Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen Welcome to Welsh Rowing`S AGM 2014/15
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Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen welcome to Welsh Rowing`s AGM 2014/15. It`s very nice to see so many of you here and I am delighted to see that we are quorate. It is also great to see so many young faces and to welcome Bangor in particular I have apologies from Dan Cowton, Kate Evans, Mike Hnatiw, Caroline Pascoe, Stuart Vanstone and Andrew Weeks. For those of you who don`t know us all I`d like to start off by getting the staff and Board to introduce themselves, I`m Heather Brock, Chair Welsh Rowing. We have a very different staff from this time last year and I`d like to start off my Chair`s Report by talking about the High Performance Review that was carried out and which has resulted in a number of the changes. The last time our High Performance Programme was reviewed was around 7 years ago. Encouraged by Sport Wales the Board decided that the time had come to carry out a HP review. This was supported and funded by SW. A number of companies were approached to tender and finally Wharton Consulting were engaged to carry it out. They consulted very widely interviewing a cross section of athletes, coaches, club members, board members and other relevant stakeholders. Their findings recommended a change in the existing structure to encourage a pathway based on partnerships, with athletes being developed within their club environment. There were a number of reasons for their advice not least that it would be likely to develop more home grown talent than hitherto and develop a pathway pyramid with a much wider base. This is not to say that non Welsh students choosing to study in Welsh Universities would be ignored, far from it, but their development will take place within and alongside the university club structure. The new structure will have many advantages amongst them creating and improving the partnership between Welsh Rowing and Clubs and Universities. It is only very recently that we have had a full coaching compliment in place and much of September was spent on talent Id at Freshers Fayres. The new team is developing an embryonic system which needs to be tuned. We are now looking to focus on working to strengthen the partnerships and find the best ways of working together, with the aims of having a thriving and sustainable talent pool in Wales. Because of the performance review the Performance Committee has not really functioned this year, but it will be revived next year. All of this has been done for the long term development of Rowing in Wales and we accept that there has been a degree of pain in grasping the nettle and taking forward Wharton`s recommendations, but with all the financial costs of the review and its implications, having been covered by Sport Wales we would have been remiss as a Board not to take this positive and decisive move forward. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Ian Shore for the efforts he put in during his 7 year tenure as High Performance Coach and also to thank Eleanor Ower our Elite SW liaison officer for her support throughout the process. It has been a busy year, with the Board members, all of whom are volunteers it should be remembered, throwing themselves into their roles and able to get stuff done much as a result of having Helen and Laura in place. I get asked frequently What does the Board do? By answering this question I will cover off quite a bit of what else has happened throughout the year. I`ll start with myself, initially when the Board asked me at short notice to take over from Caroline as Chair, I was quite reluctant but agreed, subject to my re-election to the Board, to undertake the role for a year. In the Spring we underwent a recruitment process for a new Chair. This involved advertising widely and then interviewing applicants. There were only 2. It was unanimously agreed by the interview panel, which included a community representative, that Chris Cox who some of you subsequently met, be nominated for a seat on the Board at the AGM and that he take over as Chair from me. Unfortunately toward the end of July, it became apparent Chris would not be able to undertake the role if elected and consequently the Board asked me to continue for this year. A succession plan for next year will be identified and implemented over the next couple of months A great deal of my time initially, was spent in helping Helen to review systems and processes and set the High Performance Review in train. I would like to congratulate Helen on achieving a Self Assurance green rating within a matter of months of coming on board. I appreciate that to many the nitty gritty of governance is about as appealing as watching paint dry, however it is critical not only to the sound management of the organisation but also to securing future funding from SW, who will never again allow an NGB to take public funds and then go bust. In addition Laura`s efforts in committing the organisation to achieving the preliminary level of the equality standard for sport has enabled us to access £10k of equality and human rights commission funding which is being spent on the This Girl Rows project. This is aimed at getting more women and girls to start rowing. We are working in partnership with 8 clubs inc 2 sea rowing clubs to deliver learn to row courses and linking in to those clubs` pathways Helen and I spent a lot of time on the High Performance Review, it was hoped that Steve Green the Director elected this time last year, with a view to holding the elite performance portfolio, would head this up. However not long after his election to the Board Steve took up the paid role of Performance Director of Judo, based in Manchester. This coupled to the fact that he lives in Shrewsbury meant that logistically it was impossible for him to fulfil the role and it was with regret he resigned. Another big focus of mine initially was to look at how conduits could be built between the committees or working groups and the Board and I have put in place a situation where each committee or working group has at least 1 Board member who can act as the conduit in both directions. This was especially relevant in what I hoped would be the Community Committee. This I admit is a failure. I had hoped that I would get 7 or 8 people from clubs to sit on a committee which would feed into the Board specific areas of interest and then these could be prioritised and assistance given where possible. In addition what the Board and the staff were doing would be communicated back to the Committee and from there back to the Clubs. This I very much hoped would address the annual complaint that the NGB is not transparent and does not communicate enough. I also envisaged that the committee would result in greater collaboration between clubs. I was very disappointed at the apathy towards this with only 2 clubs showing any interest. Consequently the Community Committee has not got off the ground. Later in the forum, I would love to have suggestions on what more we can do to create the conduit that we are constantly being asked for. This leads me into to telling you about what Board Director Andrew Weeks, the Chair of Comms & Marketing and his committee have been doing this year. During Andrew`s time Twitter followers have trebled and are now over 1,000, whilst the Facebook following has doubled. Further efforts at communication have included a monthly news letter going out to the 450 email addresses we have and also posted on the website. The website itself averages 6 articles a month, please do send us anything you would like posting on there. In addition they have developed a range of merchandise and have attended every regatta and head setting up a stall and selling it. It has been a successful venture and there are plans to expand the range. The profit from the sale of the merchandise is ring fenced to support the funding of athletes to HIR. Sadly for us Andrew is leaving us to become Director of Communications at Sport Wales. However, subject to his election later he will be replaced by Owen Hathway, who I am certain will continue Andrew`s work with the same passion and enthusiasm. Thank you Andrew for all you have done. Owen`s focus apart from continuing Andrew`s great work will be to coordinate and increase our press coverage across all media. He will also have a tie up with Nick Hartland who will produce copy. On the wider subject of communication, as a board we have tried to be far more visible in the community, I have personally attended every regatta except Llandaff, only missed due to the birth of a litter of puppies and WR staff and volunteers have also been present either helping or with a WR merchandise stand at every regatta and head. Over the next 12 months we would like to hold the board meetings out in the community and as part of that would like to offer the opportunity for each club to tell us how you would like us to support you in ways that we are not currently.