Minutes of officers’ meeting on Monday 25 June 2007

Officers of the National Stoolball Association (NSA) met at 53 Kings Road, Horsham on Monday 25 June 2007 at 7.30pm.

Present

• John Price (Chairman)
• Shirley Reed (Vice-Chairman)
• Kay Price (Secretary)
• Peter Cheesman (Treasurer)
• Richard Emsley (Insurance)
• Rick Mason (Website)
• Michael Ledwich (Rules)
• Barbara Fitzpatrick (Marketing)
• Kevin Hilliard (Club Accreditation)

The Chairman welcomed everyone to the meeting and gave a update on Rosemary Hobbs (President) who was slowly recovering in the Churchill Hospital, Oxford after a period of serious illness.  He also said that following the financial report, there would be a resume on the recent visit of Major League Baseball to this country, an update on the Club Mark Accreditation Scheme and the remainder of the meeting would be concentrating on the NSA website.

Apologies: John Fitzpatrick (Umpires)

Minutes of the last officers’ meeting on 21 May 2007

The minutes were signed and approved as a true record.

Financial report

Peter Cheesman reported that the finances were in a very healthy state. Despite the very unsettled weather so far this season, equipment sales were encouraging at £5,794 and were slightly in excess of the total reached for the same period ending June 2006.

It was pleasing to note that insurance premiums had already been settled for 2007-8 and the final instalment for the new Coaching DVDs had been paid. Final figures for our Insurance scheme were 105 clubs (public liability) and 63 clubs (personal accident). Cheques for the last few clubs participating were handed to the Treasurer by Richard Emsley, the Insurance Officer, who was congratulated on a successful campaign. There was a net surplus for the period (October 2006 to June 2007) of £2,721.

Loan equipment update: It was also reported that there had been a good response to the NSA loaning out stoolball equipment. Bats, wickets and balls had been loaned to Hurst Green School in East Sussex and Patcham School near Brighton, whilst two sets of wickets had been sent by courier to a school in Penn near Wolverhampton who were running a stoolball tournament as part of a junior sports leadership course.

Approaches to Tesco and Barclays Bank for sponsorship had been unsuccessful, but members of the NSA had visited Chanctonbury League Tournament and had spent a very enjoyable few hours talking to teams and selling equipment.

Major League Baseball – media group visit to Sussex

As previously reported, the purpose of this American group was to film and research the origins of the game of baseball through cricket, bat and trap, rounders and stoolball. The party consisted of producers Sam Marchiano and Daria Debouno, plus two camera crew, Mike Vitti and James Blanch, and a notable American Baseball researcher and author, David Block who, with his wife, was going to holiday in the UK after the visit.

They travelled into Sussex on Tuesday 19 June from Kent and for the next three days had a very busy schedule to follow. Their first date was at Millais Girls School in Horsham where the girls demonstrated the game of rounders. The party were very warmly welcomed by the Head Teacher, Leon Nettley, his deputy, Mike Sutton and the Head of PE, Jackie Morgan. Alan Fergus from the National Rounders Association had travelled down from Sheffield for the occasion and was on hand to talk to the Americans about his game.

A late-comer to the proceedings was Tony Husband and his camera crew from BBC South Today who later showed a two minute clip about the visit to Sussex on the ‘South Today’ programme from their base in Southampton.   Another unexpected, but very welcome, American who came to Millais School was Professor Larry McCray who was visiting Sussex from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and was researching stoolball for a sporting website that he has created back in the US.

After completing their visit to Millais School, the group moved on to a junior baseball club which started up in Horsham about 12 months ago, under their Coach Rob Burnie and ably assisted by Paul Taylor from Horsham Leisure Link.

The research group were astonished at what they saw when they reached the ground at Dutchells Copse, which is one of the pitches used by Roffey Robins Football Club.  Rob and Paul, assisted by the young baseball players and their parents had worked hard to make a favourable impression on the American Baseball party and Sam Marchiano was convinced that they would find nothing better in America, the recognised home of baseball.

On Wednesday morning, 20 June, the American party had intended to film in Horsham, but as a result of the ‘South Today’ programme on baseball and rounders the previous evening, a chance telephone call from a viewer in Rudgwick sent them out to her house to follow up a reference to baseball in 1755.

Their first visit to see the document proved unsuccessful, but a more recent visit at the beginning of July by David Block and his wife (luckily still on holiday in the UK) plus a camera crew, Julian Pooley, from the Records Office in Surrey, and Tony Husband from ‘South Today’ meant that this early date for the mention of baseball being played by William Bray of Shere in Surrey was able to be officially verified. In America, the oldest reference that they have on baseball is dated 1760 and this date has added five years to their history.

In the afternoon the Americans did spend a short time filming Horsham, whilst John and Kay Price spent time going through stoolball archive material with Larry McCray. His purpose was to verify the stoolball references mentioned by W W Grantham in his books on stoolball published in the 1920s and then updated in the early 1930s.  Once that was completed and while the stoolball was taking place at Horsham Cricket Club, Larry spent the remainder of the day at a local office supply shop photocopying all the relevant documents for his research.

On Wednesday evening filming continued at Horsham Cricket Club which is now the home ground of Horsham Trinity Stoolball Club.  Their league game with Angmering Stoolball Club was filmed, and there were interviews with John and Kay Price, Melissa Mantle (Captain of Angmering) and Angela Marshall (Captain of Horsham Trinity). It was a lovely evening and the camera crew passed amongst the spectators getting additional footage.

On Thursday, a rather tired party set off at 7am for Chawton House, near Alton in Hampshire, to film Jane Austen’s room and writing desk etc where she too mentions “baseball” in her book ‘Northanger Abbey’.

The early start had been requested by the Curator of Chawton House so that all filming could be completed before the house was open to the public. It was amusing to find out that their final piece of filming in the UK included a hunt for sheep and cows in “an idyllic country setting”.

They returned to America early on Friday morning after what must have been a thoroughly exhausting trip but well worthwhile.

Club Mark Accreditation Scheme – Risk Assessment, Kevin Hilliard

Kevin began by thanking Peter Cheesman for sending him guidelines for dealing with an accident/incident, a code of conduct for parents/carers, another for club officials and volunteers, and finally one for spectators.  These had proved very useful and those particular sections had been redrafted where necessary and some of the forms updated.

These additions, plus those suggested by Maureen Croxford from Stedham Stoolball Club, who is a Primary School Ofsted Inspector for South-East England, have now been included and it is felt that we have now reached a position where feedback is needed from higher sporting authorities.

It was therefore decided that these documents should be sent to County Sports Partnerships in Hampshire, Kent, Surrey and Sussex for their comments.

NSA website – Rick Mason

Rick was congratulated by all members present on the reformatting of the website and for the work he has put into this project since then. A website needs regularly updating and Rick has been the source of many new ideas which have benefited stoolball.

Clip of stoolball

A small clip from the video ‘Let’s Play Stoolball’ has been sent to Rick to include on the website to give newcomers to the game an idea of what the game looks like. However, it was generally felt that the clip should include some mixed stoolball as well. It was also agreed that the clip should have more rousing background music. Contact Peter Carter for a clip containing mixed stoolball and also discuss the music to see if it can be changed and how. At the end of the clip there is currently a blank page – it was agreed that this needs to be used more efficiently.

Action:Â Rick/Kay

Photos of stoolball

Request for some more photos, old and new, for the website.

Action:Â all clubs

Fixtures and results

We still need to encourage more leagues and associations to add firstly their fixtures and then their results to the website. This is the first season that this has been introduced and it has looked very impressive, but there is a lot more work to be done in this area.

Action:Â all clubs

Fundraising

Suggestions for sponsorship include approaching Woolworths and Argos. There were also suggestions that we explore Moneyjar.com and Google.

Action:Â Rick/Barbara

Club registrations

Over 200 clubs are now registered on this database, but more contact names need to be added. We are continually being asked for information about local clubs by potential players and it is much easier to help that person if a club’s details are available.

Action:Â all clubs

Equipment for sale or on loan

The NSA have had a number of enquiries from schools this summer about loaning equipment and it is very satisfying to be in a position to help out. This needs to be displayed prominently on the website all the time.

Action:Â Rick

Website hits

The NSA is gathering information through Google on the number of hits on our website and also their geographical location.  This information can be generated once a month prior to the officers’ meeting.

Action:Â Rick/Barbara

History site

There has been a request that historical information is gathered in a specific area so that it can be stored and added to.

Helpline for clubs

Another request is for an enquiry form which can be filled in and replied to.

Action:Â Rick

Home page

Request by members that there is a link back to the home page from wherever you are on the NSA website.

Action:Â Rick

Bats

Currently there is a picture of a Hunts County bat on the website. It was requested that we either remove the manufacturers details from the bat or we also add a Gray-Nicolls and Newbery bat to the picture.

Action:Â Rick/Kay

Any other business

Rick Mason reported that a freelance photographer from ‘Sussex Life’ attended a mixed stoolball match recently and as a result has a large number of professional photos of the game. She also intended going to a ladies game, but this was rained off.

Richard Emsley spoke about ‘Antbliss’ who take photos of sporting events and then make them available for purchase.

There being no further business to discuss, the meeting closed at 10.25pm.

Date of next meeting:Â officers’ meeting at 53 Kings Road, Horsham on Monday 30 July 2007 commencing at 7.30pm.

Kay Price, 21 July 2007

Tags: meetings