Minutes of the Annual General Meeting held at St Margaret’s Church, Lonsdale Road, Bolton BL1 4PW on Wednesday 14th January 2026 at 7.30pm.
Present: Mr M Pearson (Chairman), Mr R Caswell (Secretary), 20 of the 22 clubs were represented. There were 31 votes available. It was the most well-attended meeting for many a year.
Minutes of the last meeting: These had been circulated online, signed as a true record and there were no matters arising.
Chairman’s Remarks:
I should like to start by thanking all the club captains and secretaries for all their hard work in fielding their teams each week and also for their cooperation with match secretaries. In 2025, we had some of the best weather for many years. Across all four league competitions there were only 3 matches not started and 5 not completed due to bad light. 56 teams competed in the Men’s league, 43 in the Mixed and 14 in the Ladies all numbers unchanged from 2024. The size of the Junior league decreased by one to 16. Finally, the winter league continues to thrive with 36 teams and a waiting list.
We have new names on three out of four Division One trophies, although two were only as a result of clubs changing their names. The Men’s league was won by Worsley (formerly Ellesmere); Chorley regained the Mixed League title; David Lloyd Nautago retained the Ladies league (another slight name change) and, after two years as runners-up, David Lloyd Chorley finally won the Junior League for the first time.
We had a new venue for our presentation evening – The Mercure Hotel at Blackrod. The evening went very well with good food and good bar service. It was also much cheaper than the Last Drop. We have booked it again for our 2027 event.
I should like to thank everyone who helped at our annual tournament which was, once again, a big success. Andy Taylor has been a key figure in the success of tournament being both chairman of the organising committee and tournament referee. He is now looking to stand down from his role as Referee at some point in the next 2 years. Anyone interested in taking on this role should contact Andy or Liz Perry.
I would like to offer my sincere thanks to all our committee members who give their time freely to the running of your league. All do a great job and we are very fortunate to have such willing volunteers. Julie Holmes, Paul Cashmore and Beth Holmes have joined the ranks of the committee this year and have made a valuable contribution. I am particularly grateful to Beth Holmes who has taken on the role of Junior Match Secretary.
Finally, I must thank Roy Caswell for the tremendous amount of time and energy that he devotes to the league in his role as General Secretary. We are all greatly indebted to him.
Treasurer’s Report: We have increased assets of £3,173.75 (Prior year decrease of £1,060.36) we are still waiting on the receipt of the sponsorship money from Dunlop for the last year of £450 the amount shown in the accounts as income is actually last years I am assured that our current years is on the payment run.
We had no new applications to the club loan scheme and the current ones are being repaid in line with the agreed terms. The league has cash reserves that are available for clubs to apply for improvements (Courts, fencing, flood lights or club house improvements) . You are able to apply for a 0% interest loan repaid over 5 years up to a maximum of £5,000 per club.
Honoraria has stayed the same as the prior years.
I would advise that team entry guarantee fees stay the same £28 per senior team, £12 per Cecil cup team and £12 per junior team.
I would also advise that the player registration fee should stay the same at £3.50 per player.
Guarantee Fees: See above. These were agreed.
Payment of registration fees: Provisionally, this should be Friday 24th April 2026.
Business from the Notice of Motion Meeting: This was carried out.
Election of Officers: The existing officers were re-elected en-bloc.
Election of Administrative Committee: The existing Committee was re-elected en-bloc.
The meeting closed at 8.15pm. CHAIRMAN