Thames Valley Business Squash League
Annual General Meeting 2001

Date
 :
Wednesday 22nd August 2001 7:00pm
Where
 :
Hewlett-Packard,    Pinewood
Season start
 :
Fortnight Commencing 10th September 2001

Summary

2 new amendments to the rules were agreed at the AGM :
  1. Match fees have been abandoned - the host team funds their home match
  2. Employees who are made redundant or resign may continue to play for their team for the rest of the season, as long as they don't join another company with teams in the league.
Please submit full details with match results.  Individual player results will be published on the web and this information may be used in future handicap tournaments.

Web submittal of results will make a re-appearance this year (not yet though!)

There have been some changes to the squash rules in relation to let hunting and turning (and bleeding!)  Please encourage all your players to visit http://www.worldsquash.org/rules.htm to check these out.

Agenda

  1. Recap of season 
  2. Presentations 
  3. New teams and lost teams
  4. Directions and maps for courts.
  5. Reminder of guidelines for promotion and relegation
  6. Comments received with Registrations (see below)
  7. Other Proposals
  8. Squash night
  9. Squash rules update
  10. www.tvbsl.org domain ownership
  11. Reflex inter-company tournament
  12. Thanks to Andy Goodall
  13. Election of officers (Chairman, Treasurer)
  14. Financials – see below
  15. Any other business

Presentations

Division 1 winners
 :
 3M 'A'
Division 1 runners up
 :
 ICL 'A'
Division 2 winners
 :
 Oracle 'A'
Division 3 winners
 :
 Microsoft
Division 4 winners
 :
 Racal Defence
Division 5 winners
 :
 Vodafone

Representatives from 3M, ICL, Microsoft and Vodafone collected trophies.
TRL have not yet returned the Division 2 trophy, so Oracle weren't able to take that away.
Regrettably, Racal were unable to field a team this year, a real shame given their success last year
and there was no-one to collect the Div 4 trophy.  Convenient really as Protec's Paul Racaucus still has the Division 4 trophy (for the third year!), although he did buy a dummy trophy for the AGM.

New teams in the leagues

Vodafone are fielding another team this year and Sema are joining for the first time.
A warm welcome to both new teams.

Teams leaving the leagues

Thames Conservancy, Thales/Racal Defence and Nokia B have all withdrawn their teams.  Having said this, Thames are keen to retain contact with the league and would like some friendly matches.
During last season, Courage and Syngenta/Zeneca dropped out and they also haven't been able to field teams for this season.

Directions and maps for courts

Thanks to those folk who sent maps and directions.  These will be posted to the web.  Please feel free to send updates.

Promotion/Relegation

Normally 2 teams go up/down but as a guideline, teams in the league should aim to finish above 3rd from bottom to avoid relegation.

Comments received with registrations

Food and drinks - yes please. Last year I organised simple food/drinksat our home matches and gave the visiting teams an opportunity to joinus for approx £3 a head. Nearly all teams took up the offer.

Abandon match fees - I personally think this is a good idea. Last yearour courts were more expensive than others and a number of teamscomplained of the high prices when they visited, even though we werecharging less than half the actual court costs. It also seems that teamswhich dont have to pay home court fees still charge a nominal amount tothe visitors to help cover their costs for away trips. This seems silly,as most teams are bending the rule to make it "more fair", why dont we drop the rule and make it totally fair????

My only input is that, i prefer the away teams to pay towards the costs.rather than home picking up all. ie as it was last year.

Proposals

  1. There was a general plea for more sociability in the leagues, particularly with regard to teams staying around for drinks after the match.  A few teams are also keen on having a meal afterwards.

    There was a brief chat about this but no specific vote was taken.

  2. The topic of match fees reared it's ugly head again.  A number of options were discussed but the executive summary is that a motion to abandon match fees was passed by 14 to 7 votes.  Rule 7f)    Match expenses (court, food and drink) should be shared equally between the two teams. Any team tradition to provide food and drink, and arrangements for the cost thereof should normally be by prior agreement between captains. will therefore be deleted and replaced with :

    Match related expenses (courts and balls etc) should be met by the home team.  What teams do about funding  of any drinks and food that the home team chooses to provide needs prior agreement between captains.

    The situation where teams don't turn up for matches was discussed.  The consensus of opinion was that the team at fault should contribute to court costs.  Failure to do so would result in a forfeit of the match.

  3. The topic of redundancies and their affect on teams was next for discussion and boy, was there a discussion!  To cut a long story short, after several votes on various, poorly worded or contentious motions, a new rule was voted in, whose basic intention was to help out teams running into difficulties during the season.  I intend to change the current rule 4b) from :
    4b)    At the time of playing, all players must be employees of the eligible company whether full-time, part-time or agency/contract persons. Retirees of a company will now also be allowed to play.
    to :
    4b)    At the time of playing, each player must be one of :
      One exception, is that ex-employees who are made redundant or resign may continue to play for that team for the remainder of the season, provided they do not join another company which fields teams in the league.

    4. People should note rule 4f) which remains as follows :
    4f)    The committee reserve the right to allow players that do not stricly match the above criteria, providing that the team under investigation is regarded as working within the “spirit” of the league.  Essentially, the rules above are intended to guard against “ringers” and seeking unfair advantage, not limit the flexibility of the league

  4. Some people feel that the current bonus of 5 points to the winning team is too large. 

    The main proposal 4.1, that one bonus point for each win at a string should be awarded has the slightly odd feature that a team could win at 3 strings and still lose  (3-2, 3-2, 3-2, 0-3, 0-3 would yield 12-14)   Jonathan pointed out that the minimum size of bonus that would avoid this would be 4, and all of this would have to go to the winning team.  Once this general context had been set, the first proposal put to the floor was that we should remain with the existing scheme of 5 points bonus.  This was carried by a wide margin - so no changes here!

Squash rule change

There have been some changes to the squash rules in relation to let hunting and turning (and bleeding!)  Please encourage all your players to visit http://www.worldsquash.org/rules.htm to check these out.

tvbsl.org domain ownership

The league has paid for and now owns the "tvbsl.org" domain.  The actual web content is currently hosted (for free) by Steve Harrison of ICL - thanks go to Steve for this.  There are all sorts of wonderful plans on things we could do with it...  If you have anything you want to do, contact webadmin@tvbsl.org .

Reflex inter-company tournament

Jonathan chatted about a tournament that Reflex are planning, starting mid-September.  He hoped that several companies from the league would enter teams - contact jmg@pwd.hp.com in the first instance, for more details.

Financials

Building Society account currently has £238.18 in it - not include this year’s fees.
The balance DOES include a deduction of £153.00 which covers 10 years ownership of the web domain “tvbsl.org” and cloaked redirection services from www.tvbsl.org to where the web-site really is.

Gren Elliot 23rd August 2001.