Secretary’s Report

I cannot believe it was a year ago since I wrote my report. The time certainly goes quicker the older I get.

We have just had our first combined Captains Day and Dinner and apart from the terrible weather it was a great success. However the numbers attending were down again which reflects the continuing decline in our membership numbers. Did the dinner jackets decision put anyone off, please let me know if it did.

The matches are nearly completed for this year and I can’t believe it was 5 months ago that the teams were picked. The Match Manager process has worked well again and thanks to Rob, Brian, David, Gerry, John and Tony for their help. I do need more volunteers as Brian will be busy being Captain next year and I want to extend the process to the 4 Counties and Ladies competitions. So if you can spare some time for this please let me know.

Looking forward to next year, the fixture list is nearly complete, and is shown at the end of this report. The tour will also be advised once the Vice Captain has finalised his plans. I try to use clubs every other year but the loss of Mentmore has made this more difficult. Our thanks do go to the Clubs who have continued to support our Association, but it would be nice if they would give us good deals on green fees as achieved by all the other Counties we play. A few do but it is generally difficult to get a booking less than £50ph. We have discussed booking the more prestigious clubs for matches and asking members and other counties if they would pay more and it would be interesting to hear your views on this. For example Woburn want £85ph – would you pay this for a match?

Membership continues to be of concern and we have only recruited 7 new members this year. We have appointed Club Ambassadors as shown on page 16 and their role is to get current and past Captains to join and liaise with their clubs when necessary. Looking at the match statistics this year only 88 of our members have actually played this year out of 122 members on the database. We are hoping to attract more members from the pairs competition on 1 October 2015.

Gerry Cotter is now the clothing officer and members are encouraged to contact him with their clothing requirements. Email and telephone numbers for Gerry are on the website.

Should there be any past members known who wish to dispose of their Association jackets please let us know and we will make a nominal payment for the jacket if required.

John Pettitt is due to stand down from the Committee as Immediate Past Captain and we thank him for all his good work over the past 5 years.

Peter Short
Secretary

Club Ambassadors

CLUB	MEMBER
Beaconsfield	Brian Lowe
Buckingham	David Carr
Burnham Beeches	Rob Southerden
Chesham and Ley Hill	Alan Whitelock
Chiltern Forest	Peter Hill
Ellesborough	Mike Morris
Flackwell Heath	John Hutchins
Gerrards Cross	Doug Ebdon
Harwood Downs	Bill Shanks
Harleyford	John Pettitt
Hazelmere	David Balfour
Oakland Park	David Liston
The Lambourne	Trevor Murphy
Woburn	Ian Smithie
Whiteleaf	Stuart Rivett