The 2009 Remnants CC annual general meeting was held at the Fitzwilliam College Cricket Ground bar on Monday, March 9, 2009. Despite a good turn out and plenty of beer drinking, it was a decidedly efficient affair, with not too much circular debate and generally goal-oriented feel to it.
Members present: Arnie Garside; Dave Green; Geoff Hales; Adrian Mellish; Nicky Mellish; Daniel Mortlock; Dave Norman; Andy Owen; Kiran Sakhamuri (at least until the tea interval); Tom Serby; Joe White; Dave Williams; Russell Woolf.
Apologies: Faruk Kara; Mike Sneyd.
The minutes of last year's AGM, held on March 13, 2008, were taken as read. A few points from last year were raised briefly: there has been no change regarding the loss of the UCLES fixture; the twelfth man system seems to be working reasonably well "as is" (with the incentive of a free game if you play and automatic selection in the game of your choice the next week, although it was felt worth emphasising that this should be seen primarily as a small service for the benefit of the club).
Dave Williams once again provided an epic five-page summary of the club's financial situation which also contained several discussion points:
Geoff Hales began his report with a summary of the club's performances for the 2008 season: of 24 fixtures actually played, we won 9, lost 11 and tied 1 (to go with 3 internal games), taking our all-time tally to 419 wins from 735 games.
The last season has seen a few sad "lasts": The Computer Laboratory (the last remaining opposition from the first Remnants season) will almost certainly fold this year; FAS supremo Barry Dare has retired from all cricket due to an unfortunate run of injuries; and Ben Armitage has also played his last Remnants game due to an equally unfortunate move to Wales. On a more positive note, Julius Rix has moved back to Cambridge and will hopefully play some mid-week games this year.
As always, the umpiring was somewhat mixed last year; but there's a chance to remedy that by either attending a free umpiring clinic at Milton CC on April 7 or, possibly, a similar session being held at Fitz if there is enough interest. And either way you should read Geoff's short umpiring guide again before the season begins.
The most important thing Geoff had to say was (as if you didn't already know) that the 2009 season will be the last during which he is Remnants secretary. Given the incredible service Geoff's done for the club over almost three decades, his will be huge shoes to fill, and so it's somehow appropriate that tentative arrangements were made for two people to take over this role, with Daniel Mortlock looking to organise fixtures and Nicky Mellish kindly volunteering to be the focal point for player-related issues (i.e., availability; drop-outs; etc.). The crux of the issue is that no single person felt they had the time to do the job well, and so most of the proposed solutions involved some measure of sharing the load around. One aspect of this was the idea that if a player finds they can't play, it is their responsibility to find a replacement (most likely via a club-wide mail-out); however whoever comes in would then liase with Nicky in person to ensure that the modification to the selected eleven was centralised. It certainly sounds good in principle, mainly because it avoids the torturous "ringing around" process that has plagued Geoff's Tuesdays and Wednesdays for the last few decades. However it could easily prove less workable in practice - the only way to find out will be to trial the system.
Russell Woolf's captain's report was, like the man himself short and sweet. He greatly enjoyed his first year as captain, hopes you did too, and promises we'll win more matches this year.
(Exciting stuff!)
That said, 2009 will most likely be the final of Russell and Joe's two-season tenure as captain and vice-capatin. The expectation is that Joe will ascend to the captaincy, meaning we'll need to "groom" a new vice-captain for 2010. Suggestions and recommendations will be gratefully received.
The 2008 annual dinner was generally agreed to be a success, and most people were happy with the venue (the upstairs function room at The Red Bull). However if any more than twenty people want to come this space will be too small, so the general sense was that alternative venues should be sought. Further discussion of this was deferred until towards the end of the season.
