11 November 2013, 8.00pm
Held at Cheadle Conservative Club
Present: Chairman, Secretary, Veterans’ Match Secretary, Treasurer and delegates
Apologies: Treasurer, Heaton Norris, SW Manchester CC
Absences: Levenshulme, West Heaton, Woodley Sports
The minutes of the previous half yearly meeting (on 22 November 2010) had been circulated to members. They were taken as read and approved.
League management rule 1.9: add at end:
Payments are due within 30 days of the invoice. Late payments will incur a £5 penalty.
Proposed by the secretary
The treasurer was unable to attend, but had initiated this proposal. The majority of clubs pay their accounts promptly, or after a reminder. A few drag their feet, and this causes disproportionate effort in chasing them. The hope was that a modest penalty would concentrate their minds. This year, six clubs would have been penalised (although if the penalty had existed they might have paid sooner).
Fallowfield asked if payments could be made by direct bank transfer. The secretary did not know (we have a building society account), but agreed to find out.
The motion was passed with one vote against.
League rule 3.3(ii): after Potential penalties add The club requesting the rearrangement will be penalised 42 points, whether or not the match is eventually played.
League rule 3.3(iii): add at end The club requesting the rearrangement will be penalised 42 points.
Proposed by the secretary
These two changes had originally been suggested by Ladybridge Park. The secretary explained there was a continuing problem with teams cancelling matches because of a shortage of players. This caused inconvenience, and often disadvantage, to their opponents. The idea was that if a team knew it would lose 42 points, it would prefer to play with two men short.
It was pointed out that a team may have three or more players unavailable, and would then calculate that cancellation was the better option. In general, we did not know of a perfect solution, but thought this one worth a try.
On a vote, the motion was passed with 19 votes for and 15 votes against.
This motion was effectively a repeat of 3.2, and was withdrawn.
Rule 6.4 to be rewritten as follows:
Handicaps to be based on league positions at the end of the previous season. The leading team to be on scratch, with each successive team receiving an additional three points. The winners to be penalised 10 points for the following season. New teams to start on scratch until the first season after they fail to win promotion.
Proposed by the secretary
Discussion was combined with item 3.5.
In rule 7.4, replace 16 with 12 in three places.
Proposed by the secretary
The secretary explained that the aim of the team handicaps was to give all teams a roughly equal chance. The Bob Newlan, and the PCS Cup until a few years ago, were typically won the first division teams. In the PCS the handicap was increased a few years ago from 8 to 16 points per division. This had had the effect of favouring lower division teams. So the PCS proposal was to split the difference. For The Bob Newlan, the idea was to try a more refined approach, which would also increase the handicap difference between the divisions.
If a match was tied, the rule says that there should be a three-man play-off on pro-rata handicaps. Both schemes could produce fractional handicaps in these circumstances. That would mean that a draw was impossible in the play-off. If teams were in doubt, the league official would do the calculation.
It was pointed out that there can be large gap between the teams at the top and bottom of a division. The Bob Newlan proposal addresses this, but the PCS one does not. Friendship proposed that the PCS handicaps be like the proposal for the Bob Newlan, but based on one point per league position. This would produce a range of just over 60 points between the top and bottom teams in the league.
Proposal 3.4 (Bob Newlan) was approved with no votes against.
The amendment to proposal 3.5 (PCS Cup)was approved with no votes against.
The amended proposal was then approved with no votes against.
The chairman presented league and cup trophies and prize money to winning teams and trophies to the average winners.
The secretary reported on the recent AGM of the Cheshire CBA. The council had again proposed to abolish the reduced rate (indirect) membership for clubs based in other counties. This time the abolition was passed, and as things stand all clubs in the league would have to pay £28 (plus a fine if they did not attend the AGM).
The county did not elect a secretary.
It was reported that several clubs that were on the reduced rate had received bills for non-attendance at the AGM. The secretary stated that clubs who had paid the indirect affiliation fee were neither entitled nor required to attend the AGM, and should not pay the fine.
The league Annual General Meeting would be on 27 January 2014.
There was no further business and the meeting closed at 8.45pm.