Minutes of the Scottish Swimming Annual General Meeting Saturday 23rd February 2013 Pathfoot Lecture Theatre, Pathfoot Building, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA 1. President’s Address: John Deans extended a warm welcome to the 114th AGM and to the Past Presidents, Life Members, Delegates and Board Members. He gave thanks to Scottish Swimming staff for arranging the AGM and thanked the University of Stirling for the excellent facilities. The President expressed his deepest regret at the passing of former SASA members and asked delegates to stand and observe a minutes silence in the memory of: David Balbirnie Menziehill & Whitehall Swimming & WPC & WP Committee Member Gavin Fulton Inverleith ASC, Treasurer Nancy McGillivray Past President, Donald McGillivray’s wife Donald McGillivray SASA Life Member Bernard Pirie Glenrothes ASC Barbara Robertson Dunfermline ASC & STO Peter Wilson Forres Bluefins and formerly Elgin ASC The President advised that the Attendance and Apologies for Absence had been moved to Item 6 of the Agenda to ensure accuracy of numbers prior to voting. Finally the President introduced his colleagues at the top table – Deborah McGinniss (Finance Manager), Elaine Mackenzie (Director of Services), Maureen Campbell (Chair) and Gina Logan (Vice President); followed by Council Members and Board Directors. 2. Minutes of the Meeting of 25th February 2012: The Minutes were agreed as a true and accurate record of proceedings. Proposed by Blair Prentice, Life Member and seconded by Doris Mair, Life Member. 3. Business from Minutes: None. 4. Correspondence: Correspondence as noted below and listed in the Annual Business Document. Walton Kilgour accepting appointment as the Company’s Independent Accountants Elspeth Black accepting appointment as the Company’s Honorary Legal Advisor Dr Kate Jordan accepting appointment as the Company’s Honorary Medical Advisor 5. Address: 5.1 Address by Company Chairperson; Maureen Campbell thanked everyone for attending and extended her thanks to Peter Bilsborough and the University of Stirling for providing the venue. She spoke of her delight to be here and share with you the successes of 2012 including a look back at the Olympics and Paralympics. She advised that the focus of the presentations would be on partnerships and how we build and work with our partners throughout Scotland. Maureen gave thanks to the volunteers and emphasised how it was important to encourage the future generation of our sport and increase enthusiasm as we look towards the Commonwealth Games, Glasgow in 2014. Maureen spoke briefly on the recent external audit by KPMG which had demonstrated good governance and highlighted our areas of good practice. Before welcoming Forbes Dunlop (CEO) and Sharon MacDonald (Director of Development) Maureen gave thanks to Ashley Howard, Richard Gordon and Doug Campbell who have all recently left the company. She extended her thanks to the staff and to the Board who continue to work hard and make a valuable contribution as we look towards Glasgow 2014. Following each presentation the delegates had the opportunity to ask the presenters questions surrounding their presentations. Elaine Mackenzie (Director of Services) advised that membership numbers remained healthy and had shown a steady increase with Scottish Swimming breaking the 20,000 barrier this year, our RSDMs would continue to work with swim schools and clubs to ensure a pathway into membership. Page 1 of 5 1 - ScottishSwimmingAGM2013_Minutes_FINAL_10Mar2014 She went on to speak about the 61,000 swimmers in Learn to Swim programmes in Scotland and stressed the need to work with this fantastic opportunity to grow our membership. Elaine updated the meeting on the move to a new phase of membership processing for 2013, she advised that Scottish Swimming would look to move the membership to a web based on-line membership system which is the next step up from CMS that clubs currently administer, this will bring us into line with both the ASA and Swim Wales and she highlighted the benefits and detailed the timeline assuring the meeting that the roll-out of the system would be fully supported. Before concluding Elaine presented on an audit that Scottish Swimming had recently went through at the start of February. The audit was carried out by KPMG a group of external auditors appointed on behalf of sportscotland. The audit was detailed and looked at 7 key areas including governance, finance and operational effectiveness. Elaine was delighted to report that Scottish Swimming had received the highest award and benchmarked us against other sports Governing Bodies. In concluding Elaine spoke about the excitement building around Glasgow 2014, the aspiration to make our members proud to be part of Scottish Swimming and the need to work in partnership with clubs and members to benefit our sport. Tom Hartnell (Livingston and Dolphins Swim School) questioned the clarification on the move to online membership and if there will be an opportunity for clubs to be a pilot club. Elaine confirmed that the roll out of online membership will take place during 2013 and a number of clubs will be asked to be a pilot club. Deborah McGinniss (Finance Manager) reported that Scottish Swimming was in a good financial position highlighting significant growth during 2011/12 which saw our Turnover now exceeding £3 million. The key messages from today’s presentation highlighted that we had achieved 4 out of 5 of our financial targets with Membership continuing to show growth in revenue and membership numbers now back at the 20,000 range. Deborah summarised the key investments made during 2012 was to support Athletes and Coaches up to and during the Olympic and Paralympic Games. She also provided an update on the areas of investment to clubs and programmes during 2012 and the investment to support the high performance plans for the next two years leading up to Glasgow 2014. Following on from the success we had at the Olympics and Paralympics Deborah was pleased to announce that Scottish Swimming was awarded the highest amount of funding for a Governing Body from sportscotland. She also confirmed that sportscotland had agreed to support our long term planning by committing to an in-principle funding for the next two years with a view to moving this to a four year period which would be aligned to our next strategic plan. Deborah concluded her presentation by thanking our members and partners for their continued support over the years. Amanda Rigby-Greenhaugh (Education Manager) spoke on the close partnerships formed following the implementation of the UKCC courses in 2007. Approximately 1,000 candidates per year have gone through the UKCC education system and in 2011/12 the income we achieved through this was substantial. Amanda briefly concluded with the new products and opportunities which exist to develop the education team including the openings for UKCC investment. Markus Stitz (Marketing and Development Manager) spoke about the partnerships developed throughout 2012, especially in the areas of social media and with our sponsors. Social media has helped to form great partnerships online with members and the public, which has resulted in an additional £10k funding by sportscotland to develop the social media channels further. Markus also talked about the benefits of social media and provided four specific examples to illustrate these. In the second part of his presentation Markus talked about the improved partnership with Scottish Gas. In 2012 Scottish Swimming and Scottish Gas have worked hard on jointly developing event branding for national events, which resulted in great feedback from Scottish Gas and British Gas. He also explained the on-going engagement of Scottish Gas on a local level with sponsoring the annual awards event, as well as the benefits from national initiatives like the Heroes Tour, which helped to generate media coverage for Scottish Swimming. Helen Murray Life Member asked if the marketing team would be delivering a social media workshop to support clubs and volunteers develop their social media skills. Markus confirmed that a workshop would be possible and the marketing team are currently developing social media Page 2 of 5 1 - ScottishSwimmingAGM2013_Minutes_FINAL_10Mar2014 guidelines. Ally Whike (Director of Performance) gave a review of the successes achieved at London 2012 giving thanks to the many volunteers who all contributed in providing a great and memorable experience of the Games. He continued with an analysis of the Team’s achievements including medals for Michael Jamieson and James Clegg. Ally stated that following London 2012 British Swimming had gone through a review process and have since implemented a new performance team and structure. Also mentioned within Ally’s report were the other Swimming achievements during 2012 and the retirement of Jim “The Swim” Anderson. Finally Ally concluded his report mentioning the great partnerships we have across the Country in particular Edinburgh Leisure and the Institute of Sport who have contributed greatly with coach and swimmer support for our athletes. 5.2 Company’s Annual Report (including reports from National Committees); The President advised the delegates that the National Committee Reports were as read in the Annual Business Document with an Addendum covering the modifications. He asked if any Committee Chair wished the opportunity to update their reports. Russell MacAloney (Water Polo Domestic Co-ordinator) stood in for Ken Fussell (Water Polo National Chair) to give a brief review of the Water Polo achievements including they now have over 550 water polo members across Scotland and Portobello WP Team winning the 2012 British Championships Jane Ogden (Diving National Chair) updated the meeting on Grace Reid winning 3m Springboard competition at the British Gas Diving Championships. Preparations for the FINA/Midea World Diving Series in Edinburgh continue to go well. The recent “Splash” television programme starring Tom Daley had had a positive effect on diving participation. 6. Attendance and Apologies for Absence: Attendance; Club Delegates: 76 – East (25), Midland (13), North (12), West (26).