Annual General Meeting, 2009

The Association's AGM was held on Sunday, 15 November 2009 at 2:00 p.m. at the clubhouse of Medway Archers. This was a late change from the normal venue because of refurbishment work in progress.

The Main Meeting

The following is only intended to cover a brief outline of the main matters and not necessarily in the order they occurred; please do not think of this account as being in any way an official record of the meeting (minutes of the meeting will be circulated in the normal manner).

Accounts

The treasurer reported a deficit for the previous year, resulting primarily from the following changes:

• reduced membership income, largely due to timing issues (the end of the KAA financial year falls during the peak payment period);
• greatly reduced interest income, due to the fall in interest rates during the past year;
• SCAS commission payments not received until after the end of the financial year;
• payment of Corporation Tax, covering the whole period since the £10K "small business" exemption was removed;

The treasurer also reported that Hadlow College had asked us to remove our equipment, as we are no longer holding tournaments there. All KAA equipment has now been moved from Hadlow College to Vigo RFC, where we held the Target Championships for the last two years. It has been necessary to purchase a new container to contain all the equipment - the costs relating to the move will appear in next year's accounts.

Membership Fees

The meeting agreed a £0.50 increase in annual membership fees for all classes of membership, to relieve the pressure on the county's revenue account and to provide additional support for the county team. This would be the first increase in more than 10 years and will take effect from the 2010-2011 membership year; it will therefore include all renewals as at 01 October 2010 and all new members joining on or after 01 May 2010.

Note that all membership types where no fee is payable are unaffected.

Elections

Mark Davis, who was appointed into the role of county CPO after volunteering at last year's AGM, had that appointment ratified.

We welcome one new member, Trish Lovell, who returns in a different role after an absence of several years.

However, it is very disappointing that a number of positions on the committee remain vacant, so the Operational Committee now has the right to decide how to fill them. If anyone is willing to volunteer to fill any of these vacancies, please contact the county secretary.

The Informal Discussion

This is the meeting that replaces the "AOB" that used to be part of the AGM. It is informal insofar as it has no specific agenda, but minutes were recorded and will be taken to the next Operational Committee meeting for action.

County Team and Team Colours

The main subject for discussion was that of the county team and adoption of team colours, in which Peter Dallas (County Captain) recounted his observations at a number of county matches during the past season.

He is trying to improve the "team spirit" of the Kent county team, to make its members feel more valued by the county and thereby to take a greater pride in being part of the team. His feeling was that counties that had adopted team colours had a better team identity and because of that they generally showed a significantly better "team spirit", morale and preparedness to help other members of the team. He had prepared an estimate of the cost of providing team shirts, based on plain dark red/burgundy shirts, embroidered with the Kent "Invicta" horse, the KAA's name, "County Team" and the team member's name.

The discussion that followed strongly supported the adoption of team colours, but also identified a number of logistical issues that would need to be addressed to ensure that all members of the team had the necessary garments for their first match. There was also some discussion about details of the garment design, especially the size and location of the logo, for example whether it should be on the front or back and, if on the front, the need to accommodate left- and right-handed archers.

Peter Dallas' costing suggest that it might be affordable to provide team members with their first shirt at a subsidised price or free of charge, but that additional or replacement shirts would need to be paid for by the team member. The idea that the county might provide some upper-body garments at a subsidised price was generally welcomed, but several felt that they would be happy to pay the full cost of a distinctive team strip for the honour of being able to wear it.

This will now be

The question was also raised about paying travelling expenses to team members and Peter explained that, while some counties in the SCAS region pay expenses, the amount they pay varies greatly and a number do not, so it is not really true to say that we are out of line with general practice.

The cost of paying travel expenses is likely to be prohibitive in the very short term, especially if subsidies are to be provided for team clothing, but he would continue to look at whether this could be possible in the future.