteering development work but should not be absorbed into the club's general reserves.
Thanks to Steve Wright (senior) for auditing the accounts, which were accepted by the meeting.
Permanent O Courses
The sale of permanent course maps is a major source of income for the club. There are issues around responsibility for ongoing maintenance of the permanent courses and whether this is the responsibility of the Club, the County council, District councils or the Parks themselves. Tony Buckland is now the club coordinator for the permanent courses and is the point of contact for enquiries about permanent course maps. He is in the process of checking the state of repair of the permanent courses.
Black and Green (Editor Keith Streb)
Keith had invited members to receive their copies of Black and Green electronically. This would result in considerable savings for the Club (in printing, paper and postage) Approximately 20 people had responded to agree to an electronic copy of Black and Green.

6. ELECTION OF AUDITOR for 2001-2002

This was left to be decided.

7. MEMBERSHIP FEES FOR 2001

It was agreed to be zero for 2001.

8. ELECTION OF OFFICERS

As all posts had a single nominee they were accepted without a vote. The committee for 2001 is:
ChairHelen O'Neil
SecretaryPosition vacant
TreasurerJohn Dalton
Coaching Co-ordinatorHilary Palmer
Mapping Co-ordinatorDavid Olivant
EMOA RepPauline Olivant
Fixtures SecretaryRay Barnes
Team ManagerMick Lucking
There were no nominations for life members
Tony Donaldson now handed over to Helen O'Neil to chair the remainder of the meeting.

9. PLANS FOR THE NEW YEAR (Incoming Chairman Helen O'Neil)

As incoming Chairman I would like to say how much we as a family have got out of the club. We joined NOC around 7 yrs ago, when Alison and Sarah were aged 8 and 9. We were introduced to orienteering when we encountered permanent orienteering courses on family holidays and subsequently through Alison and Sarah attending ''Go for Gold'' courses run by Hilary Palmer and Pauline Olivant. The whole family has gained an enormous amount from being members of NOC and through our orienteering. After 2 years as Club secretary I have agreed to accept the nomination to be Chair as a means of putting something back into the Club.

The challenge facing the club is to maintain and if possible increase our membership base. The future must lie with attracting new members and particularly juniors coming into the Sport, and Hilary and Pauline's schools and development work is particularly important here, as are the Club SMILE events, particularly in the aftermath of the Foot and Mouth outbreak.

We have the 2001 British Schools championships coming up in November at Sherwood Pines, which will require input from many club members, and then next year we are hosting the Peter Palmer Relays which again will be a major undertaking for the club.

The new Helper groups have been successful in many ways, although there are ongoing issues around recruiting members to help at events.

I look forward to the coming year and the challenge we face now that Foot and Mouth is over and we can 'get back to business' with a full diary of events.

We as a club are intending to continue as before to a great extent although we will be trying to improve on a couple of areas.

10. ANY OTHER BUSINESS

Club membership fee The Treasurer (John Dalton) presented a proposal that NOC should introduce a Club membership fee. The Club finances have been precariously balanced over the past few years and the accounts have been kept in balance largely due to permanent course map sales. These are predicted to be much lower for the next 2 or 3 years. John presented the case that NOC needs to earn an additional £1000 approximately per annum to top up its present event income. The level of Club membership fee envisaged to start with would be around an additional £5 per junior and £10 per senior. (This would be additional to the BOF subscription). There was general debate about this, with discussion about the level of Club membership fee, which would still be less than for many other Sports clubs. There was a feeling within the meeting that NOC should continue to give financial support to its Juniors, that the summer league events should continue to be free, and that it would be unrealistic to increase event entry fees significantly above those charged by other Midlands clubs.
John proposed that this membership fee should be introduced for 2003, with the level of fee to be decided at the 2002 AGM.
This was agreed (11 votes for, 3 against, 2 abstentions)

Code of Ethics and Conduct. This document was presented to the meeting by Ray Barnes. There was debate about the pros and cons of NOC adopting the Code of Ethics document. Although the general principles were supported, it was thought that such a docment duplicated existing BOF guidance, and might be off-putting to new members. The meeting agreed that NOC supported the current BOF policies on financial regulation and child protection, and the Coaching Foundation Coaches code of conduct, and that members were bound by these by virtue of being members of BOF or by being BOF accredited coaches. The meeting decided against adopting the document.

Helper Groups There was discussion about the new Helper groups which started this year. There was mixed feeling about whether these had been successful. Chris Horsewill has agreed to take over co-ordinating one of the Helper groups and Janet Evans is looking for a successor to co-ordinate Registration group.

Club Kit A new volunteer is needed to take over from Gill Hatfield to be responsible for selling the Club kit

The meeting closed at 9.30 p.m..