Minutes of Management Committee meeting on 10 June 2008

The Management Committee of the National Stoolball Association met at 53 Kings Road, Horsham on Friday 10 June 2008 at 7.45pm.

Present

• Shirley Reed (President)
• John Price (Chairman)
• Kevin Hilliard (Vice-Chairman)
• Kay Price (Secretary)
• Peter Cheesman (Treasurer)

The Chairman welcomed everyone to the meeting.

Apologies:

• Michael Ledwich (Insurance)
• John Fitzpatrick (Umpires)
• Barbara Fitzpatrick (Marketing)
• Rick Mason (Website Administrator)

Minutes of the last officers’ meeting

The minutes were signed and approved as a true record.

Matters arising from the last meeting

Ice packs

Ice packs have been added to the list of equipment on the NSA web site at £1 each.

CCPR meeting

This meeting was attended by John and Kay Price at Woburn House, London on 13 May 2008. Presentations were made by Jennie Price, Chief Executive of Sport England and Steve Grainger MBE, Chief Executive of the Youth Sport Trust. This was a very worthwhile meeting.

Bats and balls – India

Although the NSA is unsure whether there has actually been a game of stoolball played in India, equipment is being manufactured there and samples and pictures will be forwarded to the NSA once the Chairman of the Indian Stoolball Federation is satisfied that its quality matches the NSA standard.

SABR Annual General Meeting

This meeting was attended by John and Kay Price at Clerkenwell Green in London on 7 June 2008.

Following AGM matters, members and visitors were treated to a DVD called ‘Baseball Discovered’ which was produced by Major League Baseball Productions. Lasting about one hour, it provided an excellent insight into the roots of baseball, starting with what was previously known in the US about the origins of the game and finishing with their trip to the UK where they filmed cricket, bat and trap, rounders and stoolball.

The most exciting part of their visit came at the end when a previously unknown journal written by William Bray was unearthed at a house on the borders of Sussex and Surrey which referred to baseball being played in England in 1755 – a date which precedes all the historical records on the game held in the US.

MLB Productions have promised to provide the NSA with a copy of the documentary film.

Members were then introduced to Beth Hise from Australia who has been charged with organising an exhibition about baseball and cricket which is due to be held firstly at Lord’s Cricket Ground in 2010 and will then go to Australia and the baseball “Hall of Fame” in Cooperstown, USA.

Webber practice balls

It has been brought to our attention that approximately 100 practice balls are available at £2 per ball from a supplier in the Lewes area. This will be followed up.

Newsletters

These have been distributed to Vice-Presidents, associations, leagues and clubs via email, where possible, and by post where an email address has not been provided. Many thanks must go to Shirley Reed for compiling another interesting edition.

Year 7 lesson plans for schools

These are nearing completion and will be distributed when they have been finalised.

Club Accreditation Scheme

Full details of this scheme have been added to our website and several clubs are close to making an application.

Donate a bat

There has been an excellent response to our appeal and we have received bats this month from the following mixed and ladies clubs:

• Marshfoot
• Trojans
• Little Common
• Stedham
• Easebourne
• Horsted Keynes
• Brightling

As a result, we have loaned bats (and in some cases wickets) to:

• Hurst Green School in East Sussex
• Georgian Gardens School, Rustington
• Portslade Community College
• St Mary Star of the Sea Catholic Primary School, St Leonards-on-Sea
• Bishop Bell School in Eastbourne

There are also school coaching sessions being provided by a large number of our senior players during the summer months – thank you to you all.

Correspondence

Schools

Enquiries from Bromley in Kent and from a Sports Development Officer on behalf of a school in Gloucester on starting stoolball. These are being followed up. We are also getting a number of emails where established players and newcomers to the game are asking to be put in touch with local clubs, particularly friendly clubs in East Sussex.

This would be much easier to accomplish if clubs updated their club contact details more regularly because in a number of cases they are missing the opportunity to add new players to their membership.

CCPR

Daily news bulletins which are now in a different format and CCPR Annual General Meeting notification. John and Kay Price will be representing the NSA at this meeting which is being held at St James Palace in London on 9 July 2008.

Rules

Correspondence has been received about Rule 6 – Bowling. Clubs have asked for more clarification about this rule, particularly in relation to the run-up and delivery of the ball. These queries will be passed to the Rules Review Working Party in readiness for their meeting in the autumn.

Google statistics and alerts

The NSA receives Google statistics at the beginning of each month and these documents chart the number of visits to the NSA website and where in the country/world these visits are being made from. In June there were 2,153 visits in total, with 1,977 visits from 190 cities in the UK. The Google Alerts service provides us with daily emails letting us know in which newspaper/publication stoolball is being mentioned.

Treasurer’s Report

Peter Cheesman reported a small surplus for this month’s activities but he pointed out that there were still a number of outstanding cheques to be banked from our insurance business. The balance sheet for the period ending 28 May was circulated. It showed a balance of £10,257 in the Investment Account and £6,415 in the Current Account.

Insurance

Michael Ledwich was not able to be present but will provide an update at the next meeting.

Governing body recognition

The meeting with Sport England was held at their offices in Southampton Row on 10 June 2008. Sport England were represented by Richard Clarkson, Claire Piggott and Erin Stephens and John and Kay Price attended on behalf of the NSA.

Concerns on certain points in our application were discussed by Sport England and they have promised to provide us with a summary of the meeting. A further amendment to the NSA Constitution was suggested and how we achieve this should be made clearer when we hear from them.

Since that meeting, Richard Clarkson has been in touch with Richard Norman from CCPR who then phoned the NSA with offers of assistance on legal aspects.

BingoLotto – Buddy Scheme

With the completion of the BingoLotto pilot scheme, ISG, the programme organisers, are keen to promote a “buddy” scheme when the programme returns in the autumn. In this scheme, 20% (40p) of the proceeds of any gamecards sold through the Buddy Programme goes directly to the association or club that sells them. In return the association/club must sign up to sell a specified number of gamecards per week for 52 weeks of the year.

For example, if an association/club/group of clubs sign up to sell 100 gamecards per week (£200), their funds will benefit by £40 per week (or £2,080 per year). If they are part of a multiple sports complex, this is something to consider seriously.

In addition, there will be the potential for gamecard holders to win prizes because there are up to 100,000 prizes available every week. Details of this scheme will be posted on the NSA website and will be available for all to see.

Marketing/Publicity/Website

Logo

It was agreed to update Rick Mason with the small changes we would like to see in the logos in the report he produced.

Bi-fold leaflet

This leaflet is seen as a valuable piece of promotional material and needs to be progressed. ACTION: Kevin/Barbara

Press Officer

This must be urgently progressed. All Management Committee members were asked to seek out potential candidates. ACTION: Everyone

Advert for Physical Education Matters

The advertisement has been submitted and artwork confirmed as satisfactory, but the magazine has not been published yet.

Equipment

Excellent sales of bats have been made during the month. A number of balls have been returned due to cracking/crazing of the leather and will be returned to the manufacturers.

Any other business

• TV programme featuring stoolball with Rory McGrath – sadly nothing further has happened.
• It was decided to search for a larger venue for the bi-annual General Committee meetings in March and September and for the NSA Annual General Meeting in November. Suggested venues were Roffey Village Hall, Martletts Hall in Burgess Hill, Wivelsfield Village Hall, Tythe Barn in North Horsham and the Millennium Hall in Roffey.
• Kevin Hilliard informed the meeting that Melissa Mantle, the NSA Coaching Development Officer and Senior Coaching Examiner had been voted the Littlehampton Sportswoman of the Year. Congratulations to Melissa.
• Shirley Reed had received notification of a Petersfield Sports Fair which is due to take place on Saturday 19 July 2008. The event is being promoted by Miss Louise Harris, a PE teacher at The Petersfield School, who is a School Sports Co-ordinator concentrating on improving school sports opportunities for the 9 primary feeder schools in her area.
• Sussex County Sports Partnership – announcement that Mars are launching the MARS Refuel fund. The fund has £10,000 to donate each month from July to December with a maximum of £500 per applicant, to offer sports teams and clubs support with anything from equipment costs, to improving training grounds etc. Applications can be made at www.marsrefuel.com.
• Sussex County Sports Partnership – notification that the SCSP is developing a new website which will contain contact information for anyone searching for sports related details within Sussex.

Date of next meeting

Friday 25 July 2008 at 7.45pm at 53 Kings Road, Horsham. The meeting closed at 10.30pm.

Kay and John Price – 3 July 2008

Tags: meetings