Minutes of the Bolton Tennis Committee meeting held at 7pm on Friday 10th May 2024 at Lostock Tennis Club.

Present: Messrs. Caswell, Pearson, Prince, Saunders, Ms L Cartwright

Apologies for absence: Messrs. Broughton, Maslivec, Nuttall, Smith, Taylor, Ms K Caldwell, Ms S Francis, Ms Morley, Ms Perry.

It was noted that two members had missed three meetings without submitting apologies and were therefore deemed to have resigned.

Minutes of the last meeting: These had been circulated and were agreed.

Matters Arising: None

Correspondence: The loan letter from Markland Hill has been received. Before countersigning, the Chairman asked for a copy of the club's accounts. We also need two more Committee members to agree to the loan as we were not quorate.

General Secretary: We now have two members who have an idea on how the leagues are set up on the web. We have yet to train match secretaries on deleting match cards or amending minor clerical errors. Sue Francis had said she would try and arrange something.
Cecil Cup scoring has never been updated in the handbook since the new format for the mixed league was introduced.
Some people have tried to find the Registration Secretary’s email in the handbook but it is not there.
Both of these are on the to-do list for next year.

League Reports:

Men’s League: We had a complaint from one club, where some had attended an away match to find that the home team had abandoned the match and no players were present. The circumstances were outlined by both clubs in emails. Since we were not quorate and the circumstances needed discussing properly, as opposed to email discussion, it was decided to postpone this to the June meeting.

Apart from the above, there's not a great deal to report. All unregistered players during the first two matches are now registered and I've not had to issue any fines for team shortages etc. Week 1 saw two abandoned matches at Ellesmere due to rain, but nowhere else. 
As I've mentioned before, seven out of the eight divisions have open dates and so John Nuttal and I have agreed to be particularly vigilant about clubs artificially strengthening teams. 

Mixed League: The league has started well with all matches played apart from one in Division 2 where Leigh couldn’t raise a team due to injuries – a fine was issued and they have assured me that this should not happen again.
Cecil Cup round 1 completed, with no issues apart from the couple of reversed fixtures that I missed when doing the draw – apologies for that!!
Thanks, Sue for always being there to assist with the admin and helping to answer queries.

Ladies League: None

Junior League: All matches were played in week 1. In week 2 one club were unable to field a team. One Club is struggling and had to play ineligible players to field a team. This was fine as they lost, but we will need to adjust scores should they start winning.
Otherwise, the Junior League is off to a good start.

Treasurer: All player fees have now been paid apart from David Lloyd Chorley who appear to have a monthly turnaround in their accounts dept. We have been assured they will be in our account by the end of May. The General Secretary said that he had a  tendency to leave the David Lloyds until last as they required a more formal invoice than other clubs. He will endeavour to do those first next year.
Bank balances in total are at £32K and the multicopy invoice for handbooks etc has been paid. We are not expecting any significant activity until the tournament monies start coming in.

Tournament: We have brought the entry closing date forward to Wednesday 26th June and the handicapping meeting will now be on the evening of June 27th at Lostock. The closing date has been updated on the LTA site and Bolton Tournament page.

Social Media: Nothing to report apart from all were active.

AOB: There were discussions on; Should we propose that the quorum of a meeting be reduced to five? The Chairman is going to do an email about the nights of meetings and the fairly recent situation with only a few attendees at meetings. On another topic, could the Player Registration and collection of handbooks be done any differently? The General Secretary said it was no problem to him if clubs wished to collect from him if they could not make the Friday.

Date and Time of Next Meeting: 7pm, 14th June at Lostock TC