Minutes of the Annual General Meeting held at St Margaret’s Church, Lonsdale Road, Bolton BL1 4PW on Wednesday 8th January 2025 at 7.30pm.

Present: Mr M Pearson (Chairman), Mr R Caswell (Secretary), Mr D Saunders (Treasurer). 15 of the 22 clubs were represented. There were 16 votes available.

Minutes of the last meeting: These had been circulated online, signed as a true record and there were no matters arising.

Chairman’s Remarks: I should like to start by thanking all the club captains and secretaries for their hard work and cooperation. We had a slightly unusual situation in 2024 where nearly all the divisions across all competitions had an odd number of teams, resulting in a team with an open date each week. The rules, designed to achieve fairness, are a little complicated when teams have an open date and tripped a few clubs up but, ultimately, I don’t think any teams’ final positions were affected by being penalised. Apart from this, the season ran smoothly with an average number of cancellations due to poor weather. There were a few minor changes in the number of teams entering our leagues - the Men’s league initially decreased by 1 team, but a further team dropped out during the season leaving the final entry at 56; the Mixed league increased by 1 team to 43; the Ladies league was static at 14 teams; the Junior league started with 18 (up 2) but one team dropped out mid-season.  Finally, the winter league continues to thrive with 36 teams and a waiting list.  
Ellesmere won a tightly contested Men’s league; Markland Hill recorded their first Mixed title for over 30 years; David Lloyd Abitare won the Ladies league, the 4th different winner in the 4 seasons of the competition and Hawkshaw won the Junior League for the first time since 2003. So it is nice to see that the trophies are being spread amongst a variety of clubs.
I should like to thank all those (and there are many) who help to make our annual tournament a big success with a special mention to Andy Taylor chairman of the organising committee and tournament referee.
There were no significant changes on the administration side during 2024 but work is ongoing to computerise more of our procedures in terms of recording player appearances and checking eligibility. When completed, this may have an impact on the online entering of results but should give team captains and league officials better information more easily. We must thank Paul Cashmore who was coopted onto the committee towards the end of 2024 and is leading this project for us.
As always, we are greatly indebted to Roy Caswell for the tremendous amount of time and effort that he devotes to the role of General Secretary and also to David Saunders, in his second year as our treasurer. Hopefully it has been a bit easier this year.

As many of you will be aware, our 3-year sponsorship contract with Dunlop ended this year. Andy Taylor researched other suppliers and found what appeared to be a better offer with Head, but the feedback from clubs in early December was in favour of remaining with Dunlop. We are looking to see if their offer can be improved. Thank you to Andy for his work on this.
I reported at the NOM the sad death in November of one of our long-standing committee members, Bob Broughton. Bob had served on our committee for 25 years right up to the time of his death. Our thoughts are with his family and friends including those at Barrow Bridge and the wider tennis community.
Finally I would like to offer my sincere thanks to all our committee members who give their time freely to the running of your league.

Treasurer’s Report:  We have decreased Assets of £1,060.36 (Prior year increase of £5,894.89 which is largely due to the receipt of the BSF dissolution monies of £6,420.71) we are still waiting on the receipt of the sponsorship money from Dunlop for the last year of £450  so our actual loss would be £610. This is primarily due to increases in insurance (on the trophies mainly) and trophy costs that have not been covered by the registration fees and team entry fees.
Handbook advertising is NIL for the last year as I invoiced in advance in the prior year for the 2024 season so the receipts were included in the 2023 year. If anyone wants to advertise and help support the league it's only £25 for an advert in the handbook.
We have had one club's loan in the year being fully repaid (Lostock) and two new applications which were approved in the year from Markland Hill (£5,000 for new Floodlights) and Walmer (£2,500 to assist in court resurfacing). The league has cash reserves that are available for clubs to apply for improvements (Courts, fencing, flood lights or club house improvements) . You are able to apply for a 0% interest loan repaid over 5 years up to a maximum of £5,000 per club.
Honoraria has increased by £100 as with Mark Pearson also taking on the trophy secretary role over the past two years. We paid this year's Honoraria and last year's wasn't paid as the role was vacant in case someone stepped forward.
I would advise that team entry guarantee fees be increased to be £28 per senior team, £12 per Cecil cup team and £12 per junior team, up from £20, £10 & £8 respectively. This will help cover the increased costs of the trophies (non tournament)
I would also advise that the player registration fee should increase from £3.25 to £3.50 per player to help cover our increasing cost base (insurance).

Guarantee Fees: See above. These were accepted on a vote.

Payment of registration fees: Provisionally this should be Friday 27th April 2025.

Business from the Notice of Motion Meeting: This was carried out.

Election of Officers: The existing officers were re-elected en-bloc with the addition of Beth Holmes as Junior Match Secretary.

Election of Administrative Committee: The existing Committee was re-elected en-bloc with the addition of Julie Holmes and Paul Cashmore.

The meeting closed at 8.15pm.