Minutes of the LMC Annual General Meeting at Spinney Hill WMC on Wednesday 27 May 2009

Present: Alan Jex (Chair), Jim Miller (League Secretary), Terry Adcock, Graham Booley, Ray Burgess, John Dawkins, Walter Dehnen, Peter Gibbs, Peter Harrison, Sean Hewitt, Andy Morley, John Pattinson, and Mike Thornton.

1. Welcome and Apologies

The Chair welcomed members to the meeting.  Apologies had been received from Jim Bingham, Martin Burrows, Larry Hayden, Romilly Ilersic, Cyril and Julie Johnson, and Dave Ricketts.

2. Minutes

The Minutes of the AGM held on 28 May 2008 were agreed, and there were no matters arising other than those appearing later in the agenda.

3. League Constitution

The draft document was summarised, the main changes relating to the number of clubs required to call an EGM (one-third of the number of clubs in membership, compared with six previously), and the inclusion of the Chairman, Secretary and Treasurer of LRCA Ltd as ex officio members of LMC.  It was noted that the LMC Chair had an ordinary vote at AGMs and EGMs and a casting vote in the event of a tie.  After discussion the Draft Constitution was agreed unanimously.

The need for an Adjudications Secretary was questioned as adjudications had more or less disappeared: it was agreed that come what may Iain Dodds should continue as an LMC member (see item 5 below), and that the need for the post was really a matter for LMC.  It was noted that adjudications might still arise if both players participating in a game agreed (in all Divisions), but if necessary the League Secretary could handle the one or two that might arise and pass them to Adjudications Panel members.

4. Report for 2008-9

The League Secretary provided an update to the circulated report on League, League Cup and Summer Cup matters, which was accepted unanimously.  In reply to a question, JM agreed that the player eligibility Rules of the D34 League Cup had been changed or clarified fairly soon after the start of the event in response to a query from a participating club.

5. Election of LMC Officers and Members

It was reported that the League's Officers were willing to stand again for their posts and that no other nominations had been received.  They were thus re-elected unanimously.  It was noted that the membership of LMC would remain the same as in 2008-9, except that Brian Foreman as Grading Officer would be a member in place of Steve Wylie.  The League Secretary asked for it to be noted that he would resign his post at the 2010 AGM, and therefore that the identification of a possible successor was very important.  The Chairman also indicated that the 2009-2010 year might well be his last in office.

6. League Structure for 2009-2010

The League Secretary outlined several measures taken in recent years to offer more playing opportunities to players of all levels, and pointed out that these changes had produced an over-long League season with fixtures problems.  In particular it was not possible to provide a fixture list by which players could readily play for 2 or more teams and in which each team had a regularly-spaced set of fixtures.  The advent of the League Cups had in some cases helped to fill fixture gaps, but in other cases had simply worsened fixture congestion, and there had thus been a number of defaulted matches.  This problem had led to the proposals for 6-team Leagues with 4-member teams that had previously been circulated to clubs.  It was agreed that the complex issues arising could not be decided at the AGM, but that (as last year) a meeting of all League clubs would be called over the following few weeks to allow for a detailed discussion.  Members present felt strongly that the season is indeed too long and congested at present, and that the irregularity of the fixtures for individual teams was the main problem.  To that extent there was support for the idea that regular fixtures, including dedicated slots for League Cup matches, were much more important than the "same week" rule.  On the other hand members expressed several objections to 6-team Divisions, and most felt that there was no need for all teams to be of the same size: in particular, it would not be possible to return to 5-player teams in the lowest divisions.  The Chairman and Secretary agreed to carry the feeling from the very positive discussions forward to a League meeting, where it was hoped that most if not all clubs would be represented.

7. Any Other Business

The League Secretary asked for views on the venue for the Charity evening, probably to be held in the week of 28 September.  It was agreed that he should contact all League clubs asking them if they wished to bid to hold the event; LMC would then make a decision.

8. Date of the Next Meeting

This was provisionally fixed for Thursday 27 May 2010, with the venue to be decided.

JNM – 28 May 2009