MINUTES OF THE GENERAL MEETING AT OUTOKUMPU ON 11-04-11.

PRESENT
A Phelan, S Granger (Chair) T Bentham (sec) and 59 members.

KEITH STANILAND
A minutes silence was held in honour of our late colleague, Keith Staniland who passed away recently while on vacation in Australia.
The interment will be on Monday, May 9th at 11am at St Pauls Church, Masborough.

APOLOGIES.
Messrs: S Beldan, Beynon, Blackman, Carr, Conway, Gorman, McDonald, Millington, A & P Payling, Sykes & Turnbull.

CHAIRMANS ADDRESS.
The chairman welcomed old and new members. It was good to see so many new faces. He said it was an excellent turn out. In fact a record attendance for any of our meetings.
He congratulated members who had recently passed ACO Level 1.
There were some handbook printers errors in appointments. SP would phone people up as and when to make sure they got to the correct game.
The new Tom Smith is available, copies can be obtained from Alan Farnell.
All umpires must make sure that they have a valid CRB clearance.
No clearance will mean no games unless the CRB people gives permission in the case of admin delays by them.

MINUTES OF FEBRUARY MEETING
The minutes that had already been circulated were proposed as a true record by
T Keyworth & seconded by J Robinson.

MATTERS ARISING
There were no matters arising.

COMMITTEE MATTERS
A full and detailed report was given by AJ Briddock.
League rules had been tidied up with some changes. It was of the utmost importance that umpires familiarised themselves with these changes.
Sponsorship has increased in excess of £12.5K.
There will be changes in the next two years to divisional structure to ensure all divisions bar the bottom will have 12 teams. He announced that Terry Bentham has been appointed as County Performance Officer for umpires. B Exley, T Keyworth and D Ward have attended an assessors course.

APPOINTMENT SECRETARY’S REPORT
All games have two umpires appointed. Some umpires have the odd Saturday without a game but he felt sure they would be given games when people started booking holidays.
It is of the utmost importance that umpires check appointments
thoroughly.

DISCIPLINARY OFFICER
The meeting were told by the new chairman, Richard Tong that he was the first active umpire to serve in the position. He placed on record thanks to the previous chairman, Ian Cotterhill.
He introduced Mick Frith who will be working alongside him and said he would co-opt on a current player if any cases arose.
Umpires must earn the respect of players, be consistent and nip problems in the bud.
Any reports sent to him must be clear, concise and preferably short.
He was hoping clubs would handle matters and serve up acceptable punishments to save cases going to hearings.
He was available to be contacted by phone to offer help and advice.

SECRETARY/ TREASURERS REPORT
The secretary spoke in his role as CEO and league chairman and told umpires that they had been given the powers of 5 penalty runs for bad behaviour. He did not wish to see it used for minor infringements but said umpires were “neshing” out when the penalty ought to have been used. He himself had seen several instances last season. He went on to say umpires were doing themselves, the league and the game no favours adopting this attitude.
If it came to his attention that bad behaviour was still going unreported the guilty umpires would be taken to task by the umpires committee. He was not prepared to see the leagues reputation, built up over the years to be destroyed.

ANY OTHER BUSINESS
The chairman reminded people that in bad cases of physical violence games must be abandoned and the situation reported to the league.
The league education officer, Tony Keyworth did a power point presentation on the law changes.
An ACO Level 1 certificate was presented to Duncan Hague and bails and markers to Messrs Beer, Harrison, Hayes, Mann, Gorman, Raza, Trentham and Iqbal in recognition of passing ACO Level 1.
Certificates will be presented at a later date,

There being no further business the meeting closed at 8-45pm.
TCB 12-04-11