SALFORDS CRICKET CLUB MINUTES OF THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 2020 Wednesday 25th November 2020 – 19:45 held virtually by MS Teams Chairperson – Sanjay Patel (Club Chairman), Minutes – Graeme Steward (Club Secretary) Present Graeme Steward Mohammed Khalid, Venkatesh Kannan Parthasarathy, Sanjay Patel, James Dennison, Stephen Harrington, Rob Isaac, Surendra Machupalli, James Street, Luke Edmonds, Fizul Nadir, Paul Ballam, Julia Roberts, Bob Craddock, Hassan Afzal, Rob Kersey, Tom Hayball, Shail Ram, Vignesh Manikandan, Srirudhran Balasubramanian, John Musk, Ramprabhu Rajasekar, Nishanth Sankaralingam, Liz Timbrell, Aravind Kumaravel, Bruce Tissington, Neil Morris, Sal Nadir (28no. attendees) Apologies M Wood, Scott Latham, Ben Courts The meeting was held virtually, and a recording was taken – a record can be found here. Minutes of The Minutes of the 2019 Annual General Meeting were reviewed and agreed as a true 2019 record of the meeting and signed by the Chairman. Meeting Proposed acceptance by James Street and seconded Stephen Harrington. Secretary Graeme Steward presented a summary of the status of actions from 2019 AGM. Actions not completed will be reviewed by the Committee and prioritised where necessary for 2021. Welfare and The Club has two officially accredited welfare Officers – Sanjay Patel and Sarah Pooley. Health & Safety All safeguarding and DBS checks completed as required. No welfare issues arising. H&S Incidents reported - Injuries – 2no. senior injuries. Head of Cricket (LE) to provide a review and feedback to the Exec Committee. Reflection on COVID – precautions taken in line with ECB guidelines No questions or issues raised in the meeting. Chairman’s Club Chairman – Sanjay Patel Report This is the 7th year the club has been under my Chairmanship and arguably the toughest one for the club, cricket and the world in general with the Covid-19 global pandemic. It was tough knowing what was going to happen or how to approach running the club during the pandemic; it was unchartered territory for us, cricket and sport. Throughout my Chairmanship I have instilled an attitude and spirit of determination, resilience and a drive to succeed against all odds and I believe that has helped the club to plan, adapt and deliver cricket for all. It can only be described as extremely difficult times and it would have been easy to write things off and say lets come again in 2021. I am proud to say we took the positive approach and launched cricket at the club as quickly and safely as possible. What we achieved in a very short season in my opinion is one of the most successful seasons for the club. Firstly, I would like to thank my fellow committee members for their hard work and for continually to improve what we do and it was great to have some new roles join the committee and I would like to thank the various parents that help to make our junior sections such an amazing place. Secondly, my thanks to all the players that have played and those that have supported through umpiring, coaching, scoring and updating play cricket and getting the ground and club house ready for practice and matches (Rob I for rolling, Max for cutting the outfield and Rob B for helping to prepare wickets), albeit in a very different way to how we normally play. I am proud that we were able to secure a 2nd ground (Netherne) its not quite in the village but close enough for our members to play matches. The village of Netherne have been really supportive of the club and long may our partnership continue. • Cricket Teams – I am sure Luke will provide you a detail update on the season but it was great to see that we had all senior teams playing every week and into Sept and we actually playing 2 games into Oct. It was great that we have established a Saturday 3rd team who played a number of matches through the season • Project Phoenix – We have made some good progress which I will report on later on • Finances – It might have been a really difficult year but I am sure James will take us through have we have been able to keep our finance going through the Pandemic and mitigating a shortened season • Junior Section – We continue to make strives on this front, with nearly 100 juniors playing we are heading in the right direction and playing the Junior league this year, but I will give more details in the Junior Section report • President/Club Day/Social – With Covid-19 restrictions we weren’t able to prepare our usual array of social events of President/Club Day but we did hold a successful Curry and Quiz night for Project Phoenix in Feb. I look forward to the coming season and hopefully some return to normality, but only if re-elected and we can continue to deliver for the future generations and do great things here at Salfords CC. Finally, I would like to personally thank Graeme and James for the support last year as sometimes there is a lot going on and both have stepped up at times to help and for Luke to driving forward Senior cricket which is great to see. Sanjay Patel – Salfords CC Chairman Minutes Thanks were for given by the Members for the effort to get cricket on this year. Shail – asked about summer camp 2021. SP explained we’d plan to do it, but will need to wait to see how 2021 pans out. We will seek volunteers to help run it if it does go ahead. Secretary’s Graeme Steward, Club Secretary Report Through the uncertain times of 2020, I can give the Members assurance that the Club continues to be well run by both the Exec Committee and full Committee. During 2020 the Exec Committee has met on a frequent basis, supplemented by the full Committee when appropriate. In total the Exec has met five times and the full Committee four times. The Exec met on 18/2, 25/3, 14/5, 3/6 and 29/9 The Committee met on 26/2, 7/4, 8/7 and 13/10 The year got off to a hugely promising start with the most successful quiz and curry night in the Club’s history, for which we all owe a huge thanks to Liz for arranging and the efforts (including donations of food and time) of Sanjay’s family in providing the catering. The support of the event from our Members, families and friends demonstrated the great foundation which was set to be established for Project Phoenix fundraising. Unfortunately, the onset of COVID-19 from March and the lockdown that followed prevented business as usual. However the Exec Committee, under the strong leadership of Sanjay, closely followed developments of government policy and took direction of both the ECB and Surrey Cricket Board. In response, a COVID-19 plan was drafted reflecting the possible scenarios relating to both cricketing and non-cricketing activity (a copy of this plan will be included in the minutes). This took account of variable start dates and summarised how the Club would adapt as necessary, with the aspiration to return to playing as much cricket as possible asap. Throughout this initial period the Club continued to monitor developments, and ensured our grounds at both Petridge Wood Common and our new second ground at Netherne were maintained and the squares match ready. This ensured that when the government gave the green light for the return of recreational cricket in early July, we were well placed to ‘get the game on’ quickly. Our thanks to the Members who supported the Groundsman and work parties to prepare the ground and Pavilion. Also our thanks to the Members who supported rolling and cutting throughout the season. Despite a need to adapt to COVID-19 social distancing practices, and preventing regular access to the Pavilion for non-essential purposes, the Club successfully ensured that we enjoyed a successful, enjoyable and safe return to both practice and matches. Our thanks to Luke, in his first years as Head of Cricket for establishing well organised practice sessions, all the Captains and Junior Age-Group Managers for leading their teams and it’s important to recognise that despite the restrictions, we experienced record availabilities for both Senior and Junior Age Groups. The introduction of a regular Saturday 3XI and Sunday 2XI bodes well for a successful future, especially with plenty of youth now progressing to the senior ranks. The addition of the 2nd home ground at Netherne is a real sign of the growth of Salfords Cricket Club, and a clear sign of our efforts to meet our objective of being the ‘Cricket Club of choice for Salfords Village and the surrounding area.’ Unfortunately, all the restrictions on group gatherings meant we were unable to enjoy a social scene after the success of the curry and quiz night. We lost the opportunity to build on this with our annual President’s Day in the summer, which has traditionally been out best attended event and biggest fundraiser with the summer draw. However, the spirit amongst the players has remained strong and the banter on our Club WhatsApp feed remains a source of laughter and a sign of the strong friendships that endure whatever the impact of a global pandemic. We look forward with hope to 2021 that we will return to enjoying each other’s company in person and continuing to build on the Salfords spirit as we work towards further strengthening our Club’s foundation and fundraising for Project Phoenix. Behind the scenes, as the Treasurer will detail, the Club remains well run and financially sustainable.