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Secretary's Notes

Following another successful year for the Association iwould first like to wish all members best wishes for 2016 and hope Brian has a really good year as our new captain. I really enjoy working with the Captains during the year and dealing with a variety of different personalities and skills.

Also I would like to welcome David Liston on to the Committee. This was not quite finalised at the AGM and I have put a note in the minutes to tidy it up. David was the first member to join from Oakland Park and is one of our Club Ambassadors.

The Match Manager system is progressing well and I have put an extra row on the fixtures form to seek more volunteers for 2016.Assuming the existing ones continue  have seven already and need about 5 more as I would like to extend the role to our competitions,the ladies match and the 4 counties matches.These take a bit more organising than matches particularly the home 4counties matches of which we have one in 2016.Also in the next couple of years we want to reintroduce the Match Manager role which is a committee position. This will be a coordinating role for all the events and will relieve me of about a half of my committments to the Association. I will produce a job requirement during the year but if anyone is keen to take on this role please let me know.

Much has been said about our declining membership but I am pleased to report that we had 17 new members in 2015 and 10 of these came from our Pairs Competition held at Harleyford in October. A big thank you to John Pettitt for suggesting this and to those of you who brought prospective members and persuading them td join, particularly Bill Shanks for his 3.

You will now have your Subscription and fixtures forms for 2016 and I ask that you return them as soon as possible as it saves me chasing up in February. Also please fill in all the boxes as every year someone doesn't fill in the name box and if paying by SO/Int I have to try and find out who it is.If you wish to pay by S/O there is an order form available on the website. Brian will be picking the teams in March and we will ensure everyone will get a game.

For the new members ,and some of the existing members Iwould like to point out some of the advantages of the website. On every match,if you click on the venue you will get to that clubs website and if you click on the postcode you will get a google map of the location. On the home page the tabs at the top will take you to the various sections which you will of course done to read this newsletter.

Finally if you have any concerns,amendments or requests ,please contact me and I will do my best to help and to continue the smooth running of the Association.

Peter Short