Big thank you to Nomtha for the following minutes.. Oxford Rugby Club – Minutes of General Meeting held on 20th November 2014 Committee Members: David Bagnall (DB) Tubby Tyrell (TT) Tony Tyrer (TTY) Nomtha Gray (NG) - Minutes Introductions and Background DB outlined some of the history of the ORFC and confirmed that ORFC is currently not a voting member of the RFU but is working with Oxfordshire RFC (the Constituent Body) via Colin Baldwin and Dusty Miller to restore the voting member position and privileges. The merger between ORFC and Oxford Harlequins RFC has not now taken place but the two clubs will continue to work in partnership. DB noted the strength of working with Quins and that ORFC benefits just as much – via John Waters covering the Treasurer role and James Knox as Chairman of the Bar Committee. DB extended thanks to Simon Bagnall and Martin Walsh for having managed to get ORFC’s senior team up to 7 games played to date of meeting with further games planned. 12 Senior games are required for ORFC to qualify as full voting members again. We are struggling to find regular players for the senior team and DB sent out a plea for help with finding players. In addition, Simon needs help in setting up a Players’ sub-committee. Additional thanks were offered to: Charlotte for all her help in working with both teams and running the clubhouse and bar and facilities. Bruce for working so hard as Fixtures Secretary and managing to find games with London Media Vets as well as setting up more than 20 fixtures to date. Nomtha Gray was introduced as Honorary Secretary taking over from Kay Honner and a new member to the ORFC. Finances ORFC can consider itself a “solvent” club, but there are some historical debts: £33k bank loan is currently paid for by the rental of the site for the mobile phone mast to MBNL. At the current rental rate, it would take c. 30 years to pay off the remainder of the loan £13k brewery loan – ties us to the one brewery and prevents the clubhouse from buying its beer most competitively small debt to St Peter’s (the Mini & Junior teams pay for the rental of the St Peter’s pitch and utilities) In terms of credits: ORFC owns a 3-bedroom house close to the grounds. This is rented to Quins on an annual basis for their players. ORFC receives a fixed amount from Quins for use of grounds and rental of the house of £20k per annum There is an offer to ORFC in consideration currently to take on a 40-year lease of the phone mast site for an upfront capital payment of £55k. A general discussion took place around the pros and cons of the offer on the mast (summarised later). Facilities DB outlined the assistance required in refurbishing the clubhouse and thanked players – Ryan in particular – for their time and assistance with repainting, general repairs and re-vamping the heating system. Ryan is expected to be finished by the end of December 2014. Fundraising Various options need pushing by all members: RFU raffle tickets – the club gets to keep 90% of the revenue from ticket sales directly Utility Warehouse sponsors the club and offers ORFC 2-2.5% of the bill payments as a club rebate if ORFC members, friends and family take out contracts with Utility Warehouse. ORFC needs to consider much wider use of the clubhouse: Corporate Fun days and events? Horse Race Evenings? Could we recruit a Social Secretary to help organise these? TTY offered to email all coaches and parents to look for assistance with fundraising and someone to organise this properly on behalf of the Committee. As an additional ask, the Senior team also requires a Team Manager. Request to be made of the parents and coaches also. Website Seniors website is not currently part of Pitchero – TT will arrange a meeting with Ian, the webmaster, to facilitate greater involvement and a higher profile for the seniors on the main ORFC website, including ensuring that the Seniors fixtures list gets to the site updates. ORFC U-16s Team TT asked, following a CB meeting, what happened to the u-16 team and expressed general concern about the senior team’s pool of players if there is no u-16s group. TTY summarised that there were only a few players to start with (17-18). One left and then 2-3 others had behaviour problems which required discipline. Following this, they then left, leaving the group short of regular players and unable to field a full team. TTY aims to re-deploy the coaches among minis and juinors. There may be opportunity for a coach to assist with the seniors team. To be discussed. TTY to feed back following a meeting on Friday 21st November. ORFC Treasurer Role DB sent out a plea for a Treasurer – the role requires around 1 hour per week with another half-hour per month to consolidate the books. Most of the work is done by Charlotte, who prepares the bar takings etc for the Treasurer to check through and submit finally. Charlotte also does the banking for the clubs’ takings etc. Anyone who knows of anyone, please forward details to DB. Open Discussions around finances Mobile Phone mast: There are lots of positive points about selling the lease for 40 years – in particular being debt-free but there were concerns that the lease would run for longer than it would take to pay off our mast-related debt. However, as this is at current rates of pay and ORFC has no negotiating strength with MBNL (we just get told how much the rental will be each year), this may not be as much of a risk. Ongoing rental payments and Quins’ relationship It was noted that any income from Quins should not be considered as a guarantee for the longer term. Selling the house might be a short-term option for fundraising but in the longer term it might remain a valuable asset. The legal costs associated with selling the house also need to be considered. Noted that Quins’ position in the national leagues might require a move to another ground in future years. Any reliance on that income should be considered carefully – if ORFC can be independently solvent without Quins’ income, this would be preferable. Tubby Tyrell – President’s Address ORFC needs to look ahead to becoming a more formal senior team within the Oxfordshire CB. There is concern about the number of cancelled fixtures so the CB is welcoming feedback around what formats of league/tables/shields etc that would work to ensure that teams honour fixtures. Open feedback on this point requested that a Merit Table be set up for social teams, allowing some form of competition without loss of points or penalties for (for example) not being able to field dedicated “front row” players etc. ORFC would be happy to join an Oxfordshire merit table but in the absence of this would look to join the Thames Valley merit table instead. The reliability of Oxfordshire clubs was a concern for a separate table. The meeting ended on a final note from DB: We need people – whether as players, helpers, managers or general assistants – ORFC needs people to help in all areas!
Posted on: Sat, 06 Dec 2014 11:29:30 +0000
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