Meeting:       General Committee Meeting of the League 

Venue:          Gomersal CC 

Date:             Monday 15^th September 2008 

Apologies:   Mount, Batley

 Roll Call

• Absent: Mount CC, Batley CC  Agreed fined according to Rules 

Romida Sports 

Romida Sports were welcomed as the new League sponsor. Representing Romida, Paul Hutchinson explained to the member clubs of the benefits that were available to them and distributed information and catalogues to them. Paul was thanked for his efforts and excused.

 Pre Season Meeting Minutes

• Minutes of the previous meeting were  agreed,

Matters Arising 

After consulting the ECB over the use of junior umpires at matches, the Result Secretary had received notification from the ECB that the recommendation the League introduced for the 2008 season was the prudent way to go. The ECB was still looking into the possibility of making its own recommendations or ruling on this matter and hoped these would be available for the 2009 season.  

Eddy Walker was resigning as representative after 12 years service

 Reports  

Secretary

The Secretary reported to the clubs that there was a need for the registration of players to be made earlier than at present as this was causing a large amount of work for the Registration Secretary to do in a short period of time. It was also not helping the Results Secretary as he was not in a position to check result sheets from matches early in the season. 

Chairman

• The Chairman welcomed everybody to attend the Presentation Evening and reminded those clubs and persons holding trophies to return these on the evening for re issue on the night, failure to do so would result in a £25.00 fine.

• With the two present Trophy Stewards standing down, the Chairman asked the Member Clubs to help with finding personnel to do this vital role for the 2009 season. 

Fixtures Secretary Report

·        The Fixtures Secretary had distributed a letter to the Member Clubs outlining the proposals for Rule changes and Amendments for voting on at the AGM. The reason for the changes, were in order to ease the work load of both the Results Secretary and the Fixtures Secretary. The Fixtures Secretary also told of the need to tighten up on the ad-hoc way in which rearranged games were being made.

·        The Under 9s fixtures were reported to be not working and asked the Member Clubs to vote that fixtures must be played by a set date.

·        The Clubs were asked to vote on block of the proposed Rule amendments and changes for Fixtures and Results as outlined in the letter. Action: Vote 16 to 1 in favour

Result Secretary’s Report:

• The Result Secretary had issued a full report on the season to the League Reps.
  

• It was the worst year for results and the need for changes especially on rearrangement of fixtures was needed.
  

• The Result Secretary was very pleased with the result from the vote. He also noted that the ECB National Cup had been very disruptive to the fixtures,
  

• The Result Secretary apologised to the Member Clubs for the Fax failure that occurred during the season. The Fax failure caused an immense backlog of work but was all up to date within one week.
  

• The rules surrounding the reporting of results was felt to be not strong enough and the Result’s Secretary thought that clubs needed some motivation for them to send them in on time and filled in correctly. It was very important to get the sheets in on time as there was a strict deadline on reporting to the local press.
  

• New Farnley CC commented that emailing the results was a better way as the form was typed not hand written and quicker.

Coaching

• The Under 9 Hard Ball Competition was explained to the member clubs, from these games a selection of 26 children would then make up the Under 10 Academy, which would begin training in October. This would take place at Heckmondwike Grammer School, and from the 26, 16 would then go to nets alongside the under 11s after Christmas.
  

• Altofts CC had offered their ground for the Finals of the Hard Ball Competition.
  

• There are to be five sessions for under 11’s, 13’s and 3 for under 15’s which are scheduled for Woodlands Cricket Club. Due to a lack of availability Heckmondwike was not available
  

• Steve Holiday reported on a fantastic season for the Under 10 side with a win against the Cumbria County side where the team reached a total of 177 for 3. It was hoped that games could be earlier next season.
  

• He reported that he felt the HWDJCL was three steps ahead of other local Leagues.
  

• HWDJCL would push as many players forward for selection to district and County levels
  

• Steve said he had no intention of “packing the job in” and commented that the kids were a credit to their respective clubs.

Child Welfare

• Haig Parry was to retire from the position for at least twelve months due to work commitments. Clubs were urged to ask club members if they would be willing to take on this roll.

 A O B

• New Farnley reported that other clubs under 17’s were playing 45 over games and they thought that the present competition did not help develop players of that age. They thought that games could be played over 2 nights giving players the benefit of building an innings over a longer period of time. The Executive asked New Farnley CC to write to them explaining their Idea fully.

Steve Holiday was exploring the idea of introducing a Lottery for Member clubs members to pay into with the profit from this to use to pay for coaching sessions for players possibly those below the Taverner squads. The lottery rules state that a minimum of 50% must be given out in prize money. He hoped that people would set up direct debits of £1 per month and any resulting profit could be used to fund coaching of the Leagues players. These sessions could be run by a body such as PROCOACH, where specialist coaching on spin bowling, wicket keeping, fast bowling and batting could be coached. The idea was to open up professional coaching to as many players as possible and further their development.

 Meeting closed 20.35