Minutes of officers’ meeting on Monday 21 May 2007

Officers of the National Stoolball Association (NSA) met at 53 Kings Road, Horsham on Monday 21 May 2007 at 7.30pm.

Present

• John Price (Chairman)
• Kay Price (Secretary)
• Peter Cheesman (Treasurer)
• Michael Ledwich
• Kevin Hilliard

The chairman welcomed everyone to the meeting.

Apologies:

• Shirley Reed (Vice-Chairman)
• Richard Emsley (Insurance)
• John Fitzpatrick (Umpires)
• Barbara Fitzpatrick (Marketing)

Minutes of the last officers’ meeting on 30 April 2007

The minutes were signed and approved as a true record.

Matters arising from the last meeting

Umpires’ Forum

There were 20 delegates at the Umpires’ Forum on 13 May and in his absence, a report received from John Fitzpatrick was read out to the meeting.  In it, John expressed his disappointment at the low attendance despite widespread advertising of the event and the fact that due to inclement weather there was no stoolball being played. He gave thanks to Kelvin Speirs, John Price and Kay Price for their support on the day.

It was agreed that the points raised at the meeting should be circulated to those who attended the forum and to league secretaries affiliated to the NSA for onward transmission. The secretary said that she had received very positive feedback from everyone at the forum and all felt it was an excellent meeting. Our thanks go to John and Barbara for organising the day.

Sponsorship

The chairman reported that despite approaches which had been made to Barclays Bank in Horsham and to Tesco Head Office during the last month, no responses had been received.

Club registrations

A large number of registrations had been received prior to the start of the season and efforts will now be made to contact those clubs whose details are still needed.

Action: NSA and club secretaries

Newsletters

Since the last meeting, the latest edition of the newsletter has been produced by Shirley Reed and circulated. Again our thanks to Shirley for producing this issue.

Tour de France

Chiddingstone Causeway Stoolball Club have written an excellent report on their website about their trip to Roujan in France. The hospitality was first class and the stoolball was very entertaining and they have taken a number of pictures which are on the Causeway website. Congratulations to Causeway for taking the initiative and they are pleased to report that they have been invited to go back there next year.

Correspondence

• Central Council of Physical Recreation (CCPR): daily newsletters covering sporting activities lifted from the newspapers
• ICIS: information details held on stoolball in the ICIS directory have been updated and returned to their centre in Littlehampton
• Email message from a Seaford parent with a 14 year old daughter and friend who play stoolball at school and would like to play regularly and competitively with a club. Their nearest junior club is in Ringmer so this information has been passed on to her
• We have received an email from Larry McCray at Massachusetts Institute of Technology asking about the early history of stoolball. Through games like cricket, baseball and stoolball, he is attempting to assemble a single chronology of events that reveal the history of what he classes as “safe haven” games. He is coming over to England on a business trip during June and, at the same time, he hopes to learn more about the history of our game.

Financial report

The treasurer, Peter Cheesman, presented the latest statement of accounts which showed that the NSA had had an active month with a surplus of £1,821.  He reported that he needed to send reminders to a number of affiliation associations and leagues whose fees for 2007-8 were outstanding. To date North Division (SCSA) and the Wessex Friendly Group had paid their fees.

It was noted that he had already received invoices for insurance premiums for this season and the invoice for a new supply of small and large scorebooks had been received.

Action: Peter Cheesman

Club Mark Accreditation

Since the last meeting, Kevin Hilliard has made a number of changes to the Club Mark documentation and had forwarded it to Maureen Croxford, who is a member of Stedham Stoolball Club, a club in West Division, SCSA and also a School Ofsted Examiner for South-East England.

She had a number of comments to make about the medical questionnaire relating to first aid, car journeys and photographing young players. It was agreed that the wording needed to be carefully put together.

It was agreed that once Kevin has finalised the draft document, a copy should be sent to the 15 affiliated associations/leagues and friendly groups, as well as to the relevant County Sports Partnerships and the CCPR for comment.

Insurance officer

Richard Emsley has received a further £1,303.50 in premiums and we will get the final numbers of clubs taking out public liability insurance and personal accident insurance from him before the next meeting.

Action: Richard Emsley

Website report

In her absence, Barbara Fitzpatrick forwarded the latest website statistics from Google Analytics which showed that there had been a total of 1,925 visits to our website during the period 17 April to 17 May. Of these, 1,716 visits were from Europe, 165 from the Americas, 26 from Oceania (Australia and New Zealand), 9 from Asia and 9 from Africa.

Michael Ledwich reported that the Surrey fixtures were now on the website and the Kent and West Division fixtures will be added shortly. After a short discussion, it was agreed that the officers would meet with Rick Mason in June to talk specifically about the website and what we still need to do to help Rick with the administration of the site. John Price will contact Rick to arrange a convenient date – subsequently agreed as Monday 25 June.

Rick Mason has received a small video clip about stoolball from Peter Carter for review and he is happy with the quality. However, as the clip only contains ladies/girls playing stoolball, Rick has quite rightly asked Peter for some mixed footage to give a better reflection of everyone playing the game. He also had a few comments to make about the background music and, because the clip ends with a blank screen, Rick has suggested that it would be better to end with some sort of NSA promo and/or the words “Play Stoolball” followed by the website address.

He has some very good ideas of how to improve the clip and this will be discussed in more detail at the meeting we are arranging with him. Barbara Fitzpatrick also had some good suggestions which we can talk about at this meeting.

Marketing report

Barbara Fitzpatrick forwarded notes on her progress since the last meeting and these were read out.

Cork Display boards: These could be useful to pin up latest news items and be on display at tournaments during the summer. However, cork boards are not popular these days so perhaps we will need to find alternatives.

Action: all NSA officers

Lashings:Â No apparent leads into anything other than cricket, however, there is a corporate match with NatWest Bank at East Grinstead and Barbara will look into this.

Logo:Â An idea for a logo, featuring a wicket, bat and ball, was circulated and Barbara’s list of pros and cons discussed. Barbara is still working on this.

It was also agreed that Michael Ledwich would correct the prices on the website of the “Let’s Play Stoolball” DVD (£19.00 and £20.50 including postage and packaging) and the new Coaching DVD, which is £23.50 and £24.95 including postage and packaging.

Action: Michael Ledwich

Equipment/local agents

So far, this season there have been good sales of bats reported and we will need to order some more Gray-Nicolls heavier bats and some more Newbery bats. There have been a few instances of stitching coming undone with the balls and these are being replaced and returned to the NSA secretary.

Press coverage

• BBC Southern Counties Radio: The NSA were approached to find two people to represent stoolball in their Battle of Sussex quiz game – one from West Sussex and the other from East Sussex. One the day John Price represented West Sussex and Toni Wheatley represented East Sussex. In a short pre-quiz interview, they both spoke about themselves and the game for a few moments and later answered six questions each, one about stoolball and the remainder were general knowledge questions.  West Sussex lost the day as John had to bow to Toni’s superior general knowledge.
• Radio 2 – Chris Evans: The NSA was approached by Jonny Saunders via email asking if someone would take part in a live chat on the phone with he and Chris Evans on 11 May at 6.45pm.  Apparently, they had received a text from a listener who was off to play the game and they were interested to know what it was all about. As a seasoned radio performer by now, John volunteered to take part and learned that, in actual fact, Jonny Saunders had played the game as a young boy at a school in Eastbourne, so did know something about stoolball. It was an interesting interview and afterwards we sent an email to them thanking them for the opportunity to take part and talk about our game.
• It is good to report that the Brighton-published Evening Argus is advertising some of the Central and Mid Division SCSA fixtures each week on a Monday and the results are appearing in the Saturday Sport edition.

Action:Â all leagues for more publicity

Coaching DVD update

The coaching DVD is being well received and local schools are showing an interest. It was interesting to learn from Peter Carter and his wife Caroline (Coaching Solutions) that they recently attended a rounders conference in Hampshire where one of the topics discussed was bowling technique. Peter and Caroline were able to point them in the direction of our recently produced DVD where the different types of underarm bowling are well demonstrated.  A copy of our DVD was sent to the group running the conference.

American Baseball League visit to Sussex

We have received further details of their itinerary and their accommodation for the Sussex part of the trip has been booked.

Any other business

• Michael Ledwich has asked if he can have items of stoolball equipment so that a stall can be manned at Surrey’s tournament at Alfold in June.
• As a result of the Umpires’ Forum, Kay Price asked Michael Ledwich (as rules co-ordinator) to make a note of two items which can be discussed when the rules are reviewed in 2008, ie local rules and obstacles on the field of play, and secondly, more explicit information about an umpire’s role in the event of rain. John Price also asked whether it was appropriate that the NSA should carry a stock of umpires’ coats. This will be considered.

There being no further business to discuss, the meeting closed at 10.35pm.

Date of next meeting:Â Officers’ meeting at 53 Kings Road, Horsham on Monday 25 June 2007 commencing at 7.30pm.

Kay Price, 31 May 2007

Tags: meetings